EUROPEAN HELMET BOOK (EUROPAISCHE HELME).

A magnificent book, first published in 1971 in the then East Germany relating to the history of armoured and military helmets starting from the middle ages to date. It was extremely unusual for a book like this to be published in the then communist East Germany in the 1970's. It was an extremely rare book at the time and when it found its way onto the European collectors market was highly sought-after. The book contains 402 pages with virtually every page having a photograph of some form of military helmet from all of the states of Europe. The countries included in the book are too many to mention. There is obviously a predominance towards German helmets but every other country is covered in steel helmets, armoured helmets, soft helmet and leather helmets, the text of course is all in German. The book was put together using all of the helmets that belonged to the old German History Museum in the then DDR. We have had a copy of this book in our library for many years. On a recent trip to Dresden we found this lone copy sitting on the bookshelves of the Rustkammer in Dresden. It is complete with its original fly leaf, which has a few scuffed edges and still with its original card box. We were informed this was the very last copy available to the museum. Published by the Militarverlag Der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Interestingly on the last page the name of Egon Krenz is printed in the list of contributors to the book, Egon Krenz was the last leader of the DDR and was sentenced to 6' years in prison for manslaughter for his crimes during the course of the DDR regime. A must for any military library.

Code: 51920