Original Item: Only One Available. Nice quality, 1939 pattern, earth brown wool/rayon blend tunic with a fine whipcord weave. Tunic features a five button front closure with a chocolate brown collar. Tunic has two pleated patch breast pockets with straight edged button down flaps and hip pockets with forward edge curved button down flaps. Left pocket has award loops for one badge. Reverse vertical tail skirt vent. Left sleeve has a unit assignment shield hand stitched on (original stitching). Original pinkback medal ribbon bar over left breast pocket. Black machine woven rayon base with machine woven inverted spade head in silver/aluminum flat wire with red "133/5". Nice pair of Areitsfuhrer shoulder straps. Rank pips are missing from the boards, but would be a simple restoration to add them back. Suburb matched pair of high quality collar tabs, with original stitching. Original SA Sports armband to the left sleeve. Tunic interior fully lined in gold/tan ribbed rayon with white striped sleeves. Lining has a horizontal slash left breast pocket and a brown wool reinforced diagonal slash to reverse of exterior left hip pocket for dagger hangers. Buttons are all the silver washed pebbled type and most retain all of their silver wash. Buttons look to be original stitching. Tunic in overall excellent condition.
Approximate Measurements:
Collar to shoulder: 9”
Shoulder to sleeve: 25”
Shoulder to shoulder: 17”
Chest width: 19”
Waist width: 19”
Hip width: 23”
Front length: 28"
The basis of the RAD, Reichsarbeitsdienst, (National Labor Service), dates back, at least, to 1929 with the formation of the AAD (Anhalt Arbeitsdienst) and the FAD-B (Freiwillingen Arbeitsdienst-Bayern). Shortly after AH’s appointment as Chancellor in Jan 1933, the NSDAP consolidated all labor organizations into the NSAD (Nationalsozialist Arbeitsdienst), a national labor service, under the control of Reichsarbeitsführer Konstatin Hierl. It served as an agency to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the German economy, militarize the workforce and indoctrinate it with NSDAP ideology. It was the official state labor service, divided into separate sections for men and women.
On June 26 1935 the NSAD was officially re-designated RAD, and from then onward, men aged between 18 and 25 may have served six months before their military service. During World War II compulsory service also included young women and the RAD developed to an auxiliary formation which provided support for the Wehrmacht armed forces.
In April 1934 Hierl had developed a uniform, including the distinctive "Robin Hood" style service cap. The design of the cap was based on a cross between a traditional style peasant cap and the traditional hunters cap. Originally the caps were issued with rank distinction piping with black piping for the EM/NCO ranks of Arbeitsmann to Truppführer, silver piping for company and field grade Officer’s ranks of Obertruppführer to Oberstarbeitsführer and gold piping for General Officer’s ranks of Generalarbeitsführer to Reichsarbeitsführer. In 1940 the use of the black piping for the EM/NCO ranks was discontinued but the silver and gold Officer’s piping remained in use until the end of the war.
