As well as things like the 1936 Olympic trinket we looked at
here the craft wood-carvers of Southern Germany (and Austria) had also been busy since the accession of the National Socialists making more everyday toys or run-of-the-mill mementos.
Just as today these would have come in all shapes and sizes and would have featured various themes and subjects. The collection from which the Olympic item came from also contained a number of these, and today we'll look at the figures.
The smallest figures here are a pretty perfect 20mm while the largest (grey chap and the all-black) are 40mm with the chap in what appears to be an
Allgemeine-SS 'Coffee Can' Hat (second from the right in the main image) being around 35mm.
With regard to the figure on the right...now we know where the Fat Controller cut his teeth! "Thomas!"
The 20mm musicians (upper picture) are really quite amusing as they have all had their hair painted in such a way as to resemble a cloned band of
Adolph Hitler mimi-me's!! While the larger figures in the lower shot are from several sources and vary from 30 to 35mm and carry with them a variety of base types/shapes.
The two guys in
SA uniform (all brown) are vastly outnumbered by
SS bandsmen (black shakos and trousers), whether this is because the
SA-men were quietly dumped after the Night of the Long Knives, or that
SS genuinely sold in larger quantities is not clear due to the small sample, but it makes you think - at the time of the putsch there were around 3 million
SA-men and considerably less than a million
SS!
It's not a subject (or a guy!) that I like a lot (!) but the figures are funny so they look ridiculous in 2013!
ReplyDeleteVery unusual and nice review, Hugh !
Who wouldn´t want the "fat Controller" (Der Dicke kontrolleur) fig ? :-D (naturally, without the sunsign Armband)
ReplyDeleteHi Sam - Yes - When Brian put them on his blog someone thought they looked sinister, but really they look faintly ridiculous!
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder how the country could have been split between them (SS and SA), let alone wanted to follow either of them to oblivion!
My Grandmother was at one of the Nuremberg rallys and said that y the end she was tearfully sieg-heiling with the rest of them and would have followed him to the ends of the earth if he'd asked...he literally had a messianic charisma. She was a Naval officers wife, and 'British Establishment' through and through!
Paul - he;s brilliant isn't he! Looks just like the little Hornby FC!
Cheers both - Hugh