DAGGERS AND KNIVES OF THE THIRD REICH

This work will soon stand as a reference on a subject that will captivate collectors as well as all those passionate about history, who will find here a richly presented treatment of a particularly abundant topic. Since ancient times, the sword that accompanied the knight carried a highly symbolic value. From the sixteenth century onwards, the sword was very frequently accompanied by a dagger. And the sword would remain, right up to the modern era, a weapon and then an attribute of officers in most armies of the world. Under the Third Reich, where emblems and symbols held a prominent place, the dagger became omnipresent, from paramilitary formations such as the SA and the SS, through to military and even civilian organisations such as the Red Cross and the forestry service! This abundance, unique in the history of uniformology, has already been covered several times, but very rarely in French, where there had hitherto been no near-exhaustive work by an author of the highest competence. He presents here, through more than 400 documents — forty-five models studied in depth — the SA daggers (modelled on sixteenth-century Swiss daggers), NSKK, SS, HJ (knife and dagger), the daggers of the Wasserschutz-Polizei, firefighters, RLB, Teno, Postschutz, Bahnschutz, Reichsbahn-Wasserschutz-Polizei, DRK (Red Cross), RAD (labour service), land customs and maritime customs, diplomats, senior civil servants, officials of the East, hunting knives of foresters and marksmen, the daggers and knives of the DLV and NSFK, Luftwaffe daggers, Heer and naval officer daggers, as well as a number of exceptional pieces. Many of the photographs are of exceptional quality (drawn in part from the Hermann Historica archives); others (from the author's own archives) show precise or rare details, explaining the technical aspects of these objects; others still are period photographs showing how and with which uniforms these daggers were worn. This work also presents appendices and will long remain an essential reference and a beautifully produced document that will do honour to your library.