Germans in French Helmets


Against the French, the Germans lost, then won.  Imperial Germany went down to defeat in 1918, losing the Great War against a France that was virtually bled dry and standing on its last legs.  The victory was pyrrhic, no one side won the War.  A little over twenty years later, Germany came back for round two, under Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, defeating the French and the British armies in one-fell swoop early in 1940.  What the first war could not give, the second provided...utter and humiliating defeat...revenge served up cold.  The Nazis even found the railcar in which Germany signed away their nation in 1918, and forced France to sign theirs away in the exact same location.


With victory, came spoils.  Tons of French war material captured by the Nazis, uniforms, tanks, artillery...and helmets...Adrian helmets.  The Casque Adrian, was designed by General August-Louis Adrian using design elements from helmets firefighters were wearing in Paris.  Produced in 1915, this new helmet would hopefully allay the horrific conditions of war on the Western Front. Cloth hats don't stop metal...and although a direct hit would pierce the helmet and still kill the wearer, having a shell of steel about your head could ward off a bit of shrapnel or the stray bullet.


There are two versions of the French Adrian helmet, the Modele 1915 and the Modele 1926.  The differences between the two are in the construction.  The WWI helmet is constructed of five separate stamped steel parts riveted together, the body, front and rear visor, the emblem on the front, and the comb that went on top to reinforce the helmet's strength. The later design, the Mle. 1926 was reduced to three parts, a fully stamped steel shell and a comb stamped from aluminum and the front insignia.


Mle. 1915

Mle. 1926


Nazi Germany did not let these helmets go to waste.  It appears that most of the French helmets captured by the Germans were the Model 1926, however, it is conceivable that Model 1915 helmets were also recovered, but there's not enough photographic evidence or extant examples to show the Mle. 1915 being utilized by the Nazis.  There is one exception, and we'll get to that towards the end.  Adrians were issued to the Germans to support troops only.  No front-line German soldier was given a French helmet to wear.  However, it took most of Germany's on-hand stock of their own just to outfit the heads of their fighting men, because they didn't have enough for the men in the rear.  This was an issue for the Nazis throughout the entirety of WWII.  Between 1935 and 1937, before Germany's entrance into the Second World War, Nationalist China orders 220,000 German M1935 helmets.  The existing stocks were depleted, and the one major company producing the new helmet for the German armed forces, Eisenhüttenwerk AG, struggled to completely fill the order, with newly manufactured supplies going to China, and not the Wehrmacht.  This is why many photographs of German soldiers early in WWII show front-line German troops wearing a German helmet from the last war, the Model 1916 Stahlhelm which was re-worked and re-issued to Hitler's Army.


Chinese M1935 Helmet


With that said, you will see French helmets being worn by the German Luftshutz (essentially air-raid wardens), The German Red Cross, and the Volkssturm, Germany's last ditch army of old men, women, boys, and girls...



French Mle. 1926 Helmet. Captured by the Nazis and issued to the Luftshutz, then re-issued to the Volkssturm in 1944-1945.











German Volkssturm soldier defending the Anhalt Train Station in Berlin in 1945, wearing a French M1926 helmet.

The one exception to German troops wearing a WWI French helmet would be in 1919. Bavaria was racked by civil war after Germany's defeat in the Great War. Every faction, from communists to royalists to government troops were fighting in the streets to fill the vacuum left by the abdication of the Bavarian King. Hodgepodge units formed by mostly of ex-army soldiers and sailors called Freikorps were employed to fight and crush the German communists who were emboldened by the revolution in Russia and wanted to establish that system in their defeated nation. One hotbed of fighting was the former Kingdom of Bavaria, which was being overrun with communist insurgents trying to establish the Bavarian Soviet Republic. One Freikorps unit fighting against this was the Freikorps Bayreuth. For some odd reason, many of the soldiers in this unit were issued or acquired Model 1915 French helmets. The French emblem was removed, and the helmet was painted dark grey.






Images of the Freikorps Bayreuth, 1919...
French WWI helmets with German WWI uniforms.

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