Your One-Stop Shop for Sourcing, Vintaging, Buying, and Selling Period and Reproduction Militaria

About Soldat FHQ

I saw my first bit of German WWII “war booty” in my uncle’s house in the early 1960’s and he gave me my first bits for my collection. It was mysterious. I was sure I was the only kid in the world who read about and collect this stuff one piece at a time. In high school I met another guy on the bus, the only seat open, he had a catalog of German militaria from Germany! I never looked back.

Years later, I look back on the places I have been, the veterans I have met and known. I glance at a Christmas card from a veteran of the 12th SS-Panzer Division, Hitlerjugend, one of the last still with us.

In 1979 I enlisted in the US Army to get to Germany so I could get serious about learning this hobby. Authorship of the published Soldat book series gained me new access into German and other national and military archives and museums. I attended veteran meetings of Panzerkorps Großdeutschland, the 1.SS-Panzerkorps, and the Fallschirmäger, where I set up displays from my collections and talked to the veterans. I haunted European military shows and flea markets. I located and established connections with firms and individuals still creating top notch replicas of German militaria just as they had since the end of the war.

After my return to the US in 1994 and the coming of the world wide web as a sales platform, I set up Soldat FHQ to provide collectors with access to high quality replicas sold as replicas. You can say I wrote the books on “fakes, fakers, and those who sell fakes.”  You are in good hands with Soldat FHQ.

(Top Photo) By my junior year in high school, I had two collecting friends. A local newspaper guy was interested in our story. I remain friends the Kevin (left) & Grant (center) to this day. Grant’s Knight’s Cross was an original. The ones Kevin and I wear were copies I only wish we could get now! Everything else was original!

(Bottom Photo) Graf Training Area around 1980-81. My squad waiting for a run at the CALFX Course. All are wearing Bundesgrenschütz camo jackets I bought at the Frankfurt am Main Flomarkt. A Brit Army buddy, he was training with us, and I painted the Totenkopf one afternoon in the track park at Graf. There were still a lot of Ost Front vets in those days; we got a lotta smiles and some beers tossed to us as we road marched through towns near the border.