"German Compass" Topic

I picked up a compass today and there are no markings on it. I believe it is either a German or French compass. The markings are a little weird. There is no West on it. Instead there are markings for NO, O and SO vs NW, W and SW.

It looks similar to this one except the background is brass and not white. It looks pretty old.

picture

Anyone have an idea what WW1/WW2 German troopers carried? I tried my Google fu, but didn't come up with much.

I'm missing something – are you saying that it is like the picture except that where the "W" characters are in the compass in the picture, the card in yours is just blank? Or, having a brass "card", that "O" letters are engraved on, but the "W" ones are missing? Are the degree intervals there for all directions?

If the NO, O, and SO are respectively where NW, W, and SW would be, then my guess is that it may be from a romance-language provenance.

That is supposing that the "O" would stand for "ouest" (French), "oeste" (Spanish), "ovest" (Italian), or "ocidental" (Portuguese), which are all that I could find on Babelfish. The Romanian word for "west" may well also start with the letter "o".

yours is probably French.
west = ouest
north west = nord ouest
south west = sud ouest

the one in the photo you have referenced is likely German.
east = osten
north east = norden osten
south east = suden osten
west = westen

Cool. I am learning something. Yep it must be French because the "W" are replaced with "O"

Here are 2 cool compass links I did find.

link
compasscollector.com

Here are the pictures of the compass
picture
picture
picture

Yep, Ost = East, at least in Deutsch.

Looks like a good idea to determine if you have a French, or German model before heading out into the fields, or woods.