Stahlhelm

• 1. Introduction

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  The Stahlhelm, German for steel helmet, earned one of its earliest endorsements on the Somme on the 29th of July 1916. Reserve Lieutenant Walter Schulze of 8th Company, Reserve Infantry Regiment 76, was in a trench when something struck his forehead with a great clanging thud and knocked him flying. He later wrote that "a shrapnel bullet had hit my helmet with great violence, without piercing it, but sufficiently hard to dent it." Until a few days earlier, he noted, officers like him had worn caps. Had he worn one that day, his regiment would have lost a man.

  The coal scuttle shape that saved him was instantly recognizable. Propaganda on both sides put it to work, just as it had done with the Pickelhaube before it. After the war, a German veterans' organization borrowed its name and kept it from 1918 to 1935.

  Several questions run through this story. Germany was the first country to start developing a modern combat helmet, yet other armies issued theirs first. Who drew up the German design, and which older piece of armour did he look to? Why did a neighbouring empire allied to Germany decide to build helmets of its own? And why did a design from the First World War keep turning up on the heads of soldiers and police long after the empire that made it was gone?

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• 2. Steel for Skulls

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  In the rocky Vosges, Army Detachment Gaede recorded far more head injuries from stones and shell fragments than units elsewhere. Its artillery workshop answered with a cloth and leather skullcap fitted with a steel plate 6 mm thick. The plate shielded not just the forehead but also the eyes and nose.

  From 1915, units on both sides were building makeshift helmets locally, because the headgear they had been issued was never meant to stop shrapnel. Before the Great War, most armies wore caps or helmets of fabric or leather. Only some cavalry kept metal helmets, and those were made to turn aside sabre blows. Then artillery and trench warfare changed the wounds, and the share of casualties with head injuries rose dramatically everywhere.

  The French began issuing their Adrian helmet in 1915, and the British Empire followed later that year with the Brodie. German development had started first, but red tape and inaction held it back.

  Dr Friedrich Schwerd of the Technical Institute of Hanover studied head wounds from trench warfare in early 1915 and recommended steel helmets. Soon afterward he was ordered to Berlin and given the job of producing one. He based his design broadly on the 15th-century sallet, an armour that guarded both head and neck. After lengthy work, including trials of German and Allied headgear, the first examples were tested in November 1915 at the Kummersdorf Proving Ground. The 1st Assault Battalion then tried them in the field. Thirty thousand were ordered, but general issue was not approved until New Year of 1916, which is why the helmet is usually called the Model 1916.

  In February 1916 the helmet reached troops at Verdun, and serious head injuries fell dramatically. The first men to wear it in action were the stormtroopers of Sturm-Bataillon Nr. 5, commanded by Captain Willy Rohr.

  The steel set it apart from its rivals. The British Brodie used Hadfield steel, while the Germans chose a harder martensitic silicon/nickel steel. That choice and the helmet's form meant shells had to be shaped in heated dies. Each one cost more than the British helmet, which could be formed in a single piece.

  The Model 1916 carried horn-like ventilator lugs on its sides. They were meant to hold an extra steel brow plate called the Stirnpanzer, but it was too heavy for general use. Only snipers and trench raiding parties wore it, and rarely. Shells came in sizes 60 to 68, with a few size 70s reported, and weighed between 0.98 kg and 1.4 kg. Inside, a headband carried three segmented leather pouches of padding, with cords for adjusting the fit. The one-piece leather chinstrap hung from M1891 lugs, the same kind the Pickelhaube used.

  Soldiers found flaws quickly. In winter the ventilator horns let in cold air, so wearers plugged them with mud or fabric. The big flared skirt distorted sounds around the wearer and made his own voice echo.

  Ground-down grey was the helmet's first colour, called Feldgrau, but troops disguised it with mud, foliage, cloth covers and paint. Official cloth covers in white and grey appeared in late 1916 and early 1917. Formal camouflage paint waited until General Erich Ludendorff signed German Army Order II, No 91 366, on the 7th of July 1918. It called for several colours separated by a finger-wide black line, matched to the season, such as green, brown and ochre in summer. One experimental paint, Wollstaub, was mixed with crushed felt in the hope of reducing glare.

  The M1917 changed only the liner. The M1918, introduced on the 12th of February 1918, brought a new two-piece chinstrap fixed to the liner rather than the shell. Some examples had cutouts along the rim, and collectors once labelled them telephone talker or cavalry helmets. That was wrong on both counts, since the cutouts were meant to improve hearing and cut the echo, and the helmet was meant for every unit. About 100,000 were made in the closing months of the war.

