German Troops - Infantry Officers
Uniform: Light gray, possibly with a slightly darker thin stripe, white facings and shoulder straps, silver lace on collar and cuffs, silver buttons and cords. Pants tucked into the boots.
Footgear: brown boots calf high
Headgear: blueish gray wide brimmed hat with the facing color strip around the brim edge. Right side turned up with a small white button with red dot in center and black edge holding brim up.
Equipment: brown leather, sword has brass and black hand guard with silver scabbard.
Variations: Uniform: Summer Dress is white, facing color on edges of collars and cuffs. Pants on the outside of the boots. On field expeditions some Officers are shown mounted with slightly lighter uniforms than the Askari's below. Footgear: no differences noted. Headgear: white pith helmet (similar to British of the Zulu War period) no unit crest. Some photos show a great variety of headgear mostly non-issue. Pith helmet on field expedition same color as uniform. Equipment: no differences noted.
German Troops - Naval Officers
Uniform: white
Footgear: looks to be black shoes, some photos indicate a dark color puttee.
Headgear: white pith helmet or white officers cap.
Equipment: only sword shown with black belt, sword has brass and black hand guard with silver scabbard.
Variation: none noted
German Troops - Infantry Other Ranks
No depictions of Other Ranks serving East Africa
German Troops Naval Ratings
Uniform: generally depicted as white with black neck cloth.
Footgear: black shoes, puttee is black if worn.
Headgear: similar to British sailor caps with ribbons
Equipment: black leather
Variation: Headgear: wide brimmed soft hat with low crown in white, depicted with brim up, almost like British straw hat.
Native Askari
Uniform: manila colored, generally without facing colors
Footgear: brown shoe with black puttee
Headgear: Fez with neck cloth in manila color, generally with unit number in brass in front, some with short unit facing ribbon on right side front top of fez down maybe three inches long, only color identifiable is green so far.
Equipment: brown leather
Variation: Uniform: some are bare chested with knee length pants. Footgear: none Headgear: small cap similar to Gurkha in a dark color, black probably. Equipment: none for this unit, except for small sack without closing worn around neck in front bottom hangs to waist. Several photographs show native in white uniform no equipment with rifle or sword it is very possible that this is a native officer. Some SGT shown in manila color with stripes.
European personnel only numbered 165 in German East Africa 1889-1914. They were organized as follows:
-
2 Staff Officers
11 Captains
17 First Lts
15 Second Lts
60 SGTs
1 RSM
15 Artificers
26 Medical Orderlies
1 Paymaster
13 Paymaster Aspirants
1 Ordinance
3 Armorer
Native personnel included:
- 16 Officers
134 SGTs
1900 Men
These men were organized into 12 companies with Staff HQ in Dar-es-Salaam.
References
Karlheinz Graudenz and Hanns-Michael Schindler, Die deutschen Kolonien: 100 Jahre Geschichte in Wort, Bild und Karte, Augsburg, 1988.
R J Marrion, "German Kaiserliche Schutztruppen 1889-1914".
More German Colonial Uniforms Information
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© Copyright 1998 by Richard Brooks.
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