Sumpftarn camo

What the name means

Sumpf is German for swamp or marsh, so Sumpftarn translates as marsh camouflage. Collectors also call it Sumpfmuster, "marsh pattern". The name covers a small family of related prints: two made during the Second World War, and several more made in West Germany afterwards.

The 1943 pattern

German forces had used a sharp-edged splinter pattern since 1931. The marsh pattern of 1943 kept similar geometric shapes and added a dithered border around each one, so the edges blur into the background. It also flipped the balance of colors, with larger green patches and smaller russet-brown ones, which pushed the overall look greener and better suited to forest.

No two factories printed it quite alike. Surviving pieces range from distinctly green to tan or khaki, and Camopedia puts that down to conditions in each factory. The pattern went onto smocks, helmet covers, winter combat suits and overpants, and onto a chemical protective suit. The smocks and winter overpants reversed to white for snow, and the two-piece suits were cut to go over the ordinary wool or Drillich uniform. It was meant to work all year round.

The 1944 variant

A second version followed in 1944 and was made until the end of the war in 1945. It dropped the hard edges altogether: each patch sits inside a halo of small dots that fade into the base, so the geometric look is gone. Production seems to have been limited to paratrooper jump smocks and jackets for Luftwaffe field divisions, which is why collectors sometimes call it the Luftwaffe marsh pattern.

The border guard revival

West Germany set up the Bundesgrenzschutz, its federal border guard, in 1951. It was a lightly armed police force for border and internal security, separate from the Bundeswehr. The border guard first wore a copy of the old splinter pattern, then brought back a modified marsh pattern in the 1950s. Sources differ on the exact year, with Wikipedia saying the early 1950s and Camopedia the late 1950s.

Camopedia describes three post-war versions. The first had russet and olive shapes with blurred edges on khaki, with olive rain streaks running down over them, and it was made into field jackets, smocks, trousers, caps and shelter halves. A second, from the mid-1960s, overlapped the patches and seems to have been short-lived. The third lasted longest: overlapping russet patches with a blurred tan border and heavier rain streaks, on field jackets, insulated parkas, rain aprons, helmet covers and vest covers.

Those items stayed in production until 1976, when the border guard officially dropped camouflage. Camopedia suggests the aim was to make the force look less military in public. The West German army had stayed in plain olive for decades and later moved to Flecktarn, a different pattern made of small dots. The border guard itself was renamed the Bundespolizei, Germany's Federal Police, in 2005.

Why it still turns up

Because the post-war prints follow the wartime design so closely, collectors find border guard pieces hard to tell from 1940s ones, and fake wartime items made from post-war fabric are known. Outside collecting, the pattern gets picked for its colors. The russet patches, soft edges and fine streaks look more painterly than the crisp prints that came after it. For the other patterns we make, see our guide to every Woobie camo.