Berndorfer Helmets from Italy

Peter_Suciu

Peter_Suciu

Well-known member
In case anyone missed it I stirred up a small hornet's nest over at WAF. I basically saw one of those "dubious" Berndorfer helmets. Greenish paint (wrong color in my opinion for Austrian WWI), liner without as much wear as the shell, etc.

Of course several members jumped in to defend the helmet with the usual, "I've collected for 25 years," blah, blah, blah. Now here is the interesting part. The fakes we've seen have come from Italy. The helmet I questioned is in Italy, and those who defended it... (can you guess) are Italian.

Now I'm trying to start a conspiracy theory, but that's interesting. And at least one member said (at least as far as I can tell with the translation) that this is how the Czech's used the helmet post war! That's really interesting to me. Sort of puts out the theory that those dubious eBay helmets could be good reissues. Something I need to watch.

I also need to see if I can find any information on Czech uniforms from the 1920s. Interesting because most of the M16/17/18 shells are brown. That makes me think the Czech uniforms were brown (like they were in the 1930s). So why the GREEN Berndorfer helmets? The plot thickens... oh, maybe the paint (the green paint) thickens. :?
 
Notice that this is and Italian web site, my question would be, Peter, do you think these may be original shells? I do not know of any reproduction shells being made (but they are so high priced that there will be some in the future).
Best wishes
Gsu
 
I haven't heard of any reproduction shells. My feeling is that it is possible some of these may have sat in storage for decades. The liners rotted, etc.

So suddenly we're seeing some refurbished helmets showing up. Gotta be some reason why these are all coming from Italy.
 
Hey Peter, Have you seen any of these that have come through Spain? Some time ago, I was watching some footage of the Spanish Civil war, and I saw what I thought to be Berndorfers on some of the Spanish troops. After WWI, I am sure that Italy recieved some of these as repairations, and if they had not been painted, Iwold suspect that the Italians would prefer the Olive to the brown paint (even to the point of striping and repainting)
Gus
 
A friend was doing a display on the MAC PAPS in the Spanish civil war and low and behold he had aquired his as it was used in the Spanish conflict.
MAc Pap's were the Canadian contingent to the internanational brigade similar to the lincoln from the US
MArk
It was a Feldgrau colour or dark green ish brown
 
Hey Zippy,
I think you have solved the mystery, that is a logical explaination for these helmets, in my view.
Thanks
GUs
 
Seems they had all kinds of kit from almost any Army they could get there hands on . They even used the Ross rifle ,good shooter but crappy combat rifle.
zippey
 
Gustaf said:
Hey Zippy,
I think you have solved the mystery, that is a logical explaination for these helmets, in my view.
Thanks
GUs
Click to expand...

Hmm? That would make sense if these were coming from Spain. How'd these get back to Italy? That's the interesting part to consider.

I still wouldn't buy a Berndorfer unless it was the proper Austrian brown paint with proper Austrian liner and canvas chinstrap. The problem with these "it was reissued and used by..." stories is that the fakes are so good you could end up with a helmet that had a liner put in 1919 or 1999 and never know. And those stories, "that leather strap is an accepted wartime variation." Yeah, great!

And those three pad liners were only used by the Swiss and Swedish armies (as well as about a dozen other countries), so finding a worn 1960s liner in a $10 Swedish helmet isn't that hard. If these Berndorfers were $300 to $500 I'd take a chance and say, "it COULD be from the 1920s," but at $2000+ I'm going to remain a skeptic.

I'd love a nice Berndorfer. I'd even pay $2000+ for a good example. The problem is this is probably among the rarest WWI helmets! :x
 
According to that Spanish (not Italian!) web site enough Stirnpanzers were made for about 10% of all produced Berndorfer helmets. That would be about 14.000 and I suppose they are REALLY rare. No other nation reused them to my knowledge.

Also a separate model is mentioned that uses the form of the German helmet but that lacked ventilation projections and instead used the ventilation of the Berndorfer helmet. Ever seen?
 
Robert said:
According to that Spanish (not Italian!) web site enough Stirnpanzers were made for about 10% of all produced Berndorfer helmets. That would be about 14.000 and I suppose they are REALLY rare. No other nation reused them to my knowledge.

Also a separate model is mentioned that uses the form of the German helmet but that lacked ventilation projections and instead used the ventilation of the Berndorfer helmet. Ever seen?
Click to expand...
good catch Robert, I really blew that one, I could say that I am more acustom to the Mexican Spanish, but the fact is, I opend my mouth with out thinking (to be honest, I wondered why I could read this web site better than most Italian web sites). Another Spanish connection?
Gus
 
Robert said:
Also a separate model is mentioned that uses the form of the German helmet but that lacked ventilation projections and instead used the ventilation of the Berndorfer helmet. Ever seen?
Click to expand...

That helmet design I believe was mentioned in Floyd Tubbs first edition of his "Stahlhelm" book. However, I'm a bit dubious as there was only single example if I recall. I don't have the first edition right now, and I don't recall it being in the second edition of the book. So was it a one-off? An experimental? Was it produced in any large numbers? I don't know.

And regarding numbers I have to say I'm a bit surprised there aren't more Berndorfer helmets OR the Stirnpanzer plates. 140,000 helmets and 14,000 plates! Those aren't huge numbers but they aren't small. I still see American Liberty Bell (in fairness I'm in America) but only 2000 of those were made. I also managed to find an American Model 8 (1200 of those), and American Model 5 and American Model 2 helmets (2000 of each). It seems that finding a nice example of a helmet where 140,000 were made would be easier than finding a helmet were only 1200 were made. :-?

I guess the Italians love those Berndorfers are hording them! Yeah... that's it!
 
Hey Peter,I believe that one reason that items that were made in large numbers rarety could be atributed to recycling of the steel during the build up to and war time WWII. A lot of these items were demilled after WWI (remember the photo for the German worker puncturing German helmets with a pick?) and found themselves back in the steel mills.
Gus
 
And regarding numbers I have to say I'm a bit surprised there aren't more Berndorfer helmets OR the Stirnpanzer plates. 140,000 helmets and 14,000 plates! Those aren't huge numbers but they aren't small
Click to expand...

Strange yes. It seems that more M18 with ear cutout surface even counting only the seem-to-be originals :laughing6: . But on the other hand, you would think that we were flooded with normal M16 and M18 considering the numbers.

Maybe the great scrapping started later after WWII. In between, the leftovers of the great war may have been reused over and over until the nations that profited from the reparations (and allied donations) produced their own patterns in sufficient numbers.

Gustaf, I tried the Italian-english setting on altavista first too.
 
Maybe these were issued to the Italian Troops that were sent to Spain .They also came home with them?
Sorry peter i find this model helmet not a good design so maybe it it did end up in scrap piles and drives .
Did the finns use it during the winter war?
zippey
 
I've heard of a lot of helmet types making it to the Finns, but I don't believe the Berndorfer made it in any large numbers.
 
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