German Flatware

I have a 1941 German flatware stamped GK&F!!! It is a four piece one with a can opener, Fork, Spoon and knife. It slides in together to make one set. Anybody else have the same set? I got this from Universal Live Auctioneers internet auction website. A great place to get WW2 stuff is liveacutioneers.com

Hey there! I was talking with you today at Rockin' Retro. Welcome to the forum!

Normally we just post Commonwealth items here, but I'll give you a pass since you have such a nice TR collection. And more than likely someone here has the KFS set your talking about. I will post a pic of that waffen SS spoon I have in a bit...I have to find it first.

My bad, lol. I have a documentary that had one Canadian soldier who said that the German stuff, (Silverware) was better then his own so he did a swap for cigarettes for the flatware with the German P.O.W.S. One thing the Germans did excel in was quality where as we where and still are a quantity base nation. Quality uses lots of resources. 

You can build some of the most technologically advanced tanks in the world or manufacture the most appealing camouflage clothing issued, but if you cannot recover or repair those tanks nor sustain the ability to manufacture camouflage clothing, then I guess the mass production of the Allies was not so bad after all. I give the Germans full marks for innovative kit, but to go so far as to say that it was of a better quality then that manufactured by the Allies, particularly the Western Allies, is in my opinion a bit of stretch.

Take the tiger tanks King Tiger VS a Sherman. When a Sherman fired upon a Tiger it was like a tennis ball deflecting off a cement wall. It took a dozen Shermans in a hedge row in Falaise Gap to destroy one tiger. Take the ME109 VS a Spitfire. During the Battle of Britain the Germans used fuel injected planes and the British had a flaw in the Spitfire which was on a 45 degree angle the Spitfire would start pouring out oil and gas and fluids at the front engine. The Germans knew this. Now don't forget Malta the Henkiel bombers would take hit after hit with anti aircraft fire and they where hard to bring down. On the other hand too many resources cost the Axis the war.  

What you are confusing is a weapon's system capability with quality. The discussion point that you made was the quality of the German equipment better than that of the Allies. This basically boils down to was the quality of the manufactured product by General Motors, Montreal Locomotive Works, Hawker any other Allied company better or worse than that of Henkel, Bussing-Nag, Messerschmitt or any other Axis company? Quality has nothing to do with the kill ratio between weapons systems, it has to do with how well the product was made.

Quality can be discussed all day as I don't think that German WWII quality-wise was any better then that of the Western Allies and I also tend to feel that as the war progressed that the quality of some German equipment began to fall. That being said and as you stated, having the ability to mass produce vast quantities of war materiel supported by a sustainable supply line was one factor that lead to the defeat of the Axis powers.

Hey Ed - I know that at the end of the war German quality dropped especially when they made the Volksjager fighters the glue kept coming off as it was a cheap glue due to lack of resources.  How I look at quality and this is how the Germans did as well according to the documentaries I have and from talking to vets.

1) Takes a licking but still keeps ticking (I.E. Sherman VS Tiger tanks can be used over and over again with little problems, except for one major one none of the parts where compatible on a Tiger)

2) Is something made with skill.  (I.E. A Luger was made with 270 lath machine turns and was a fine gun engineering wise, or a Donier they where made with precision clock manufacturing techniques even the allies had trouble matching the quality and engineering of the Germans)

3) Something that can withstand the sands of time.  I.E. clothing or articles and materials that are not as easily to break down under weather conditions and environmental changes

Yes, pros and cons to both quality and quantity, but I am just saying that lots of vets even allies will say that they felt safer in a German tiger or a German machine.  The problem with the over qualitative manufacturing is that when you are loosing battles the quantity of weapons are not there and thus German soldiers would use Russian and Allied guns as they where more in supply when found.

At the end quantity did win even the allies where stumped over the precision and the quality of the axis stuff.

Choose your words correctly, are you sure the Allies were stumped over German precision and quality? Perhaps impressed, if that was indeed the case.

I'd like to continue this conversation more, but honestly, I don't have the resources at hand not the time to dedicate towards researching German industrial capacity. Thankfully that regime squandered what finite resources they had on overly complex machinery that in the end could not stem the tide of the advancing Allies and their less-complex but more easily mass-produced equipment.