Hello all! So I’m hoping to do a series once a month or sometimes twice a month on here where I share some item from my collection along with a description as to what it is and any relevant history. The point of this is to show some of the items that where actually there and what some of this stuff looked like aside from just knowing the pure history of events. I plan to post along the lines of the week by week series which means the series is currently in 1941 so i will not be posting items from 1944 or 1945 until the series reaches that point. I wont be posting cold war items aside from a few examples which are only relevant due to the people they belonged to during the war, reproductions will not be posted unless its to prove a talking point. I hope this series is interesting for people! technically part 1 was the Bach Zelewski award and photos I posted so this is part 2
This is a 1941 dated Soviet Officers/NCO/Enlisted visor hat. ranks of the soviet union had the same pattern of visor hat, however this version is most likely an officers type due to the quality of production and materials. Different branches of service had different colors on the band and piping around the crown of the hat, this one has crimson piping which indicates the branch of service for this particular visor is infantry. Other branches of service such as navy and air force had different designs overall. this is the so called “winter version” made from wool, a “summer” version existed made from cotton however the wool version was generally just worn year round. A field version also existed with no piping but it was hit or miss with officers choosing to use it. The star on this hat is likely replaced at some point post war but I cannot state this as a true fact and at some point the enamel suffered some damage. all officer ranks had the same design with it only changing to general ranks which had a different star design and red piping along with a gold chin cord. This hat being dated 1941 means it was there in the early days of Operation Barbarossa so who knows what this hat has seen!
