What German Blouse is this?

[Tempestzzzz]

I was watching the movie VALKYIRE and the actor Kenneth Branagh [playing General Henning Von Tresckow ] was wearing this officers blouse. Was this green common for Generals-Officers OR all ranks in the summertime? M36? Wool? Honestly never saw a blouse this green.

 

Edited July 23, 2016 by Tempestzzzz

[Michael Emrys]

13 hours ago, Tempestzzzz said:

Honestly never saw a blouse this green.

That might just be an artifact of the movie making process in this case. Sometimes a film or a scene in a film will be tinted to create a certain mood. Seems to me that his boots have a blueish-green tint in this shot that would not have been their natural color in normal sunlight. In other words, it's not a big deal.

Michael

[Tempestzzzz]

Thanks Michael Emrys. Maybe-here is a scene from YouTube. I couldn't find any graphic, color plate or color picture to match this blouse to that particular time period depicted 43-44. All kind of blouses in these scenes for comparison. May have been a deliberate production value to make the character stand apart.

 

[StieliAlpha]

Don't worry about colour reproduction.

You can't compare colour charts to screen appearance. Then there is the technical issue. Colours differ widely, depending on kind of application, base material, wear (in this case: washing), ageing, environment, light, etc.

And the human factor: What I see, is most probably not what you see. Remember the story with the blue-golden dress, a few years ago. Actually is was black and white, but 70% of the people (including me) saw as a clear blue and golden.

Finally, as Michael indicated, movies show you what you want to see. Nice example: Napoleonic Movies. The Brit's uniforms are always in bright scarlet. In fact they were more like pink, due to the washing. And patched with patches in all available colours.

We had a similar discussion about the colour of tanks on scale models, on photos and real life examples, which had been dug out of the mud after 50 years.

In the end, the conclusion was: As long as the model (or here your movie) looks ok, it's probably right.

[Michael Emrys]

One more observation about the original frame, you'll note that it was shot in fairly dense forest in fog, which tends to give a blueish-green tint to everything. Notice that the director has kindly provided the headlights on the vehicle. This provides your eye with a contrasting color key which then accents the overall blueish-green cast of the photo. And the effect of the lighting gives a greyish cast to Branagh's face. I'd be willing to bet, although I haven't seen this movie, that at this point in the story Tresckow is contemplating something dire (his suicide perhaps?). Like I said, directors and cinematographers often use tricks like this to convey powerful but non-obvious elements of a story.

Michael

[Tempestzzzz]

Yeah you nailed the scene.

And I would agree with your observation about directors and cinematographers.

Recommend the movie. Cruise as Stauffenberg??? He is very believable.

 

 

[Tempestzzzz]

StieliAlpa-

Forgot to thank you for your observation to. Thanks.

[StieliAlpha]

12 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

One more observation about the original frame, you'll note that it was shot in fairly dense forest in fog, which tends to give a blueish-green tint to everything. Notice that the director has kindly provided the headlights on the vehicle. This provides your eye with a contrasting color key which then accents the overall blueish-green cast of the photo. And the effect of the lighting gives a greyish cast to Branagh's face. I'd be willing to bet, although I haven't seen this movie, that at this point in the story Tresckow is contemplating something dire (his suicide perhaps?). Like I said, directors and cinematographers often use tricks like this to convey powerful but non-obvious elements of a story.

Michael

My assumption was, they made the uniform "greener" to stand out of the blue. Imagine green-gray on blue-green. You would hardly see the guy.

But the bottom line, indeed: Colours are no fixed value.

As described in the other thread: Even the RAL system is based on comparing colour mixes to a sample. Not very much scientific precision.

[Michael Emrys]

5 hours ago, StieliAlpha said:

As described in the other thread: Even the RAL system is based on comparing colour mixes to a sample. Not very much scientific precision.

Interesting thought. I would expect that somewhere colors are defined as light of certain clearly and precisely defined frequencies. But artists have always approached it as mixes of pigments, which as it works out means that each defined color is actually in most cases a hodge-podge of frequencies.