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• 3. The Ottoman Puzzle

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  A photograph of the XV Army Corps in Galicia, dated the 10th of July 1916, is the first documented sign of steel helmets among Ottoman troops. The men in it wear unmodified German M16 Stahlhelme.

  Later came two distinct Ottoman patterns. The first was a converted M16, altered in 1917 with a machine-cut rim about 1 cm shorter and much of the peak removed. These helmets are mainly linked to the Yildrim Army Group, the Thunderbolt Army Group, an elite formation Enver Pasha organized in early 1917. Some sources claim up to 170,000 altered helmets were supplied. More cautious estimates focus on the Yildrim infantry at the Battle of Megiddo in 1918.

  Several reasons lie behind the change. It was wrongly believed that the deep skirt caused blast injuries to the ears, so removing it was meant to help hearing and all-round vision. Trimming skirt and peak also cut weight from the original 1 kilogram, which suited hot climates. And the Ottoman government wanted a silhouette that echoed the ridged sun helmet worn by officers and NCOs. This was likely a bid by the Sublime Porte to avoid looking like a mere satellite of the German Empire.

  The second pattern came from a specific M18 contract with Eisenhüttenwerk Thale. Its rim ran unbroken around the shell, without the usual angles between brim and sides. Research by Chris Flaherty, drawing on material from the Turkish Military Museum, shows that 5,400 were delivered before the contract ended after the Armistice of Mudros on the 31st of October 1918. All were size 66, finished in dark grey-green and fitted with German Model 1918 liners with white pads. Collectors call this model "full-visor," although neither Thale nor the Ottoman military ever used the term. Researchers also warn of modern fakes built from modified Czechoslovak M20 shells.

  That label has caused confusion, because a different and very rare experiment also goes by "full-visor" or "sloping-brow." Made in M16 and M18 forms late in the war, it had a brow roughly 3 cm longer than standard, perhaps to suit gas masks. Only a handful of specimens are documented, and firm records of who issued them are scarce.

  The so-called "visorless" M1918 is a third helmet again, from an unrelated German project. Floyd R. Tubbs, in his 1971 book Stahlhelm, called it the "Turkey steel helmet." He also gave it the 5,400 delivery figure that really belongs to the Thale contract. He further tied it to Sultan Mahmud II's 1832 decree about the fez. Flaherty's research shows it was made for the Imperial German Army, and the Freikorps wore it in 1919 and 1920. Its "Tanker" nickname likely comes from period photographs of Freikorps units operating tanks.

  A tidy explanation for the missing visor also circulated: that it let Muslim soldiers press their foreheads to the ground in prayer. It fails twice. Prostration is physically impossible in the helmet, and Islamic law already allowed a modified ritual in combat, the Ṣalāt al-Khawf, or "prayer of fear." The Imperial War Museum, for its part, catalogues the helmet as "peakless."

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• 4. The Dual Monarchy's Factories

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  In February 1916, the firm Gebrüder Böhler & Co. A.G. offered the Austro-Hungarian army a range of steel alloys and twenty-two distinct helmet designs. They ran from French-style models to dragoon types and visored headpieces. Ballistic trials delivered a sobering result. Only heavy versions thicker than 4.5 mm could stop a direct rifle bullet, while lighter ones handled only shrapnel. Captured Italian Farina helmets were tested too, but proved cumbersome and ballistically inadequate. Austro-Hungary had come to the problem late, making it the last major European power to produce steel head protection.

  Shortages of nickel and chromium forced improvisation. The Kriegsministerium first explored the Stahlhauben, steel skullcaps designed by Carl Lepold Hollitzer to fit over existing leather or tin dragoon helmets. Frontline units, notably the Tyrolean mountain defence, kept demanding a proper combat helmet against grenade fragments and rock splinters. By mid-1916 attention had turned to the German pattern. Phönix-Bleckmann and Böhler had tried domestic prototypes, but the German model's standardization won, and it was adopted for national production.

  Eight steelworks fed the effort, each marking its output with its own stamp. They included Böhler at Kapfenberg, Lapp at Rottenmann, Poldihütte at Kladno, and Manfred Weiss at Csepel. Two more sat in what was then Hungary, at Nadrág and Resicza, in modern Romania. A large volume of sheets from M. Hainisch of Vienna was ultimately rejected for failing the ballistic and structural standards.

