WSS waist belt without buckle

How to choose the size?

Put your jacket or overcoat (or jeans) on, depends on what you want to wear the belt over. Take another belt, tighten comfortly and mark its buckle position. Put it off, lay it flat and measure the marked lenght. Let it assume you got 102 cm (39 ½ in.). Look to the chart below: 102 cm is in the middle of gap 96-108 cm for belt size 110. You should take this size. Sizes 105 and 115 also fit you but you won't be able to wear 105 over winter uniform or to tighen 115 if you wear harder equipment.

The tongue has 7 paired holes for the buckle at a distance of 2 cm from each other. The buckle should sit on the middle hole so that it can be adjusted by 6 cm in each direction.

Divide cm to 2.54 to get inches.

Not all sizes are in stock at the same time. There are only sizes we have in stock now near "Add to cart" button. We try to have more of them at the same time... The belt size must be selected before purchase. It is impossible to shorten/lengthen the belt due to the design features!

Description

This product is intended for military-historical reenactment (immersive stydy of history); for creating costumes for theatrical and film, video plays condemning Nazism and fascism; as well as for exhibiting in museums of military history. This product is not propaganda of ideas and criminals convicted by an International Military Tribunal, and should not be used for such a purpose!

You can buy a buckle separately on our website. It's impossible to wear the belt without a buckle. We offer all basic buckle types made of steel or aluminum as well as rare buckles. If you need a tab for a buckle you can buy it separately. You can wear a buckle without a tab (tabs for some buckles are not obligatory).

This is waist belt of high quality. It's made of tight and resilent bull leather. Leather is not pressed, of natural colour (we hew only vegetable tanned skins for the belts) and calibrated down to 4 mm thickness. Smooth side of leather is inside, that sets German leather equipment apart from for example Soviet. Black matt finish is on face (outer) side. Leather parts are hewn. Our SS-belts bear stamps SS 207/40 RZM. The only difference between SS and WH belt is the stamp.

You can view the stamp in full by following the link.

The belt must stand weight of equipment and not slack, that's why it is rigid enough. Cheap copies of these belts are usually soft (and this is inadmissible for such belts). Cheap copies often have dark colour (dark-brown, black from every side) and made of chemical but not vegetable tanned leather. Dark soft leather is relatively cheap and German manufacturers didn't use it.

Why are hooks of different colour?

The straps are equipped with durable stamped hooks made of aluminum or steel. Beware of fakes: there are cheap cast hooks, they break!

Aluminum hooks are painted in "Feldgrau" (dull green) color. The steel hooks are painted in "Stumpfgrau" (light gray) color, the standard color for German steel fittings. There are a lot of shades of these colors. There are stamps on the hooks, but they are at the end that is sewn into the skin. It is logical to choose a belt with a steel hook for a steel buckle, but do not assume that a steel hook will be stronger than an aluminum one, this is a delusion! Steel hooks are made of 1 mm sheet, aluminum from 1.5 mm sheet, they are the same in terms of strength and wear resistance.

We do not keep separate records of the hook material. You can specify which hook is available for your size before ordering.

There is a belt in size 120 that is sold at a reduced price.

Its only drawback is that the outer layer of leather cracked when folded onto a hook. This does not affect the strength, the crack is only on the top layer. The crack is sealed with liquid leather, it is almost invisible (see photo below).

Historical reference.

The waist belt as those we sell was appeared in 1931 as many other parts of Wehrmacht equipment. Pieces of pre-war manufacture were of the highest quality. But during preparations for war circle of army contractors had been expanded and quality decreased. Therefore not straight stitches are normal for original belts. A series of orders was issuied in 1940, focused on making uniform simplier and cheaper, so belt hooks began to make of steel. To the very end of war in 1944 belts without straps appeared (holes for buckle's teeth were made in the main leather detail).

Belts that were made by SS order in specially accredited factories, usually bore SS and RZM stamps (Reichszeugmeisterei — Imperial quartermaster's office). Raw materials in Germany were dispensed between departments and they organized uniform and equipment producing of these materials. I. e. SS handed orders out apart from Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe but factories might occasionally be the same (information from the book Michael D. Beaver "Uniforms of the Waffen-SS"). Stamped SS belts are not often to see. When war began soldiers started to recieve more usual army equipment with general names of manufacturers on these.