Ernst Pack & Söhne (E. Pack) HJ knives

Thanks for your thoughts DDS. Just to carry on with that theme and the evolution of the HJ/DJ knife:

what I think is vital here is to establish when a knife that we would recognise as a 'HJ' knife first started to appear.

This is from germandressdaggers and was edited by someone called Bruce Petrin:

"During the 1920's there were many youth organizations which carried a small traveling knife for use on hiking and outdoor pursuits and, as a result, in 1928 Adolph Hitler stipulated that the Hitler Youth should also officially carry a traveling knife. No standard for knives was set and the type and quality of knife was dependent upon how much you paid. Due to these daggers being none standard, variations can be found that will boggle the mind."

Yes, a variety of knives were carried by some of the pre-HJ youth movements. We know that and so did the RJF because they banned them and made repeated references to them. However, Adolph (sic) Hitler stipulated that the HJ carry a knife in 1928 but did not set a standard? Firstly, no reference is offered for the statement and secondly, if AH did indeed stipulate in 1928 that the HJ carry a knife then it was almost universally ignored by the Hitler Youth from the youngest spottiest lad right up to the top-level leadership. I'm looking at group photos of HJ here that date right back to 1928 and there is not a single knife in sight. To my left I have an issue of the HJ magazine 'HJZ' from February 1929. This issue covers the inaugural HJ leader conference that had taken place in Plauen between the 28th and 31st of December 1928 and had been chaired by Kurt Gruber. The HJ uniform is discussed here and no knife is mentioned. Indeed, of those attendees none can be seen wearing a knife. I'm sure that you too have seen virtually no photographs of HJ boys wearing knives in that earlier period. It simply wasn't as widespread as this Petrin guy would have the reader believe.


Petrin: "In February 1933, Von Schirach decided to standardize the HJ knife and introduced the standard 1933 HJ knife shown above" (above this are four photographs of a standard HJ/DJ Fahrtenmesser knife with ricasso and motto). This February thing may or may not be true but again, no reference is given for the statement. However, as MWF says, we know for a fact when the Hitler Youth knife (Fahrtenmesser der Hitler-Jugend und des Deutschen Jungvolks) was officially introduced but to get anywhere with these non-standard knives like the E. Pack for example, we need to establish four things in my opinion:

  • Was the standard HJ/DJ Fahrtenmesser introduced as a completely new item, designed from the ground up?
  • Was it an adaptation of a pre-existing knife i.e. did the RJF simply formalise something that was already there? Or did it pick a knife from a particular maker to become THE knife)?
  • did any of the unofficial knives have a diamond in the grip?
  • What is the chronology for all of this?

The key for me is the diamond because clearly any knife with one can't date to before the diamond came into use unless the grips were retrospectively reworked. The earliest written reference to the diamond that I can find in my period sources here is for June 1932. The badge is mentioned at that time as being part of the newly standardised BdM uniform. The diamond was introduced for the HJ in the same year but did not replace the Arbeiterjugend pin as the membership badge until 1933. However, and this is the potentially interesting part, I have a note on my hard drive that the diamond was initially introduced in 1931 for the BdM only. I'm trying to nail some evidence for that at the moment but it throws up an interesting question that might help to date the appearance of the first knives with diamonds. If the diamond was introduced for the BdM specifically in 1931 then the placement of a diamond into the grip of a knife that manufacturers hoped to sell to the HJ would be akin to putting an Action Man toy on the market dressed in a ball-gown. No boy would want one. Yes, it's not evidence but it makes sense that if the diamond was viewed as a girls' badge between its introduction in 1931 and late-1932 when the boys started wearing it on their uniforms that no manufacturer would have put one into a knife. If we go with this scenario, then the first appearance of a diamond on an unofficial HJ knife would date to between late-1932 and early 1933.

I'll try and get that evidence for the diamond being introduced in 1931 for the BdM only. Perhaps we could also collate any photographs we can find from 1933 and before that show boys wearing knives?


Edit: In the book 'Adolf Hitler's Braunhemden' published early in 1933, the diamond is shown on page 22 as being for the BdM. The male badge is shown as being the Arbeiterjugend pin. Confirmation, I think, that the diamond was viewed as the females' membership badge and so if we were to base our opinions of knives with the diamond on this information then we must conclude that any knife with a diamond dates to the first months of 1933 at the earliest.

My thanks to Wim Saris for digging out that page for me :thumb:
 
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