# Where To Find WWI and WWII era uniforms **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 29, 2010, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420 "2010-09-29T01:38:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/21 "2010-09-29T22:10:19Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Pretty simple actually-just a Nazi armband around a shirt. The BBC article said “Prince Harry, 20, appears to be wearing a German desert uniform and a swastika armband.” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/22 "2010-09-29T22:13:37Z")
Harry’s a tool. Here’s hoping William turns out to be pretty virile. > [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > What about a German WW1 uniform? > > With spiked helmet? You mean the [Pickelhaube](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickelhaube)? I still stand by my Red Baron idea. He was pretty cool. Or hey – how about one of the Cossacks? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/23 "2010-09-29T22:22:53Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > ? > Or hey – how about one of the Cossacks? [German Lancers!](http://i26.tinypic.com/2vtuusx.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/24 "2010-09-29T22:28:27Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > **Curtis** – the Wehrmacht were INDEED Nazis. Either way, you’d be INCREDIBLY insensitive. WTF are you thinking! No, technically they weren’t. The Wehrmacht was the German Army. They were only Nazis in the sense that [all Germans were Nazis](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllGermansAreNazis). ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/25 "2010-09-30T00:44:22Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > HEY!!! Why not go as Curtis LeMay himself! Or go dressed as a caveman, get really drunk, and say you’ve been “bombed back into the stone age.” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/26 "2010-09-30T01:43:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > > [@Guinastasia](#): > > > > **Curtis** – the Wehrmacht were INDEED Nazis. Either way, you’d be INCREDIBLY insensitive. WTF are you thinking! > > No, technically they weren’t. The Wehrmacht was the German Army. They were only Nazis in the sense that [all Germans were Nazis](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllGermansAreNazis). Note I admitted I was wrong in post #16. 😉 **Slithy Tove** , better yet, go as a hippie covered in soot and say you’ve been stoned back to the bomb age. _groan_ ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/27 "2010-09-30T03:12:51Z")
For a Soviet-type uniform on the cheap, run down to your local surplus store. They should have visor hats, trousers, jackets, acceptable belts, satchels with red stars on them, boots… The costume won’t be historically accurate, but good enough for Halloween – unless you want to spend the money to do it right. And the Soviets aren’t the bogeymen that Germans are. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/28 "2010-09-30T06:46:36Z")
> [@awldune](#): > > > [@Guinastasia](#): > > > > **Curtis** – the [Wehrmacht](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht) were INDEED Nazis. > > Well, they were Nazis in the sense that every German under the Nazi regime was a Nazi. What kind of sense is that? Is it also commonly believed that everyone in America is a member of the Democratic Party? > [@](#): > > But not everyone in the Wehrmacht was a member of the Nazi party, Rommel being a famous example. Actually, if I recall correctly _no_ member of the Wehrmacht was a member of the Nazi party; there were laws in place enforcing a strict separation of politics and the military. ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/29 "2010-09-30T22:03:01Z")
You could try this site. It’s based in India, so I don’t know about delivery times, but the prices should be reasonable. I believe their major business is supplying film companies. A friend of mine has got a Luftwaffe officers cap from them. [http://www.replicaters.com/ww2arfrikakorp.html](http://www.replicaters.com/ww2arfrikakorp.html) (address as in webpage) ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/30 "2010-10-09T17:31:26Z")
A slight aside but another poster here (who shall remain nameless, mwah!) told me before that people at a Sherlock Holmes convention had taken umbrage at his costume for a character from the Holmes universe because it included some German WWI artefact, I think an Iron Cross. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/31 "2010-10-09T22:53:35Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > A slight aside but another poster here (who shall remain nameless, mwah!) told me before that people at a Sherlock Holmes convention had taken umbrage at his costume for a character from the Holmes universe because it included some German WWI artefact, I think an Iron Cross. Really? What a bunch of morons. (Considering that the Iron Cross goes back to the early 1800s.) You’d think they’d know that it wasn’t a Nazi symbol. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/32 "2010-10-09T23:37:53Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > I am not one to promote Nazi uniforms at dress-up parties, but hey, it was [good enough for Prince Harry](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4170083.stm)! The “outrage” over that was a whole load of tabloid generated pish. It’s a perfectly usual British thing to mock and make light of really bad things. Christ, 'Allo, 'Allo! was a very popular long-running TV series extracting comedy value from the day to day terrors of being in the French Resistance (and being French generally, to be fair). Dad’s Army was one of the finest ensemble comedies ever made, and that was about the ill-equipped last-ditch suicide squads that were raised in case of invasion, armed with a rusty old shotgun, some garden hoes, and an armoured butcher’s van. OK, it was also about class and manners, but still. Not that I am recommending you turn up at a fancy dress party in the admittedly rather swish Hugo Boss designed garb of an SS Obergruppenführer, **Curtis**. Know your audience! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/33 "2010-10-10T01:10:44Z")
