TomBombadil Posted June 26, 2006 Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 Here is a pic of a gen back in case anyone was wondering where the crazyness came from Rivers: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryyannon Posted June 26, 2006 Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 River's only in the sense that he's apparently selling it for Watchmaster. For around $1,350 as I remember. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrono903 Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 but what does it mean? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonystyle Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 (edited) but what does it mean? Looks like its the guys name, then something like Swim Camp, (ie, the equivalent of "Navy Seal School", etc) and finally the date. Pretty cool, kind of like the Vietnam era Zippos (also faked a lot too...) which soldiers had engraved while serving overseas. Edited June 27, 2006 by sonystyle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubiquitous Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 I may be mistaken, but I believe it indicates the division and group that the divers were in... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonystyle Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 I may be mistaken, but I believe it indicates the division and group that the divers were in... Hmmm, maybe youre right its a division or group and not the guys name. But I think that the rough engraving is supposed to indicate that it was personally etched by the soldier himself on his issued watch, like a commemoration of sorts. Youd think that officially issused watches must have had neater engravings on them...done with a proper machine... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpt390 Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 Some information and history of the watch Kamph Schwimmer link link 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lollipop Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 Youd think that officially issused watches must have had neater engravings on them...done with a proper machine... But it's Germany in 1945...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archibald Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 But it's Germany in 1945...... Not to ruin anyone's vintage experience w/ some PC rant, but do we really want Nazi stuff engraved on the back of our watches? Didn't occur to me either until a friend of mine pointed it out.... Plus, unless you do some Nanuq magic on that watch who's going to believe that some German frogman wore that watch for his Fuhrer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fitmic Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 Not to ruin anyone's vintage experience w/ some PC rant, but do we really want Nazi stuff engraved on the back of our watches? Didn't occur to me either until a friend of mine pointed it out.... Plus, unless you do some Nanuq magic on that watch who's going to believe that some German frogman wore that watch for his Fuhrer... But I asume that most PAM lovers know, that PAM diving watches was used be the Italian fascists too. Keep this rep collecting out of politics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www_watch Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 Not to ruin anyone's vintage experience w/ some PC rant, but do we really want Nazi stuff engraved on the back of our watches? Didn't occur to me either until a friend of mine pointed it out.... Plus, unless you do some Nanuq magic on that watch who's going to believe that some German frogman wore that watch for his Fuhrer... It´s definitely a part of the myth around Panerai. So why don´t have it in a rep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craytonic Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 no need to be super sensitive... no one is expousing political views here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supermanx Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 Keller / SK are one guys initials... And yeah its exactly like the vietnam zippo, they were not engraved uniform, each guy did his own thing and few were done by the same person. Its seams they had a few differant dials, the rolex/radiomir/california with either cal 5513 (cortebert 618) or cortbert 616 movement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finepics Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 Not every German was a Nazi - most were professional soldiers fighting a war to defend their homeland - whatever the politics!! And a great many allied military men had the highest respect for their axis counterparts and vice versa. These watches are as legitimate a piece of history as are the IWC's made for the Royal Air Force. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lollipop Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 Not every German was a Nazi - most were professional soldiers fighting a war to defend their homeland - whatever the politics!! And a great many allied military men had the highest respect for their axis counterparts and vice versa. These watches are as legitimate a piece of history as are the IWC's made for the Royal Air Force. From Wikipedia: Einsatzgruppen (German for "mission groups", loosely translated as "task force") were paramilitary groups operated by the SS before and during World War II. Their principal task, in the words of SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski at the Nuremberg Trial, "was the annihilation of the Jews, gypsies, and political commissars." According to their own records, the Einsatzgruppen operatives are responsible for killing over 1 million people, almost exclusively civilians, without judicial review and later without semblance of legality (no reading of sentences of martial or administrative law), starting with the Polish intelligentsia and quickly progressing by 1941 to target primarily the Jews of Eastern Europe. The historian Raul Hilberg however estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen murdered over 1.4 million Jews in open air shootings. I'm pretty sure that Einsatzgruppen "Keller" was the name of a unit, rather than the owner of the watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chronus Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 From Wikipedia: Einsatzgruppen (German for "mission groups", loosely translated as "task force") were paramilitary groups operated by the SS before and during World War II. Their principal task, in the words of SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski at the Nuremberg Trial, "was the annihilation of the Jews, gypsies, and political commissars." According to their own records, the Einsatzgruppen operatives are responsible for killing over 1 million people, almost exclusively civilians, without judicial review and later without semblance of legality (no reading of sentences of martial or administrative law), starting with the Polish intelligentsia and quickly progressing by 1941 to target primarily the Jews of Eastern Europe. The historian Raul Hilberg however estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen murdered over 1.4 million Jews in open air shootings. I'm pretty sure that Einsatzgruppen "Keller" was the name of a unit, rather than the owner of the watch. I don't understand why they would need a diver's watch unless they were divers, in which case, I can't see how divers and underwater operations would have been involved in this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chronus Posted June 27, 2006 Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 Read the link posted earlier: "On 25. Febr. 1945 Ltnt. Keller took 16 men from the training center List to form the Group East. Their HQ was Ahlbeck on the isle of Usedom, from where they operated against the narrow Russian front by destroying bridges over the river Oder. The Italian were divers with heavy lead shoes, the Germans were swimmers with fins. For breathing they did not have air pressure bottles but devices with carbide to reproduce oxygen." So they were not part of killing political dissidents, gypsies, jews, non-whites, etc ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lollipop Posted June 28, 2006 Report Share Posted June 28, 2006 Read the link posted earlier: "On 25. Febr. 1945 Ltnt. Keller took 16 men from the training center List to form the Group East. Their HQ was Ahlbeck on the isle of Usedom, from where they operated against the narrow Russian front by destroying bridges over the river Oder. The Italian were divers with heavy lead shoes, the Germans were swimmers with fins. For breathing they did not have air pressure bottles but devices with carbide to reproduce oxygen." So they were not part of killing political dissidents, gypsies, jews, non-whites, etc ? That just proves that they're involved in scorched earth operations against the advancing Soviet troops at the very end of the war, with Berlin just 70km away. Nobody knows what they did before that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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