Sam Browne Belt

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US General John Pershing , 1918
Porn actor Tober Brandt, 2007

The Sam Browne belt is a wide belt , usually made of leather , held in place by a strap that runs diagonally across the right shoulder .

This belt was invented by the British General Samuel James Browne after he lost his left arm to a sword blow in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in India in 1858 . After his recovery, he had difficulty pulling his saber out of its scabbard with only one arm , which was held and stabilized while pulling the saber with his left hand. He then developed a belt that was held by a shoulder strap. The original belt had two crossed shoulder straps so that a pistol pouch could be attached to the saber . The British Army introduced the Sam Browne Belt in the Second Boer War (1899-1902). After that he was taken over by many military and police units of the British Empire and other states, e.g. B. the United States , France or Germany .

The belt was popular with American officers of the American Expeditionary Forces fighting in Europe in World War I , where it was initially worn unofficially. The United States Army officially introduced it in 1921. The National Socialists copied some symbols of the British Empire and introduced, among other things, the Sam Browne Belt. Both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini favored him on official occasions.

The Wehrmacht , in which this belt was worn by officers, already abolished the shoulder strap during the attack on Poland in 1939 because the officers were easily recognizable in the field and thus offered a preferred target for enemy snipers . The United States Army removed it in 1941. By the end of the 20th century, its use generally declined. However, the Sam Browne belt has remained a part of many parade uniforms .

In addition to other military uniform parts, it has established itself as a style element in the leather scene , part of the BDSM scene, from the 1970s .

Web links

Commons : Sam Browne Belt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Sam Browne belt , Encyclopædia Britannica
  2. ↑ a b c Christopher Jobson: Looking Forward, Looking Back: Customs and Traditions of the Australian Army , Big Sky Publishing, 2016, ISBN 978-0-9803251-6-4 , p. 28 [1]
  3. ↑ Morton S. Freeman: A New Dictionary of Eponyms , Oxford University Press , 1997, ISBN 978-0-19-509354-4 , p. 227 [2]
  4. ↑ a b Edwin Kennedy Jr .: Sam Browne belt in: Historical Dictionary of the US Army , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, ISBN 978-0-313-29322-1 , p. 410 [3]
  5. ↑ Roger A. Beaumont: The Nazis' March to Chaos: The Hitler Era Through the Lenses of Chaos-complexity Theory , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000, ISBN 978-0-275-96708-6 , p. 133 [4]
  6. ↑ Robert Sawyer: Shakespeare Between the World Wars: The Anglo-American Sphere , Verlag Springer, 2017 ISBN 978-1-137-58218-8
  7. ↑ Heinz Karst : The image of the soldier: attempt of a contour , Verlag Boldt, 1964, p. 156 [5]
  8. ↑ Adam Geczy, Vicki Karaminas: Gay Style , Bloomsbury Publishing , 2013, ISBN 978-1-4725-3534-4 , p 110. [6]