  The path from metal to helmet had many steps. Steel billets called Platinen were rolled into sheets and cut into squares, then shaped into circular discs called Ronden. Each disc went through six to seven cold-drawing stages, with annealing between them to relieve stress and stop the metal from fracturing. Edges were rolled and the vent and rivet holes punched. Shells were then heated and quenched in an oil bath of mineral and vegetable oils, which also left a blackened finish, and tempered for elasticity. The Technical Military Committee required that one percent of each batch be fired on in ballistic trials before acceptance.

  Paint came next, in a dull brownish-green called Feldbraun, or Isonzo-braun, made from linseed oil and mineral additives. Gypsum or fine sand kept it matte, yet field use still polished it to a shine. Most liners came from Adolph Müller & Söhne in Vienna, and a department known as Monturdepot 5 often inspected and fitted them. To ship the helmets, workers stacked them in towers with waxed paper between each one to protect the paint, then packed them into crates or railway wagons.

  The empire produced four versions: the M17 Normalhelm, the M17 National pattern, the M17/18 nicknamed Paperino, and the M18 "Hungarian." More than a million Stahlhelm of all kinds were issued in the war, including about 416,000 bought from Germany between November 1916 and the end of the conflict.

  The most common was the Normalhelm, "nach deutschem Muster," or "following Germany's example." From May 1917 to the end of the war, 534,013 were made. Its chinstrap set it apart. Instead of German leather held on posts riveted to the shell, it used coarse canvas or hemp webbing attached to the liner band through metal loops or D-rings. The pads inside were leather in shades from brown to white, sometimes rabbit or kidskin, and thinner than the German equivalents. As supplies dwindled, oilcloth replaced leather. The horsehair-filled pouches were cut from assorted textiles, sometimes in colourful patterns.

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• 5. The Bear of Berndorf

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  A small stylized bear stamped inside the neck guard, above a number, marks a helmet from the Arthur Krupp factory at Berndorf. In the spring of 1917 it began producing steel helmets, and it became the first facility in Austria-Hungary to mass-produce a domestic design. It was also the only maker to turn out every variety, and it could make all components and spare parts in-house. Some count it among the top three helmet factories of the empire, and perhaps the largest.

  A national design was needed because, in the second half of 1916, talks between the War Ministry and domestic firms showed that Austrian machinery could manage only a simpler helmet than the German one. In October 1916, Berndorf showed prototypes in special steel 1.2 to 1.35 mm thick. In December 1916, an order meant for Böhler for 15,000 Stahlhauben was cut to just 2,000. The leftover flat sheets, each 490 by 490 mm and 1.2 mm thick, were redirected to Berndorf.

  That shifting supply explains why surviving examples vary so much. Steel thickness ranges from 1.12 mm to 1.44 mm, and complete helmets weigh between 1,200 and 1,404 grams. Officially the model was the Stahlhelm nach inländischem Muster, and 141,264 were produced. Yet its heavy, thick look gave a false sense of security, since it proved the least effective ballistically of the national helmets.

  Its lining evolved in odd directions. White felt rims wore out fast and gave way to black felt. Next came an elaborate cap-style lining with four trapezoidal pads of pressed, impregnated felt sewn to a perforated metal rim, on a base of red or dark orange ribbed oilcloth. It was designed to leave a 2 cm gap between steel and skull. Costs pushed the factory back to a simple metal rim with large holes and three pads, first leather and later red ribbed oilcloth.

  The dome was stepped, with four small holes covered by a metal disk about 26 mm across. The chinstrap was double-layered hemp 1.5 cm wide, and its ends were reinforced with patches of recycled blue-grey oilcloth meant for cavalry headgear covers.

  About a tenth of troops received anti-reflective cloth covers, especially on patrols or in assault units. For still greater protection there was the Stirnschild, a frontal plate nearly a kilogram in weight and 7 mm thick. It could stop Italian and Russian rifle bullets at distances beyond 50 to 100 metres. Its weight limited it to sentries and trench observers. The manual warned against exposing helmets to fire, since heat would ruin the steel's resistance, and called for paint damage to be repaired at once to prevent rust.

  In late autumn 1917, a new variant appeared in a second War Ministry order. Italian collectors call it Paperino, the Italian name for Donald Duck, after its whimsical shape seen from above. It turned up on the Isonzo front near Gorizia, possibly with the 2nd Gebirgschützen, a regiment with many Slovenian and Balkan soldiers. Its edge was left sharp and unrolled, a result of deep-drawing the blanks cut from those square sheets.

  Few survive. Only two confirmed specimens sit in public institutions, one at the Museo Francesco Baracca in Lugo and one at the Museo Storico Italiano della Guerra in Rovereto. The Lugo helmet, without its pads, weighs 1,250 grams. The complete Rovereto helmet weighs 1,304 grams and carries a large white circular recognition patch painted on the rear. Their ventilation systems differ, which hints at how experimental the run was.

