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Re: New book about German manufacturer codes of WW2 !!
I had purchased this book from Michael in late September and had promised him a review, but got distracted in the meantime. Perhaps it is fortunate, as Michael has well described his book and provided the sample illustrations which I would have had to FTP.
As noted by Michael, the text is written in both German and English. The German sections contain some illustrations not repeated in the English sections. The table of contents for the English sections is as follows:
The evolution and application of production codes 42
The secret armament code letters, code numbers and abbreviations (1925-1940) 46
Encoded years of production 49
The letter code system (1940-1945) 50
Other code systems (54)
Reaction of the Allies (56)
The problems of assignment and localisation 57
Some tips for the reader 59
This, however, just provides an overview of German codes. The meat of the book follows and is in German, but pretty understandable even to the non-German speaker.
Secret armament code letters, code numbers and abbreviations - listed by code - 63
Secret armament code letters, code numbers and abbreviations - listed by company - 265
Markings of the suppliers's Association of German Medal Manufacturers (LDO) 477
Indentity (Identity?) numbers of the Reichzeugmeisterei of the NSDAP (RZM) 481
List of References 504
As Michael has noted, the code listing by company is complete up to code ozz. Apparently after that, the list was not updated and he has had to scrounge for subsequent codes, which he has done on pages 258 to 263. The last code noted is zyf, for J. Kienzle Uhrenfabriken AG/Zünder, Borduhren Luftwaffe of Zentrale Schwenningen/Neckar (BW). Clearly, Michael has discovered why the Germans lost the war when they did - they were running out of available codes!!!
The listing actually starts with number codes on page 64 starting with 1A, and runs up to 999 on page 89. So, here, apparently realizing that the coding system they had picked just wasn't going to hack it, they started over with aaa and, even then, as noted above, they were running out of 3 character designations by the end of the war. Michael cross references the early number codes to the redesignated letter codes where the information is available.
For those wanting to identify the manufacturer of some unearthed part, this book should prove to be invaluable.
Regards,
Richard
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