The insignia, medals and details
of this tunic are very unusual and some may have been added
at a later dateFor example the Iron Cross
breast badge, it looks very like a rare South West African
Hildegard Order but is made on its own khaki patch- usually
the Hildegard had no backing patch- and there's no record of
a Muhle (or Muhler) being awarded one. East Africa did not award
temporary Iron Crosses, though Cameroon did.
The medal ribbons for the
Iron Cross, second class and the South West Africa 1904-08
medal look Again there is no record of an Iron Cross being
awarded to anyone called Muhle or Muhler in South West Africa. This
bar has certainly been added after 1918, perhaps by the
original owner.
The badge on the cuff with
the crossed rifles is not familiar to me. Again, it may have
been added later.
The shoulder straps are a
mystery. They are not standard Schutztruppe shoulder straps.
The closest thing that I can think of is they may be those
of a Zahlmeister Aspirant- junior paymaster. But they have
khaki instead of blue backing as worn by the Zahlmeister
Aspirant on their grey home uniforms. Perhaps this was a
variation for their khaki uniforms. The cloth of the
shoulder strap does look the same as the tunic itself.