Help with finding any garment from WW2 with this label

missy hyatt

missy hyatt

Registered Guest
Hi
I have been searching for at least 10 years for any garment with this label. I even have asked some friends who live in Germany if they would check out vintage stores but they are guys who just aren't in to shopping.
Scroll down to see the image, it is dark. The garments were produced between 1934-44 (probably not so much during the last few years of the war since most factories were doing war work).
Any info would be great
thanks
label 001.jpg
 
Have you tried out Ebay Germany (ebay.de)? At the moment nothing turns up, just old DEFA movies, but it might make sense to look there every now and then if something turns up. Make sure the location is set at "worldwide" when you search as well. I still see a lot of German sellers listing as shipping within Germany only, at least on the stuff I'm looking at, but just ask them for shipping rates to where you are, you never know.
I guess though that garments with that particular label would be fairly rare - as you point out right, at some point most factories would have been doing war work mostly, and people would wear out their clothes, and make do and mend with what they had.
ADEFA, as you probably know, stands for the Association of Aryan Garment Producers, so the garments themselves were produced by a lot of different companies, and from what I see there are also a few different ADEFA labels around.
 
I don't believe that label was being used after November 1938 - there was a statement by the head of the association to the effect that now that the German clothing industry was completely Aryanized that the manufacturer's association didn't need to exist anymore. I am assuming from that statement that the label was dropped and I have never read anything about the organization after that.
 
Midge said:
Have you tried out Ebay Germany (ebay.de)? At the moment nothing turns up, just old DEFA movies, but it might make sense to look there every now and then if something turns up. Make sure the location is set at "worldwide" when you search as well. I still see a lot of German sellers listing as shipping within Germany only, at least on the stuff I'm looking at, but just ask them for shipping rates to where you are, you never know.
I guess though that garments with that particular label would be fairly rare - as you point out right, at some point most factories would have been doing war work mostly, and people would wear out their clothes, and make do and mend with what they had.
ADEFA, as you probably know, stands for the Association of Aryan Garment Producers, so the garments themselves were produced by a lot of different companies, and from what I see there are also a few different ADEFA labels around.
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Hi thanks so much for the info, I have studied German history and WW2 for 20+ years. I am on ebay and German ebay all the time and it is just so hard to find it. Have you ever read book Fashion under Fascism? It is really good and talks about Italian fashion and the German ready to wear industry before 1933 and France during the occupation. If you ever come across any of the other labels I would love to see them. You know what ADEFA means but do you know what they meant by it?
Missy
 
Jonathan said:
I don't believe that label was being used after November 1938 - there was a statement by the head of the association to the effect that now that the German clothing industry was completely Aryanized that the manufacturer's association didn't need to exist anymore. I am assuming from that statement that the label was dropped and I have never read anything about the organization after that.
Click to expand...
Check out the book Fashion under Fascism, I believe it was used until they declared total war but I could be wrong. It was put in the garment as a extra label.
 
I wasn't familiar with ADEFA before reading Jonathan's excellent book "Fourties Fashion" but when you mentioned it, I remembered where I'd seen that before. I do know what they meant by it and it's well enough explained how this worked. I don't know the book "Fashion under Fascism" - I might check it out. I have a stash of 30s and 40s German fashion and/or sewing magazines in my collection that I have purely for the reason that they show fashions of the time and several actually still have the pattern sheets included. Can't remember seeing anything about ADEFA in it ever, but maybe I should have another look through them.
This website shows two different labels and has some information in German as well - but since you obviously know a lot about the subject, you may have come across it before:
Code: 
http://www.giselamueller.info/threadlagged/threadlagged/adefa.htm
 
I think Fashion under Fascism is where I read it. There aren't that many sources for wartime German fashion information and I read everything I could find in English. I checked and it was later than November 1938 - according to what I found it was on August 15, 1939 that the director of ADEFA announced that the goal of aryanizing the German garment industry had been realized and declared that the organization of ADEFA was now dissolved. Whether companies continued to use the ADEFA label after that date is not clear, but if you think about it by August 1939 any Jews working in the garment industry are either unknown to the authorities, not yet identified as Jewish because their ancestry has not been determined, or working in businesses for Jewish clients. Ironically, by 1941 there are Jews working in the garment industry again, but in labour camps making clothing for a variety of German companies under contract.

I have handled maybe six pieces with ADEFA labels and funnily enough they are all very mundane looking - they look as ordinary as any off-the-rack garment you could find from the period. I have one ADEFA labelled garment in the collection that is the plainest little black dress. Most German dealers I have spoken with about the label are either uninformed as to what the label means and may not mention it although suspect it might not be something good because of the eagle insignia, or do know what it means and are embarrassed or unwilling to sell it. I knew of one dealer who would snip the ADEFA labels out of the clothes she resold!
 