  The final Berndorf model, the 1918, copied the German design earlier than any formal regulation required. Collectors call it "Hungarian," which is misleading. It reached many Hungarian soldiers, and by July 1918 it was visible on troops of the XVIII Army Corps under FML Ludwig Goiginger, fighting beside the Germans in France. Berndorf made 195,307 of them. Its liner snapped onto two fixed internal studs, and an oval rear hole stopped the liner wobbling.

  Poverty showed in one choice: a single size, 64. Photographs show soldiers wearing it over field caps or leaving it unfastened, and some removed cushions from the pads to fit larger heads. Plaster mixed into the paint killed reflections from rain or harsh light, and the rough surface held improvised camouflage well. Berndorf's paint textures and internal fittings even gave German designers cues for late-war refinements.

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• 6. Rearming Germany

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  In 1932, the Army High Command ordered tests of a prototype made entirely of a composite called Vulkanfiber. The Model 1933 kept the basic form of earlier helmets but was much lighter. After favourable field tests in early 1933, it went into limited production and reached small numbers of Reichswehr infantry, artillery and communications units. The M1935 replaced it, and most remaining stock went to fire brigades and police. Some were kept for parade use by senior officers, who were not generally issued with the Stahlhelm.

  Tests of an improved steel helmet began in 1934. Eisenhüttenwerke Thale, known today as Thaletec, handled prototype design, and Dr Friedrich Schwerd again lent a hand. The new helmet was pressed from molybdenum steel in several stages. Its visor and skirt were smaller, and the big lugs for the obsolete armour shield disappeared. Ventilator holes sat in small hollow rivets, the shell edges were rolled for a smooth finish, and a new leather liner improved safety, adjustability and comfort. The Army's Supreme Command accepted the M1935 on the 25th of June 1935. More than a million were made in the first two years, and millions more followed until 1940.

  Hitler reportedly rejected a modernised, sloping design because of how attached the First World War generation was to the old shape. The Stahlhelm had also become a favourite symbol of paramilitary groups after that war.

  In 1940 the design was simplified. The ventilator mounts were now stamped directly into the shell, rather than fitted as separate pieces. German records still called the helmet an M1935, and the M1940 name comes from collectors.

  The M1942 followed an order from Hitler to "maintain intimidation but reduce cost." The rolled edge was dropped, leaving an unfinished rim that flared slightly outward and gave less protection. Paint was matte grey-green for the army and grey-blue for the Luftwaffe, and decals were eliminated in 1943 to speed production and lower combat visibility. Late-war examples show more manufacturing flaws.

  The Fallschirmjäger version had no projecting visor and no deep flared rim. This lowered the risk of head injury on landing and reduced the wind resistance and neck trauma of descent. Early ones were converted M1935s with the projections cut away. Its liner and chinstrap were far more substantial, and the four-point chinstrap returned in modern combat helmets such as the MICH from the late 1990s.

  In 1938 came the gladiator pattern, with a wider flared peak, for civil defence and Luftschutz personnel. Privately bought, it was built from three pieces of steel and usually painted black or dark blue. It was later issued to Volkssturm personnel. By 1944, it was stamped from a single sheet with a vinyl or cloth lining to save money. Postwar versions in fluorescent green, white or yellow went to rescue workers in West Germany until the early 1990s.

  One further design never reached troops. In 1942, the Institute for Defence Technical Materials Science in Berlin designed the M44, a one-piece helmet with sloped sides that resembled the British 1944 Type Mk III. It was tested in variants B, B/II and C, with B/II chosen for extensive trials and made by Thale. It was never approved.

  Reports also describe an M1945, similar to the M1942 but with no ventilator at all. Collectors suspect these were simply M1942 helmets from factory malfunctions, or unfinished shells completed after the war.

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• 7. A Helmet Abroad

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  In November 1926, the Irish Defence Forces adopted the Stahlhelm, though not from Germany. The Treaty of Versailles barred German steel helmet exports, so the Irish ordered 5,000 copies of a model resembling the M1918 from the London firm Vickers. They wore them until the British Mark II replaced them in 1940. After the outbreak of the Second World War, the helmets became the subject of anti-Irish propaganda in Britain. Many of the withdrawn helmets were painted white and reissued to emergency services.

