ID help needed. GJ muli equipment carrier?

[Simon O.]

Anyone know what this was used to carry?
It seems to be a carrier for a specific instrument or piece of equipment, to me it looks like it's for a mule which would fit as it was found in a place occupied by Gebirgsjäger.
view of the front, it's been made to be strong yet light, the box lid opens forward rather than up (if you stand it up), inside the box was just a mass of corroded zinc i'm afraid.


The top clearly shows that 4 poles of whatever equipment it was designed for should be placed here. There's also spaces for other equipment pieces in the frame.



The back, the frame is inlaid with wood. Overall the size of this thing is roughly 75cm x 75cm

[Matt Starr]

Simon was there any thing discernable within the Zinc, or was it just a flakey old pile?
Matt

[Simon O.]

just a flakey old pile unfortunately

[GJR100]

Hi Simon,

Great find ! You found yourself one side for the Tragegestell 23 used by a Nachrichten unit. The two hooks on the backside are typical for Muli use.
I must have a picture somewhere showing this carrier. The radio antenna was put on top of this one.
Is the metal still hard or has the rust taken the best of it ?

Are you gone keep this one ? ? ?

MfG,
Bart

[Simon O.]

Hi Bart


I had a feeling you'd know what it was

The metal is in pretty good condition and you can see some of the paint left, the wood parts have been mostly burnt away but you can see that some of the leather fittings are still there.

Unfortunately i couldn't take it along with me, i had simply no room for it
But i could tell you exactly where it is. It's only 50m from the main road at a place called Nieden. It's where the last major engagement took place on Norwegian soil between advancing Soviet troops and GJR 143. Although much of that spot is now a camping ground (there were German trenches 5m away from our tent!) so i couldn't investigate as much as i'd have liked, i still found good evidence of the fighting there. The place has been cleaned up a lot and this was the largest thing i found.

BTW, Hauptmann Eduard Altacher, führer of II./GJR 143 won the RK for his unit's defence of Nieden.