When modern media wants a group of baddies to look badass, itâll often borrow design elements from Nazi uniforms. Itâs not hard to understand why; the Nazis famously had their uniforms designed by professional fashion designers, including runway mogul Hugo Boss, and it worked wonderfully in terms of giving Nazi troops a stylish and intimidating public image.
Whatâs less well known, however, is how ridiculously terrible those uniforms were for any purpose other than looking smart.
Let me give you an example: suspenders. Back in the 1930s, the modern tactical harness hadnât yet been developed. Instead, soldiers would wear a sturdy pair of leather suspenders in order to help distribute the weight of their ammo belts (which could be substantial - bullets arenât light!). Hitler didnât care for that - he thought it would make his troops look like farmers. Instead, he commissioned his uniform designers to come up with a complicated system of internal suspenders that could be worn under the uniform jacket, with metal hooks projecting from special holes near the jacketâs waistline. The idea was that the ammo belt would rest on the hooks, thus allowing it to be supported without disrupting the jacketâs clean lines.
The problem? The systemâs designers, being accustomed to crafting for the runway, had completely overlooked that soldiers sometimes need to move quickly. At any pace quicker than a brisk walk, the ammo belt would bounce off of the hooks and slide down the wearerâs torso, often tripping him in the process. Worse, news of the issue didnât filter back to the high command until the uniforms had already been widely distributed, so it was impossible to fix in an economical fashion. The Nazi troops eventually resorted to wearing external suspenders over the internal suspenders in order to keep their ammo belts in place, thus entirely defeating the purpose.
Then there are the cold-weather jackets, made infamous by the Nazisâ disastrous Winter Campaign against Russia in 1941-1942. At the time, the standard cold-weather jacket in use by most armies consisted of heavy quilted fabric stuffed with torn-up cotton. Hitler didnât like that at all; in his opinion, it made it look like his troops were wearing blankets. So he had each soldier issued an individually tailored winter jacket made of suit-grade fabric and lined with fur (sourced from civilian clothing seized from death camp inmates, because of course it was).
You can probably guess where this is going. Predictably to anyone whoâs not a Nazi fashion designer, the fine fabric of the jackets wasnât tightly woven enough to stop the wind. The fur, meanwhile, harboured lice and fleas, stank abominably when wet, and was impossible to launder in the field. Theyâd managed to issue their troops dry clean only winter apparel, in a campaign that would send them far from their supply lines. That the weather ended up killing more Nazis than the Russian army should thus come as no surprise.
And these arenât outliers. Virtually every element of the Nazi uniform made up for its smart styling by being ridiculously impractical. The officers often had it worst of all; their uniforms were expertly tailored to make their builds look trim and powerful, at the cost of being stuffy, uncomfortable, and difficult to move around it. Indeed, some officersâ uniforms were so smartly tailored that they couldnât sit down without taking their pants off. Yeah, let that image roll around in your head for a moment or two.
The upshot is that whenever I see baddies in a movie or a TV show with clearly Nazi-inspired uniforms, my first thought is less âwhoa, badass!â and more âthese men are about to be murdered by their own trousersâ.
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