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Thursday, August 21, 2008

Nazi Army Men





















Nice ships, they are Winter Relief premiums. In the 1920's in Germany their were few social services. and so political parties often filled that gap. The Nazi Party collected money to give to people to needed money to help pay for heating expenses in the winter. In exchange you would get a small premium as a token of thanks.




















I have included a couple of HaT WWII German soldiers to show the relative size of these premiums. The ships are made of a hard plastic, like styrene, and are two halves glued together. There is a wave down the side of each ship.





















These are the first ever small scale plastic army men. While not exactly to an exact scale, they are just about 1/72nd scale. These figures are also two parts glued together.
























Again, two HaT figures have been used for scale. These old German figures are very close in size to the original Airfix figures, German Infantry and Infantry Combat Group.




















They also did slightly larger figures too. These, like the others are rather flat, but have nice details. The radio set is particularly nice. I am looking for more of these, I have seen a few others, some men on horseback, and some guys in an assault boat. If you have more information about these grandfathers of the hobby, post a comment.


2 comments:

m60a3tanker said...

Very interesting find. To have ships and figures of soldiers in plastic at that date must have been a real treat for young boys. There are probably some vast collections, if you can find them.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek said...

Yes, I imagine that the items would have been very popular with young boys. Ships, troops and even aircraft. I also suspect that there must be vast numbers out there if you can find them...