Original German WWII Luftwaffe Blue Electric Heated Leutnant Officer’s Winter Flying Jacket – RBNr. Marked Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. Development of protective flight uniforms and equipment began with the advent of military aircraft in WWI and continued on into the Weimar and the Third Reich eras, resulting in three distinct one-piece combination pattern flight suits being approved before WWII and worn for the duration of the war with minor modifications. There were also two piece varieties developed at the same time, which allowed more flexibility in fit and use.

This is an excellent condition heavy winter flight jacket, constructed from a blue twill fabric shell, with a purple velvet plush type material collar and lining. This extends into the sleeves as well, and really looks great. It features a plug in wired heating system, which still looks to be intact, having a wire on the interior that would probably connect to the pants portion of the set. There are also additional connectors at the ends of the sleeves for the use of heated gloves.

The jacket features a lovely embroidered Luftwaffe eagle on the right chest, and the sleeves both bear rank insignia showing a single white bar at the bottom, with a single “gull wing” above, indicating the junior officer rank of Leutnant (2nd Lieutenant). We checked the snaps and all are STOCKO marked, a known supplier of snaps for the Luftwaffe during WWII. The main closure zipper is by PRYM, while the sleeve zippers are by ZIPP, and all still have their original leather pull tabs. Everything looks totally correct, and this is really a great example. All of the zippers are complete and functional, and there are no missing pieces we can see.

There is still an original maker label on the underside of the flap that goes over the main closure, which also bears some inspection stamps. It reads:

Reichs-Betriebs Nummer
0/1001/0233
0503 2-8904 IIa

We assume that the “IIa” refers to the size of the jacket, and there does not appear to be any other type of size indication. Research might possibly be able to identify the maker, however the RBNr. system remains mostly unknown, even today.

A lovely example of a Luftwaffe Heated Winter Flying jacket, outfitted with Leutnant Officer’s sleeve insignia and ready to display!

Approximate Measurements:
Collar to shoulder: 11″
Shoulder to sleeve: 23.5”
Shoulder to shoulder: 18”
Chest width: 22″
Waist width: 21″
Front length: 26.5″

Reichsbetriebsnummer or RB number (also represented as RB Nr or Rbnr). Before the war, the Germans set up a system for registering and recording the factory information, the Reichsbetriebskartei. This was to help enable machine tabulation of facts and figures. It was from this that the Reichsbetriebsnummer came into being. The Reichsministerium für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion (Ministry for Armaments and War Production) files survive today in the Bundesarchiv, however, these are only fragmentary. There is a holding file from the working group created by the Office of Machine Reporting in the Armament Office of the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Production – their main focus was the operations of the industry group for which an economic interest was Armour production. This index provides information on the most important data of the companies covered by it, production profile, operating area, number of employees and the responsible operator.

As a prerequisite for the intended use of the punch-card method in the armaments industry, it was this system which gave rise to the Rbnr. The operating numbers were assigned by the competent local district offices of Machine reporting. (Bezirksstellen des Maschinellen Berichtswesens.) The index is in the form of index cards that are accessible numerically (approximately 14 meters of index cards!). Access to this register is only possible through the naming of this company, stating the place of production. The Reichsministerium für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion files have multiple entries on the introduction of the factory and also the lot no.

The Rbnr code was used from 1943 onwards and replaced the makers name and address (or company logo) on government contract uniforms, caps and field equipment and knives. It is either rubber ink stamped on cloth or die stamped onto leather & metal items. It has been written countless times that this numeric code system was introduced as a security measure to help mask production locations. This was not the case but it was perhaps, a helpful by- product of the system. It is not unknown to find the Rbnr together with the maker’s info. Had it been a security measure, clearly this practise would have been banned.

So what was the Rbnr? It was a nine digit number and was normally represented thus: RB Nr: 0/000/0000.

The first prefix number could range from 0 through to 9. This number determined the membership of the various groups in the realm of Trade and Industry (Reichsgruppenleitzahl)

• 0 Industry
• 1 Crafts
• 2 Commercial wholesale trading companies
• 3 Banking
• 4 Insurance Companies
• 5 Energy (Electrical companies and such)
• 6 Tourism (Including Hotels, Wine and Mineral Water companies)
• 7 Traffic
• 8 Food Industry
• 9 Not otherwise mentioned groups