I believe though that Harry has been known to use words like “towelhead” and “paki” etc. ---
**Author:** ![Spiny\_Norman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Spiny\_Norman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiny_Norman)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/34 "2010-10-10T01:24:13Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > You mean the [Pickelhaube](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickelhaube)? “Gentlemen, we have uncovered the origin of the superstitious belief that it’s bad luck to place your hat on a chair.” ---
**Author:** ![Clark\_Cello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58f4c7/32.png) [@Clark\_Cello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clark_Cello)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/35 "2010-10-10T01:45:02Z")
I’m surprised at the general feeling that seems to be that going as a WWII soldier is somehow a ghastly idea. That seems to me to be the sort of thing Halloween is about. It is fairly common for people to dress up as a recently deceased person or Stalin or something like that. I would think that a constume like this wouldn’t cause a problem if: 1. It was perceived as clever or original in some way (e.g. you don’t just go as a Nazi and stand around yelling “Seig Heil!”, thinking it is hillarious) 2. The person dressing up wasn’t the type that, when people saw him dressed up as a Nazi, thougt to themselves “Well, that makes sense”. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/36 "2010-10-10T02:49:22Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > > > For Halloween I’d like to be an Imperial German Army officer from World War I or a Red Army/Polish Army/Wehrmacht officer from World War II. Do you know where to get such costumes at a REASONABLE PRICE (under a 100 bucks). AND NO I DO NOT HAVE ANY INTEREST IN BEING A NAZI ONLY A WEHRMACHT SOLDIER A LA ROMMEL. > > **Curtis** – the [Wehrmacht](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht) were INDEED Nazis. Either way, you’d be INCREDIBLY insensitive. WTF are you thinking! Well, some were. Most were not. Wehrmacht means “Armed forces.” (It does not, common to popular belief, refer just to the Army.) It literally encompassed every single person in all branches of the German armed services, most of whom were not members of the Nazi Party or in the Waffen SS. [QUOTE=psychonaut] Actually, if I recall correctly no member of the Wehrmacht was a member of the Nazi party; there were laws in place enforcing a strict separation of politics and the military [/QUOTE] This, however, is just plainly false. For one thing, it makes no sense; there were not only not any such laws, but it would have been completely against the fundamental philosophy of the Nazi Party to create such a law. For another, again, the Waffen SS was part of the Wehrmacht. At its peak about ten percent of the population of Germany were card-carrying Nazis - actually, maybe not quite that many, but close, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/37 "2010-10-10T03:39:15Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > For another, again, the Waffen SS was part of the Wehrmacht. That is an extremely doubtful assertion, the SS having a different origin and command chain before the war, and at best a tenuous one during. They were the military wing of the Party. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/38 "2010-10-10T03:47:23Z")
[Why is This GOP House Candidate Dressed as a Nazi?](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/why-is-this-gop-house-candidate-dressed-as-a-nazi/64319/) ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/39 "2010-10-10T04:00:37Z")
You can check out the [Axis Forums](http://forum.axishistory.com/) and look for the “for sale” forums and they have real WWII stuff for sale. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420/40 "2010-10-10T04:01:00Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > [QUOTE=psychonaut] > Actually, if I recall correctly no member of the Wehrmacht was a member of the Nazi party; there were laws in place enforcing a strict separation of politics and the military This, however, is just plainly false. For one thing, it makes no sense; there were not only not any such laws, but it would have been completely against the fundamental philosophy of the Nazi Party to create such a law. For another, again, the Waffen SS was part of the Wehrmacht. [/QUOTE] Actually it is completely true. Those who were in active service in the Reichswehr and later the Wehrmacht were constitutionally prohibited from voting in elections or joining a political party. However, from 1934 they were made to swear a personal oath of allegiance to the Führer and most young recruits were indoctrinated with the Nazi ideology, so many of them became fanatically loyal to it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-wwi-and-wwii-era-uniforms/555420.md?page=3)