german youth knife

mrbigg · Post by **mrbigg** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 6:58 am

hello all,

i tried to get onto bladeforums to ask this but the site seems to be down...

a co-worker brought in a knife that belonged to his grandfather who served with the canadian army during the second world war...

it is a classic german youth knife - or hitler youth knife...and because he
knows i'm nutty for knives he thought i could tell him more about it and how much it was worth...

first thing i did was search ebay and found this one here
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... %3AIT&rd=1

so good news for him - it's worth a few bucks - but NOT SO FAST!

the one on ebay is very different from this one - which i held in my hand - and honestly felt it was an old knife. the first thing i found odd was the tangstamp - on the one my co-worker has - the outside circle is complete, and is layed out vertical to the blade - as oposed to the one on ebay which is stamped horizontaly...second thing that caught my eye about the stamp was my friends had no year stamped underneath the M7/2 (my co-workers was stamped M7/13...but most puzzling is the crossed 7 in the year on the one on ebay - why aren't both 7's the same? was the 1937 added later?

here is the stamp on the knife my co-worker has

if anyone has any info on these - please let me know - i love a good mystery!

Vagrant · Post by **Vagrant** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 8:14 am

I know just enough about these to admit I know almost nothing. I do know many were assembled after the war [from parts] for sale to allied personnel. The lack of a date is curious and my first thought would be "parts knife" BUT a date would be easy to have put on for someone assembling one from parts. At the same time it's something that would be easy to omit by a hurried worker at a factory. Considering the number of outright fakes even a "parts knife" would be worth some money. I don't think the one on E-bay is mint the way I use the term. On just a "gut level" I like the open circle. The lack of a crossed 7 on the M7-whatever is consistant on both knives. A wild guess would be one is a "parts knife" and one is a ?. A web search shows the open circle on reproductions with the inside of the circle darker, and no date. But your friends has a close circle. No luck finding a pic of a genuine one [yet]. to cofuse things more there may have been more than one maker and stampings would vary some. Sorry all this does is confuse things more, but I tried and didn't learn much myself!

mrbigg · Post by **mrbigg** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 8:44 am

thanks al - he's going to bring the knife in again tomorrow and i'm gonna double check the sketch i made of the stamp...maybe try and take a pic...

i'm not into these kinds of knives - but it's got me curious...

Vagrant · Post by **Vagrant** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 9:57 am

These are interesting but there are lots of different ones: Original, early post-war parts knifes, fakes, modern repros. made with original dies, Oriental "reprodutions" [what the sellers call them]. I sharpened one [parts knife?] for a guy I worked with. It took an edge that was scalpel sharp

The sharpest I've ever seen on a knife, if you were fast you could drop a piece of paper and slash it in mid air

I hung one of my hairs from a pair of tweezers and could cut the free hanging part with a "flick of the wrist"

Buckshot · Post by **Buckshot** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 3:05 am

Mrbigg, Knives of the Hitler Youth (HJ)....the one on e-bay lacks
detail in the pictures so I can't give you the best opinion, but the maker
is Emil Voos, from what I can see, the blade to metal fit is a little sloppy
up top & the scabbard is a replacement, but the blade looks ok. Voos
daggers were some of the best produced in the reich, right up there with
Eickhorns. The RZM, ( Reich ministry of supply ) had authorized several
if not a couple dozen firms to make these. As with all Nazi medals, flags,
uniforms & various cloth there were many variations, & there was no
one correct standard. As for your friends, the RZM mark of 7/13 was
produced by Arthur Shuttlehoffer and the RZM mark should be aligned
vertically about 1/3 way up the blade. If your friends piece lacks the
HJ motto, it was produced after 1938. I've got a HJ Shuttlehoffer in
my collection. In good condition the piece would bring 175.00-250.00
Whatever he does, don't clean or sharpen the blade or put any type
of leather preservative on the leather part of the scabbard. Although
I've got daggers in my collection, my focus is propaganda post cards,
armbands, visor caps and medals with original award documents.

