Nice picture! But why did the jerries put a Matchless G3/WO carrier on this BSA...?

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They've made the carrier into a makeshift pillion seat. Looks like they removed the toolbox to aid fitting pillion footrests.

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Hey ! that's my mum's bicycle !! :joy:

whats the funnel looking thing between the oil tank and rear wheel? a flag pole holder??

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It's a big rubber pillion foot rest. Ron

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No, in my opinion it's not a Matchless rack, but difficult to see.

Lex

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We have seen more of these pictures of German soldiers with a BSA.
For some strange reason it's always the most beautifull model, the early ones !
(or did they just have good taste...:thinking_face: )

Although they of course captured many in the Middle East and Greece, it was never on the scale of the Fall of France and they were fewer and fairly early models too.

I often think looking at the photos "You only smiled while you were winning'....It looks as if these two have just heard that their next posting is to be out east...

Military Police...They have to look serious....Ian

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German twins with the British single

I've tried to find out the origin of those metal plates they are wearing. no result yet.
I am not sure it has anything to do with the MP.
In 1977 the 'Sergeant of the Week' used to wear something very similar around his neck.
Don't know if that piece of silverware was a original Dutch forces decoration or that it perhaps was a relic once 'liberated' from our eastern neighbors. anyone here know more about those plates ?

Don't those plates signify German military police? The Feldgendarmerie.

It's called a 'Gorget'....Worn by German military police until 1945....Ian

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Ah, o.k. ....well I am pretty sure the one that was worn did not have that written on it ! :sweat_smile:

Just looked it up; it was a Officer of Piket gorget, I seem to have remembered that as a Sergeant of the Week...:grin:



Hi Ron, (comment on below) yes thats it, and we cloggies do have our very own Teutonic aberrations haha

but, joke aside, it was worn by the person who had that weeks duty in all matters of running the Company, overlooking supplies etc. In the Netherlands that has no link with the Military Police. Feldgendarmerie was very likely a similar 'job' within the Wehrmacht.

The Gorget goes back to "suit or armour" days, and is worn nowadays as a piece of regalia......The Germans were very good at this sort of "theatrical" attire. Ron

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['...Feldgendarmerie units were generally given occupation duties in territories directly under the control of the Wehrmacht. Their duties policing the areas behind the front lines ranged from straightforward traffic control and population control to suppression and execution of partisans and the apprehension of enemy stragglers.

When combat units moved forward out of a region, the Feldgendarmerie role would formally end as control was then transferred to occupation authorities under the control of the Nazi Party and SS. But Feldgendarmerie units are known to have assisted the SS in committing war crimes in occupied areas. Author Antony Beevor explores some well-documented cases of their participation in his book Stalingrad. Also, Felgendarmerie units took active part in Jew hunting operations, including in Western Europe.

But by 1943 as the tide of war changed for Nazi Germany, the Feldgendarmerie were given the task of maintaining discipline in the Wehrmacht. Many ordinary soldiers deemed to be deserters were summarily executed by Feldgendarmerie units. This earned them the pejorative Kettenhunde (English: chained dogs) after the gorget they wore with their uniforms...']

They seem to have been mainly involved in 'policing' duties but including the more extreme end of that description...Ian

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The nickname of those Germam MP's was 'Kettenhunde', due to that metal plate. They were not very popular within the German army.

Bastiaan

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The Feldgendarmerie did serve side by side with the Dutch civilian police in cases where Germany unfriendly persons were involved.
My dad was taken from his home by one of each when he was visiting his parents while actually being in hiding for dodging the required forced labour in Germany. He had been in hiding since 1941 but was caught in april 1944. Almost died Christmas 1944 due to starvation and exhaustion in Southern Germany. The advance of the Americans saved him in the end. Some Germans began to become more human then.
I assume the Feldgendarmerie was also keeping an eye on the Dutch police. Not all of them collaborated.

Cheers,

Rob

email (option): wd16h@telfort.nl