Original Item: Only One Available. This is a very nice early pattern German WWII Heer Army M-36 Tunic, showing moderate wear and repairs from service and in very good display condition. There is no maker tag on the collar, but the internal slash pocket still has the original label, which indicates it was made by well known tailor Wilhelm Holters of Berlin in 1939. Even better, we can still make out the name of the officer who owned it, which looks to read Kohler, Kraus. Research included on an index card in the lower left pocket indicates they were a member of the Panzerjäger-Abteilung 178, which was part of the 78. Infanterie-Division, later renamed the 78. Sturm-Division. It gives the basic makeup of the unit, as well as a listing of the campaigns it took part in, which include:

The French Campaign

The Russian Campaign:
- June 1941 Invasion Army Group Center
- 1941-1942 Bialavieza & Yelnya Bend - Moscow
- 1943 Kursck - Somolensk
- 1944 Munsk
- Sept. 1944 - Reformed in Konstanz
- Jan. 1945 Southern Poland

May 1945 - Surrendered in Czechoslovakia.

The tunic looks to be made from a cotton twill outer shell, not the usual wool material. It features four pockets with scalloped flaps and silvered pebbled aluminum buttons, and has a six button front closure, with two "hook and loop" fasteners for the collar. The buttons on the tunic are sewn directly to the fabric, not attached with metal circlips, and all are maker marked on the back, showing light wear. The interior is lined with gray green rayon twill, with white striped lightweight rayon lining in the sleeves. There is an internal slash pocket on the inner left side, as is standard.

The tunic is adorned with the usual rank and branch insignia used on German tunics. The attractive Army breast eagle is the correct officer's silver bullion hand embroidered type on a green background, and is very neatly hand stitched to the chest in a fashion typical of wartime German tailor work. It is only stitched to the outer layer of fabric, indicating installation when the uniform was made, so it has never been replaced. We're not sure why, but it has oxidized to a yellowish color over the years, but we have confirmed that it is definitely an Army eagle, not a Kriegsmarine one.

The collar is wrapped in a dark-green wool, has officer's field litzen collar patches on each side, which are woven from silver bullion thread with a dark green "badge cloth background matching the collar. The colored stripes on each are made from Rosa (Rose-pink) thread, which was the Waffenfarbe (corps color) during WWII for the Panzers (Armored Troops) and Panzerjäger (Tank Destroyers). The color is in good shape, but definitely shows wear and repairs from long service. It has bene restitched on most of the inner edge, and the rayon lining on the rear has been restitched as well.

The "sew-in" style company officers schulterklappen (shoulder boards) of this tunic are constructed with two rows of fine silver flatware "Russia Braid" double piping and have the correct rose pink piping around the edges. There are no rank "pips" installed, indicating the lowest officer rank of Leutnant (Lieutenant). There are some threaded loops on the left pocket and underneath, for awards that were removed in in the past.

Overall the tunic is in very good service worn condition, showing real period wear that simply cannot be duplicated. There are some wear holes on various areas of the tunic's outer shell, and the inside liner definitely has some repairs from the rayon faux silk becoming worn.

This is a uniform tunic that saw some real service during the war, most likely on the Eastern Front, and overall it displays very nicely. The tag and unit information give this tunic some great research potential. Ready to display!

Approximate Measurements:
Collar to shoulder: 9"
Shoulder to sleeve: 25.5”
Shoulder to shoulder: 15.5”
Chest width: 19"
Waist width: 16"
Hip width: 19.5"
Front length: 31.5"

The 78th Infantry Division (78. Infanterie-Division), later the 78th Sturm (Assault) Division, was a German infantry formation which fought during World War II. The unit was raised in August 1939 in Stuttgart, incorporating reservists from Baden-Württemberg, and its divisional symbol was a representation of the Ulm Minster Lutheran church.

and then transferred east to participate in Operation Barbarossa with Army Group Centre. The division advanced from the Polish border to the gates of Moscow, being halted on 3 December 1941 by the Soviet defenses. By January 7, 1942, the division had been pushed back from Ruza to Gzhatsk where the Soviet winter offensive was halted. The division then formed the South East flank of the Rzhev-Vyazma Salient. Late in 1942 it suffered heavy losses in the Rzhev battles.