Buck

Buckshot · Post by **Buckshot** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 12:55 pm

Mrbigg, after seeing the Voos HJ piece the e-bay link, I wanted
to research it more, I couldn't find any known examples to match
it with. Voos pieces are scarce, but not rare. The buyers pictures
suck. Anyway, as far as RZM manufacturers, There were a large number
of them, but as I said earlier, HJ production was limited to a couple
dozen of them as every blade manufacturer could not set up to run
every type of dagger or knife. A lot of firms specialized in one or two
types. As far as what Mr. Vagrant said, it's sound advice, there were
a lot of parts knives, post war production runs and outright fakes.
Even vetrans who had collections after the war further "enhanced" their
collections with pieces bought or traded at shows or the local VFW,
some of these added pieces being garbage. Not to say that your friends
is not authentic. HJ's did not survive the war as good as a lot of pieces,
after all, they were given to kids, and they made great utility knives.
A lot of HJ members were forbidden to even sharpen the blades.
Some of the RZM makers we might recognize today... Boker, Herder,
Klass ( kissing cranes), Sauer, Hubertus. If you come across any more
TR items, don't hesitate to post them for an ID. If I don't know the
answer, I can find it. In my libraryI have about 130 volumes on the
third reich material alone.

always glad to ID a piece,

Buck

Buckshot · Post by **Buckshot** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 9:03 pm

just for clarification , in my first reply I said the blade to metal fit
looked sloppy ( on the e-bay) example, I meant to say that the
handle to metal fit looked sloppy. Where the bakelite grips meet
the pommel, there is a sloppy gap, a knife leaving the Voos factory
in '37 would have had a fit so tight that you couldn't get a piece of
paper between them. And as far as the scabbard being a replacement,
look at the leather, it looks quite new & shiny, 67 year old leather
could never possibly look that good. Also the scabbard appears to
have been re-painted as well. What does look good on the e-bay piece is the characteristic cross graining where it is RZM stamped.

Buck

Mors Profundis · Post by **Mors Profundis** » Tue Feb 24, 2004 6:31 pm

The most dangerous knife in the world to collect!
Many fakes, many repros, and the knife was standard for the German boy scouts for years(change the insignia, see what can happen?).
The design was made to make the knife resemble a bayonet, befitting the paramilitary nature of the HJ-and many German soldiers carried their old HJ Fahrtenmesser(hiking knives) off to war with them.
It's a heck of a good design, when made of good materials, and deserves better than being lumped in with the Nazi evil.
Another note-Nazi items were made in Austria, in large numbers, and it was legal to manufacture them with the original swastika markings, which was forbidden in the Federal Republic, even to this very day.
Beware!

mrbigg · Post by **mrbigg** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:13 am

thanks for the excellent information mr buckshot!

i have not had a chance to get my hands on the knife again to confirm my own brief sketch of the stamp and it's placement...

the guy who showed it to me says it's still his dad's, but he got it when his own dad passed away, and he was told he brought it back with him after the war was over. the blade on it was so heavily scuffed up that it wasn't until i did some snooping on ebay that i realized there was supposed to be some blade etching...the thing had been used obviously, but it wasn't sharp, nor did it seem to have balde loss from sharpening...

when he brings it in - i'll scan it or take a pic if i remember the camera!

cheers!

Blood_drinker · Post by **Blood_drinker** » Thu May 06, 2004 9:41 pm

mrbigg -

The stamp on the blade is a Waffenampt or RZM as
buckshot mentioned. On the blade were the words Blut und Ehre
( Blood and loyalty creedo of the Hitler Jungend ) that
has apparently been sharpened ( or worn off ) the blade you speak of.

There were a few manufacturers chosen for this by the NAZI party, and
as I understand it, near the war's end just about any knifemaker in the
crumbling Reich got a contract ( these examples' quality shows )

I'm going to do a Google search to see if Reichs relics has a
website or is still in business - they'd probably have more comprehensive
answers as that's there shicht and if they are, I'll modify this post
accordingly.

Blood_drinker