BACKGROUND: The origins of the distinctive Shako has been somewhat shrouded with the passing of time with some military historians accrediting the French with its development in the 1780's, based on the design of the civilian top hat, while others acclaim that it was based on the Austro-Hungarian or Bavarian Casquette headgear that was introduced at roughly the same time. It is known, however, that the Shako was originally adopted by the Prussian army as a experimental model in 1801 and was the standard headgear utilized by Jäger and Schützen personnel during the Napoleonic Wars. The 1801 pattern shako went through numerous modifications and in March 1854 a new pattern was officially adopted by Jäger and Schnelle Truppen, (Light Infantry and Mobile Troops). Further minor modifications to the Shako occurred in 1860, 1888, 1891, 1892, 1895, 1897, and 1915. On June 17TH 1936, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler was appointed to the newly created position of Chef der Deutschen Polizei im Reichsministerium des Innern, (Chief of the German Police in the National Ministry of the Interior), effectively giving him full control of all police agencies within Germany. As a result of this appointment and the restructuring of all the separate German state police into a single national police force new regulations were instituted on June 25TH 1936 to bring about uniformity in dress for all police through-out the country. One of the new dress regulations was the incorporation the new style national eagle and swastika on Police insignia including the Shako.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Roughly, 85mm tall, 95mm wide, single piece, silver washed, die stamped alloy, construction, right facing eagle features out-stretched wings and is superimposed on a vertically oval, opened top, oak-leaf wreath with the eagles wings extending beyond the outer edges of the wreath with a roughly, 160mm wingspan. The eagle and the wreath are nicely convexed to fit the contours of a Shako and both have nice high relief detailing. The hollow backed reverse is a mirror image of the obverse and has both original, inset, soldered, screw threaded attachment screws intact. The reverse is well marked with the embossed manufacturers initials, "B & N", indicating manufacture by Berg & Nolte of Lüdenscheid. The eagle retains about 85% of its silver wash. Nice worn and used example.