The helmet on p.59 that has a similarly tilted shield is an M35 blackie. This was made, I would think, long before slave labor in helmet factories was an issue.
If slave labor alone accounts for the M42s with tilted decals, why, as someone asked, are many of these tilted in the same manner, and not in other angles? I guess it is possible that certain slave laborers wanted to get back at the Reich by applying ****-eyed decals, but IMO the manner of consistency of the angle would seem to indicate a type of tunnel vision by the applicators due to repetition and monotony. Its as if they were applying/adjusting only the black runes of the decal and did not see the white shield. While the runes may look better slightly tilted to the left, the white shield is obviously crooked. If they liked the runes this way, could they not have designed a new decal with the runes tilted to the left in reference to the shield?
These M42 SS helmets have lot numbers that I believe place them in the narrow window between the time the CKL mark began to be used and the time that decals were dropped at the factories (8/28/43).