  Germany did export versions of the M1935. Some went to the Republic of China in 1935-36, where it became the main helmet of the Nationalist Army, especially its "central" divisions, through the Second World War. Spain also received shipments. Between the wars, military missions under Hans Kundt went to South America, and after the Chaco War Bolivia adopted the Stahlhelm and kept it until recently. Exported helmets differed mainly in the liner. Some countries made their own from the M1935 pattern, and the basic design was in use in various nations as late as the 1970s.

  The Germans helped the Hungarians copy it. The Hungarian M38 is nearly identical, with rougher finishing, a different liner and split pins sitting behind the ventilation holes. A square metal bracket on the rear secured it to the knapsack on the march. Usually painted brown-green, it is also called the "Finnish M35" because the Finnish Army used it widely in the Continuation War of 1941-1944.

  Poland seized large quantities of M1918 helmets after the First World War and sold most abroad, including to Spain. Then, at the end of the 1930s, the standard Polish wz. 31 proved too large and heavy for tank troops and motorized units. As a stop-gap, the General Staff issued M1918s to the 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade, which used them in the September Campaign. In the Warsaw Uprising, Home Army members wore the helmet. It became a symbol of resistance, since each one on an underground soldier's head meant a dead German it had been taken from.

  Switzerland used a helmet it called the M1918, roughly like the M1916 but with a shallower, wider, more rounded crown and skirt to protect against harsh alpine winter winds. Chile was a prolific user of Vulkanfiber models bought before the Second World War, plus a few M1935 and Czechoslovak M32 helmets. Imperial Iran used small numbers with the Imperial Guard and a few units around Tehran. Argentina adopted a pressed fibre model during the war, and imported Swiss M1918 helmets stayed in provincial police service as late as 1976.

  In Yugoslavia, Partisans had captured large quantities in the Second World War. The Yugoslav People's Army kept the Stahlhelm until 1959, when the M59/85 steel helmet replaced it.

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• 8. Two Germanies

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  Heinz Keßler, a general of East Germany, gave his name to a joke. The M1954, used by the KVP, was nicknamed "Kesslerbombe" in his honour. It was a squarer evolution of the M1944 prototype, a transitional shape between the M35 and the M44, and it was fitted with two different suspension systems in service. The M1956 replaced it.

  The East German M-56 drew on a 1942 design trialled since 1943 but never adopted in the war. East Germany needed a distinct German helmet for the Volkspolizei and the National People's Army. Its leadership did not want to offend Warsaw Pact allies, especially Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union, by using a traditional Stahlhelm. West German border guards were still using surplus Stahlhelme. The East Germans also suspected the West might reissue the Stahlhelm to the Bundeswehr at any time, so they needed a helmet that was easily distinguishable.

  The 1942 design was chosen because it looked closest to the Soviet SSh-40. It looked similar enough that some Westerners assumed the East Germans had adopted a Soviet helmet. The M-56 came in three versions, I/56, I/57 and I/71, and was widely sold or given to Third World armies.

  In West Germany, the Bundesgrenzschutz was formed in 1951 and equipped with salvaged and refurbished M35, M40 and M42 helmets, repainted dark green RAL 6012. As stocks ran low, new ones were made to M40 rules. In 1953 came a new interior type, the I53, developed by Schuberth Werke Braunschweig. It was held by a single screw at the top centre, so the shell no longer showed the old rivets.

  The Stahlhelm stayed in police use. Police units wear them in footage of the Black September hostage crisis in 1972, and GSG 9 used the Fallschirmjäger variant for a time. The Bundeswehr, meanwhile, introduced the United States Army M1 helmet. The West German M-56 was a direct copy of the U.S. M1, officially a "zweiteiliger Stahlhelm," or two-piece steel helmet. In 1958 it became a single piece, the Stahlhelm M1A1, in sizes 66, 68 and 71. It was used until 1981, when a modified version was released. In the 1990s, a Kevlar Gefechtshelm, similar to modern American helmets, replaced it, and the police and border guards finally gave up their wartime Stahlhelm.

  The shape lives on in odd places. German firefighters today still wear Stahlhelm-shaped helmets in fluorescent colours. The Chilean and Bolivian armies use the design for ceremony. Some biking helmets and goggles resemble it, and military bands in Mexico, including at the Autonomous University of Baja California, use or imitate the M35. American soldiers nicknamed the 1980s Kevlar PASGT helmet the "Fritz helmet" for its resemblance. Chinese People's Liberation Army soldiers still wore captured M1935s from the Civil War until the 1970s.

  Since 2012, El Salvador's Policia Nacional Civil has used a navy or indigo blue helmet that strongly resembles the Stahlhelm. Some riot-control members wear it, and the assault teams use it only rarely.

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