Michael

[Sgt Joch]

As I recall there was a wide variation in color shading of wool used in Heer uniforms, from green to Brown grey. The early war uniforms were more greenish but officers had more freedom in choices of uniforms. For example, notice that Stauffenberg in the movie, as in RL tended to wear lighter grey uniforms.

As to the movie itself, I find it very good and on the whole well made and accurate, but then it's hard to fault a movie that uses actual working Ju-52s. The teletype room which you see a few times is a faithful reproduction, many of the machines are of ww2 vintage.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Sgt Joch

[StieliAlpha]

2 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

Interesting thought. I would expect that somewhere colors are defined as light of certain clearly and precisely defined frequencies. But artists have always approached it as mixes of pigments, which as it works out means that each defined color is actually in most cases a hodge-podge of frequencies.

Michael

Hi Michael

Nope, the RAL system (like many others, e.g. BS 4800) really is only a comparison system. Basically, somebody once made a paint spot on a paper and defined "This stone grey". You have to remember, RAL almost 100 years old. Nowadays, paint suppliers use fixed receipies, of course, to produce a standard appearance of a colour. Well, probably back then it was similar: A little of this, a little of that and we call the result "stone grey".

The NHS system is more scientific. Colours are defined by sets of spectral colours. That's why NHS knows millions of different colours and RAL only 200  or so.

 

 

[Tempestzzzz]

3 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

As I recall there was a wide variation in color shading of wool used in Heer uniforms, from green to Brown grey. The early war uniforms were more greenish but officers had more freedom in choices of uniforms. For example, notice that Stauffenberg in the movie, as in RL tended to wear lighter grey uniforms.

 

Yes in the movie and in this photo taken July 15th it is pretty obvious the lighter grey blouse on Stauffenberg.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Tempestzzzz

[Vergeltungswaffe]

You're likely correct, but looking at all the people in the picture, it almost makes me wonder if Stauffenberg is standing in sunlight, while the other's in the foreground are mostly in shade.

[Sgt Joch]

so I rewatched "Valkyrie" last night, great movie.

The color of the uniforms does shift, but there are explanations for this. WW2 German Uniforms were not uniformly grey, but grey-green to grey-brown, with variations in hue especially as the war went on. You can see how many of the principals have uniforms which have slightly different hue. Secondly, the filmmakers used a slightly washed out palette to give the film more of a WW2 feel, it is not as noticeable as in SPR or BOB, but noticeable if you look closely. Because of that the color of the uniforms changes constantly from dark brown-grey to grey-green to dark or light green depending on the lighting. Stauffenberg/Cruise is different since in the second half he wears a light grey uniform which shows up uniformly as grey.

 

[Michael Emrys]

7 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

The color of the uniforms does shift, but there are explanations for this. WW2 German Uniforms were not uniformly grey, but grey-green to grey-brown, with variations in hue especially as the war went on. You can see how many of the principals have uniforms which have slightly different hue.

This is true. For instance, Hitler wore the uniform of the Nazi party which was a shade of brown. The Navy, Luftwaffe, and SS all had their own uniforms that varied in subtle and not so subtle ways. But I also wonder if slight changes in appearance as the war wore on were due to inconsistencies in the color film and processing used at the time of the war. I see the same thing in pics of the Allies too.

Michael

[DasMorbo]

I researched the topic of German uniform clors back in my scale-modelling days. So this information is some years old.

Result: From the start of the war up until 1942 the Whermacht used the "classic" greyish fieldgray. After that they switched to a more greenish fieldgray for better camuflage properties, similar the one seen in von Treskows uniform. By the end of the war the color switched to a very brownish filedgray, not clear why, propably due to declining industry.

Add into the mix lighting, variation between producers, washing, different qualities of fabrics (Treskows uniform is almost certainly tailor-made with high-quality fabric, which was common with German staff officers) and you got a thousand different hues.