Fantastic Luftwaffe grouping consisting of pilot gloves, flight helmet and documents. These items are all from the same individual. The pilot gloves are nice brown leather/ fur interior lined with cloth tags. They are very nice examples as shown. The summer flight pilot helmet is complete with electronics. This is a very nice lightly service worn headgear showing minor period stitch repairs in interior. Both are nice service worn items. Also shown are a rare set of paratrooper jump school documents. These items were picked up from the family roughly 35-40 years ago from local collector and have not been in any other collection.
Here is the historical background that was provided:
Obergefreiter Rudolf Baumann was a member of the 9. Staffel (9th Squadron) of Jagdgeschwader 3 “Udet” (Fighter Wing 3 “Udet”) when he participated in a jump training course at Fallschirmschule II (Paratropper School II) in Wittstock from 3-23 January 1944. To complete the course, a soldier had to take part in six jumps; however, Baumann, having only made four jumps, suffered from an illness and thus, didn’t initially pass the course. The second document dated 8 February 1944 shows that Baumann made the two additional jumps to complete the jump course, which qualified him as a Fallschirmschütze (Paratrooper). I have never heard of a pilot receiving paratrooper training before. They were usually just given a basic classroom instruction on what to do if they had to bail out. This leads me to believe that Baumann chose to transfer to a paratrooper unit, but if not, he would have been the most jump-qualified pilot in his squadron. Great set, COA accompanies.