At the beginning of 1943 it was reorganized as the 78th Sturm Division (a new divisional symbol, an armored fist, being adopted, derived from the artificial hand of Götz von Berlichingen) with additional adjustments to its strength and organization over the next several months. Each of its three infantry regiments was redesignated as a Sturm-Regiment. The designation Sturm (assault) reflected the division's increased strength, which eventually included subordinate Sturmgeschutz (assault gun) Heavy Mortar and Nebelwerfer (rocket launcher) battalions and a tank destroyer unit equipped with Marder IIs, as well as extra regimental artillery support. With its new organisation, the division took part in Operation Citadel as part of the XXIII Corps of the Ninth Army, being involved in the fighting at Ponyri. During the following Soviet Counteroffensive the division was first transferred from the Ninth Army to the Second Panzer Army in July, then again to the Fourth Army in September where the division was forced back to the Panther-Wotan line East of Orsha.

During the June - July 1944 Soviet offensive against Army Group Centre, Operation Bagration, the division was assigned to defend the main Moscow - Minsk road and the town of Orsha. During the fighting the division was destroyed, having failed to break out of an encirclement east of Minsk on the night of 5/6 July. Surviving elements were taken over by the 565th Volksgrenadier Division.

78th (Volks) Grenadier Division
Later that month, the division was reconstituted as the 78th Grenadier Division, by renaming the 543rd Volksgrenadier Division then in the process of forming. In October 1944 it was renamed as 78th Volksgrenadier Division, and in early 1945 renamed again to 78th Volks-Sturm Division, being assigned to Army Group Centre. It was among the forces of the First Panzer Army pushed from Upper Silesia into Czechoslovakia, where its troops surrendered to the Soviets near Olomouc at the end of the war in May.

Terms such as M40 and M43 were never designated by the Wehrmacht, but are names given to the different versions of the Model 1936 field tunic by modern collectors, to discern between variations, as the M36 was steadily simplified and tweaked due to production time problems and combat experience.

Field Tunic (Feldbluse) Model 1936
When the NSDAP came to power in early 1933 the Reichswehr, the armed forces of the Weimar Republic, were near the end of a two-year project to redesign the Army Feldbluse (field-blouse). Beginning in that year the new tunic was issued to the Reichsheer and then the rapidly growing Wehrmacht Heer, although minor design changes continued to be made until the appearance of the standardized Heeres Dienstanzug Modell 1936. The M36 tunic still retained the traditional Imperial and Reichswehr uniform color of grey-green "field gray" (feldgrau) wool, but incorporated four front patch pockets with scalloped flaps and pleats (on Reichswehr tunics the lower pockets were internal and angled). The front was closed with five buttons rather than the previous eight, and the collar and shoulder straps were of a dark bottle-green instead of the Reichswehr grey. Compared to the Weimar-era uniforms the skirt of the feldbluse was shorter and the tailoring was more form-fitting due to Germany's adoption of mechanized warfare: soldiers now spent much time in the confined space of a vehicle and a shorter jacket was less likely to pick up dirt from the seats. It also included an internal suspension system, whereby a soldier could hang an equipment belt on a series of hooks outside of the tunic. These hooks were connected to two straps inside the lining, which spread the weight of equipment without having to use external equipment suspenders. The M36 was produced and issued until the very end of the war, though successive patterns became predominant.

SS field uniforms were of similar appearance externally but to fit their larger patches had a wider, feldgrau collar, and the lower pockets were of an angled slash type similar to the black or grey SS service-dress. The second button of an SS Feldbluse was positioned somewhat lower, so that it could be worn open-collar with a necktie. Due to supply problems the SS were often issued army uniforms.