Very interesting! That link above that I posted actually claims that while ADEFA had been active before, the logo and label were only introduced by July 1st 1938 - which doesn't make a lot of sense. I find your point makes more sense to me - that there would have come the point where they would not have needed the label anymore. They would have needed it before that.
One interesting point that website makes at the end is, that the irony of the ADEFAs activities was, with breaking up the old structures in the fashion business and with the loss of creative talent and fashion business specialists through the emigration of Jews, the German fashion business was actually weakened - whilst the ADEFAs goal had been to strengthen it and to improve exports.
The book mentioned at the bottom of it, "Wie geistiges Kokain - Mode unterm Hakenkreuz" ("Like cocaine for the brain - fashion under the swastika") that the writer refers to is unfortunately out of print and the example I could find come at extortionate prices. I found a review of it though, from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which is pretty good, so it would probably be worth buying.

Most German dealers I have spoken with about the label are either uninformed as to what the label means and may not mention it although suspect it might not be something good because of the eagle insignia, or do know what it means and are embarrassed or unwilling to sell it. I knew of one dealer who would snip the ADEFA labels out of the clothes she resold!
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Makes sense! There's very little information to be found about it it seems, so people would be ignorant about it. And if they do know, I can understand their embarrassement.
 
I remember now reading about the logo being introduced quite late - there was a label before that actually spelled out 'made by Aryan hands', but sans logo. That really narrows the date on clothes with logos. The label I pictured in the book has the logo and the style of the coat (knee length clutch coat with padded shoulders is typically 1939 - 1940, but of course it could have been worn right through the war.
http://kickshawproductions.com/blog/?p=7999
 
My poor German is just good enough to read that one of the references says Adefa was established May 1933. I don't believe that eagle label shows up until 1938 - the label looked different before, as I recall.
 
Jonathan said:
I think Fashion under Fascism is where I read it. There aren't that many sources for wartime German fashion information and I read everything I could find in English. I checked and it was later than November 1938 - according to what I found it was on August 15, 1939 that the director of ADEFA announced that the goal of aryanizing the German garment industry had been realized and declared that the organization of ADEFA was now dissolved. Whether companies continued to use the ADEFA label after that date is not clear, but if you think about it by August 1939 any Jews working in the garment industry are either unknown to the authorities, not yet identified as Jewish because their ancestry has not been determined, or working in businesses for Jewish clients. Ironically, by 1941 there are Jews working in the garment industry again, but in labour camps making clothing for a variety of German companies under contract.

I have handled maybe six pieces with ADEFA labels and funnily enough they are all very mundane looking - they look as ordinary as any off-the-rack garment you could find from the period. I have one ADEFA labelled garment in the collection that is the plainest little black dress. Most German dealers I have spoken with about the label are either uninformed as to what the label means and may not mention it although suspect it might not be something good because of the eagle insignia, or do know what it means and are embarrassed or unwilling to sell it. I knew of one dealer who would snip the ADEFA labels out of the clothes she resold!
Click to expand...

OMG Jonathan
thank you so much, My friends in Germany act the same way like they have no clue. I have 2 original DRK uniforms and only one has the RZM tag, the other just has the size. I would love to see a picture of the dress with the label. I knew the clothes were so-so. My aunt is the one who told me about it. I am always asking people who deal in vintage about it and the European clothes of that period. Now I have found this site so maybe someone can tell me where I can find more. I use to live in NYC but now Florida ...thank goodness for the internet! As a WW2 living historian I try to wear only German, Italian or French - 30's and some 40s clothes since by the 40s they were at war but their was a big black market. So I would of had my red lipstick and stockings.
 
Jonathan said:
That's interesting that you found a reference in 1932 - the earliest I found was 1933, after the boycott of Jewish business took place in April.
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yeah that is weird that a reference was from 32 since the NSDAP did not come to power until Jan 33
 
Jonathan said:
I remember now reading about the logo being introduced quite late - there was a label before that actually spelled out 'made by Aryan hands', but sans logo. That really narrows the date on clothes with logos. The label I pictured in the book has the logo and the style of the coat (knee length clutch coat with padded shoulders is typically 1939 - 1940, but of course it could have been worn right through the war.
http://kickshawproductions.com/blog/?p=7999
Click to expand...
Thank you for the info, since I only get it from a 90 year old German Aunt and a few books. Most of my reference books are in German. I do have a lot of the Fashion/Women's Magazines during the time. Which is so contradictory since the Prototype German women was scrubbed face in a Dirndl and braids yet their magazines and Magda G. (she was head of a fashion Ministry for while) and most Berlin women dressed very stylish. Wasn't Germany the 2nd largest producer of Ready to wear garments before 35 or so?
 
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