Winterhilfewerk and VDA tinnies

Good luck with the stuff. Rich A. in Pa.

 

It is a world renowned colection Skipper.

 

Well the packet arrived from Germany yesterday. Over 110 tinnies and "days" too. Pictures will follow soon.

In the meantime here is something Isaw ont he iternet. It's a receipt in Dutch for the purchase of local WHW (WHN = wintehulp Nederland)

 

I only thought it was in Germany for WHW. Now I know better, thanx Skipper!

 

Actually the Dutch regime copy catted the German Nazi movement to the core with local insignias included. Not only the WHW but also the DAF (NAF in the Netherlands) , RAD (NAD ).

I have a NAD membership pin. One day I'll open a specific thread for these local insignias.

There are even more scarcer ones from the Westmark area with local Alsacian WHW pins too.

The Austrians had them too before 1938 and even the Neutral Swiss.

The WHW were charities , including in Germany but Hitler politicalicized them and claimed he was the founder of it (which is wrong because they were founded under the Weimar regime).

As a result the WHW were banned in 1945 because they had been affiliated to the Nazi regime . It is obvious that the little farmer figurines and flowers had progressively been replaced by herladry of annexed cities , by SS figurines, Nazi flags , Hitler pins and sold by the HJ to promote the army and the war effort in general instead of buying food and clothing to the poor which was the inital aim.

Ps: I'm off today ,so no time for pics until tomorrow, sorry to keep you wainting a bit more.

 

Just looked at the tinnies again and must say the details are awesome. Wow!

 

A nice VDA Ausweis

 

Hi All,

1. I stumbled across this link doing research on an interesting HJ knife I finally acquired from a fellow WW2 German collector. If not rare, I consider it to be unique. It is a 1941-1945 issued knife and scabbard both of which are in overall very good condition. Only on one side of the metal top part of the handle is there what appears to be some small metal hole pitting. In my opinion, it is possible at some time the boy wanted to hammer something or maybe it was the result of something else.

2. There are a couple of interesting things about this HJ knife. The first one is there are personal sectional engravings on the knife's inner metal portion to the young man which would be consistent of either his father or family commemorating his membership in the HJ.
The engravings read as follows with my opinions: "Helmut" (the boy owner's first name); "Koln" (Cologne, GY) (probably the boy's town of residence when joining the HJ) and "12" (the age he joined the HJ).

3. How can that be? The minimum age to join the HJ originally was 14. This young man is 12. The answer (See GoogleSearch) is in 1941 a degree by the head of the HJ authorized children as young as 10 to join because as time passed the war put a heavy strain on replacement personnel. Some of the HJ served to supplement certain combat units and others were members of the Voltstrum (Civilian Army). I recall a number of HJ members captured on or soon thereafter on D-Day.

4. Next is the second interesting thing which is a mystery to me. On the rear of the leather scabbard is firmly not the original safety pin but affixed using two metal pins bent upward at both ends which were passed thru an upper section of the scabbard and affixed to "tinnie" for "Kulmsee" (Chemsee, KY) which at the time I lived/worked in Worms, GY as a federal civilian employee of USATASCOM, was noted as a vacation/resort area in southcentral Germany. It appears the kid definitely wanted the "Kulmsee" tinnie attached to his knife's scabbard as a rememberance. The affixed "tinnie" is consistent with an adult doing the affixing which subsequently was exposed to significant wear of the lettering noticeable mostly at the bottom of the "tinnie". So this young HJ 12 year old was actively soliciting sales/donations for the V. D. A possibly in the Kulmsee area over an extended period of time.

5. That then begs the question did his family have a vacation home there or possibly relocated permanently there from Cologne? Who knows but the personal connection via non-professional engravings and the Kulmsee "tinnie" affixed to his HG knife/scabbard adds a human dimension to it which I thought it would be interesting to share.

6. A couple of files were too big to upload but the basic ones uploaded ok. If anyone knows the first year the "Kulmsee" tinnie was issued it might help me narrow the year(s) it was initially affixed to the scabbard.


John