Gents,

 

This is an Imperial German spike helmet (Pickelhaube) for an Official (Beamte). Beamte were, generally speaking, civil service officers who held officer rank in the military or civil law enforcement. A Military Official could be a Dentist or a Gunsmith while a Civil Official could be a Policeman or a Customs Official for instance.

 

This Beamte helmet has a black leather body with leather fore and aft visors. The interior is made in the same manner as a typical officer grade Pickelhaube with a generous sweatband and liner. The black silk liner is maker marked in silver letters to a supplier to the royal household. The larger soft leather sweatband is adjustable. The gilt brass spike is very distinctive with a ball top and a fluted spike. The gilt front plate has a silver Wilhelm cypher attached to the front of the gilt brass eagle. The gilt brass chin straps are attached to the corpus of the leather helmet with round cover plates typical of those used on military officer spike helmets. The single red/white/black cockade is multi-piece officer quality and is attached to the right side of the helmet. There is no State cockade as is proper.

 

 

What a beauty!

A keeper!

That is a beautiful helmet.

Thank you for the kudos. I particularly like the spike and the star rivets on the base plate on this helmet.

That is fantastic thanks for sharing

Interesting, the Mecklenburgers used a flutted spike too, but I think only in the 1860s-70s was the top with a tiny ball. (fotos from Picklehaube.com)

 

And a 1915 one, here without the tiny ball/ (Again foto from Picklehaube.com)

 

Yes, the Beamte helmets were worn by both military and police officers. This helmet, that I show above, was also worn by Prussian Kommunalen Exekutivpolizei from 1895 to 1918 according to Ingo Lohken in his book "Die Polizei-Uniformen in Preussen 1866-1945". A very similar variant of this helmet was the Helm M 1895 worn by the Prussian Gemeindepolizei from 1919-1923.

 

Other German Police departments also wore spike helmets with fluted spikes and/or small balls on the spike tip. Some departments continued to wear their spike helmets well after 1918 as shown in period photographs and books.