The (In)Compleat Kieler

(In)Compleat Kieler Part 1 1/10/06 6
Special/Portrait Figures
The older Hiz/Biz special and group figures were renumbered in the Kilia/Oki catalogues,
and new figures were added. These figures were generally offered in a high quality paint job,
but some Oki quality versions were also produced. Each figure usually also had another
number engraved on their stand, and this is how they were listed in the Typen-Listen of
individual figures, and in the later Sonderfigurenliste. Here I list the Kilia/Oki catalogue
number for painted figures first, followed by the older Hiz/Biz numbers in brackets, with a
separate column for the numbers used for unpainted figures. Numbers prefixed by “HW”
were engraved by Dr. H. Waibel. Some of the figures that appeared in the Sonderfigurenliste
were in fact figures of standard bearers or dead and wounded that were normally part of the
packaged sets, and they are excluded from the list of portrait figures given here. Where there
is a discrepancy between the catalogue numbers in the earlier Typenlists and the
Sonderfigurenliste, I have used the original numbers from the Typenlists.
Full Round Artillery and Vehicles
Kieler also offered full round artillery and vehicles, including First World War tanks, either
individually or in sets that included flat figure crew and/or horses. A very extensive line of
modern artillery was sold between the wars, but this was discontinued after World War II.
The list compiled here gives the post-war catalogue numbering first, and the older pre-war
catalogue numbers in square brackets.
Note on Translation
The English translation of the catalogue entries offered here is rough and ready and suffers
from a number of defects (chief of them being that the translator does not know German).
The German descriptions of sets and individual figures are often abbreviated and they
sometimes changed from catalogue to catalogue. They were intended as descriptions of the
poses of the figures rather than illustrations of military drill. A fine distinction obviously
existed in the engraver’s and editor’s minds between sturm, sturm angriff and sturm laufend,
or angriff and attacke that still eludes me.
There are some descriptions where you need to look at the figure before deciding the most
appropriate translation. Some of the more animated cavalry figures are described as
sprengend, which can mean spring, gallop or ride hard (or to burst). Many of the figures look
as if the horse is leaping, but when a Scythian horseman is described as rückwärts-sprengend,
it cannot possibly mean springing or galloping backwards. In fact the figure is looking
backwards while “riding hard”. Since the word galopp is also used to describe mounted
figures, I have chosen to translate sprengend as “riding hard”.
Some terms do seem to indicate military drill. Starting with the Seven Years War a number of
sets are halted, marching or advancing gewehr im arm, “gun in arm”. Eighteenth century drill
manuals described a position “support arms”, where the musket is held against the body by an
arm across the chest, with the hammer resting in the crook of the arm. I have chosen,
therefore, to translate gewehr im arm as “support arms”, though I have seen sets from more
modern periods described as gewehr im arm where the rifle is really slung from the shoulder
by the gun belt.
There is obviously room for refinement in the English translation, but Karl-Werner Rieger,
the webmaster of the KLIO website, says “Don't worry about different meanings of ‘sturm’,
‘Sturmangriff’, ‘Angriff’ and so on. I can assure you, it is all the same. Even in most of the
cases ‘vorgehend’ and ‘im Sturm’ are the same though ‘vorgehend’ should be much slower
than ‘im Sturm’”. So, for now, English-speakers can struggle along with approximations of
what was meant, and German-speakers can read these translations for a good laugh.