S24354 OCCUPIED HOLLAND M27 DOUBLE DECAL "SCHALKHAAR" POLICE HELMET. (Holländisch Stahlhelm M27)  

BACKGROUND: On May 10^TH 1940 the Germans unleashed their army in the invasion of Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg resulting in the capitulation of the Dutch army four days later on May 14^TH. As with other states the Germans had occupied they soon began utilizing the armaments industry of Holland to make up for short falls in German armaments production and also confiscated large stocks of assorted military equipment including helmets. Most of the confiscated equipment was reissued and utilized by second line German personnel allowing German produced equipment to be issued to front line personnel. The Dutch originally adopted a steel helmet in the late 1920's and by the mid-1930's they were purchasing their helmets from Romania. The Dutch and Romanian helmets were identical except for the color of the paint applied and the inclusion of the Dutch coat-of-arms emblem. After the invasion of Holland the German’s attempted to reorganize the separate Dutch police forces into a single Communal police force that came under the auspices of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Himmler purged the Dutch police of unreliable personnel and recruited roughly 3,000 suitable demobilized Dutch soldiers who were given special training at the Dutch Police school in Schalkhaar near Apeldoorn. As a result of the schools location the new Communal police force was referred to as the Schalkhaar police force. Schalkhaar police personnel were outfitted with new black uniforms and reissued Dutch helmets. 

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Reissued, Schalkhaar police Dutch M27 stamped, sheet steel construction helmet with scalloped sides and an extended, flared, rear neck guard visor. The exterior of the helmet retains about 75% of its black over-paint with numerous small scuffs and scrapes revealing spots of the original olive drab paint and the base metal with light surface spotting. The front center of the helmet has the brazed on Dutch coat-of-arms which features an embossed, crowned, rampant lion clutching a sword in one paw and three arrows in the other paw on a vertically oval base with a horizontally ribbed background field. The right side of the helmet has a white, exploding grenade decal which is retained about 95% and the left side of the helmet has a Dutch national tri-color shield decal which is retained about 90%. All seven small dome headed liner retaining rivets are intact. The reverse neck guard visor has a small horizontal cut-out. The interior forward and reverse visors have been over-painted black while the interior crown is still in its original olive drab paint. The interior of the helmet has a three pad, blackened leather liner which is fully intact with its original fit adjustment tie string. The liner consists of three separate pads with two fingers to each and an ersatz padding to the reverse. The liner pads each have a stamped, repeating crosshatch pattern and alloy grommets for the tie string. The reverse section of the lining has the addition of a unique, downwardly extended blackened leather panel with an integral fit adjustment strap with a corresponding, sheet metal pronged roller buckle. The helmet comes complete with a blackened leather chinstrap with a sheet metal length adjustment gripper buckle. The chinstrap is secured to the helmets liner band with swivel bale metal loops. The integral liner fit adjustment buckle and the chinstrap buckle both show light to moderate surface spotting. The interior reverse neck guard apron has an unknown stamped mark that appears to be, "39 P", and in likelihood is the manufactures code. Unique reissued helmet.

Info added May 2nd/2006

The Dutch factory VERBLIFA produced the M22, M28 and M34 and M38 helmets. The Romanians purchased the M34 and called them M39 (I believe). They had the double C insignia added by Verblifa. Later in the war the Germans supplied the Romanians with Dutch M34 and M28 helmets, without insignia.. The Dutch did not purchase helmets in Romania, rather the other way round.

Thank you Emil for the additional info.

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