Picture of the day

Dark Alley Dan said:
"Beautiful furniture" is apparently a relative term. I'm not seeing it...
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Ah, but he's not actually making furniture furniture (i.e. chairs you can sit on comfortably, tables you can use to eat or work on and so forth). Instead, he is making designer or high-art furniture. Which almost by definition is useless for anything except for display and, as in this case, to make a political or cultural statement.

The 'weapons recycling' that took place after both world wars was entirely different. In both instances, critical materials shortages were met by taking everything from helmets to tanks and planes and warships and recycling them in various ways with an eye to actual civilian/industrial usefulness. But the key purpose was to use a good source of scarce metals, engines, wood and leather to make needed items rather than to make a political statement.

Thus, if you have a 1950s muffin pan, cookie sheet, metal mixing bowl or even toaster, there is a very good chance that the metal in it once flew over Germany. But you won't find a single label on any of them that says "made from weapons of war".

And in the cases when you can recognize the original recycled weapon, that is because the nature of that recycled use required it to remain intact. For example, a picture in Ken Bell's book "Not In Vain" that showed a heavy-duty tracked construction excavator still hard at work in France 40 years after it had first been built using the chassis of a disabled German Panther tank.

But building 'furniture' so that still-recognizable rifle trigger groups and so forth are all perfectly placed to jab anyone trying to use the furniture as furniture ... that's not recycling; that's being an artsy-fartsy political poseur.
 
What happens when you steal all the Foster's Lager from the canteen?

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"Put the bloody cans down, mate..."
 
Love the leaning back postures as though those MK VI Webleys were going to buck really hard! And the holsters tucked into their waist bands.

The guns must have just been issued from stores and they posed for a PR photo op.
 
Soviet BP-35 type armoured train captured by Infantry Regiment 45 in Käppäselkä 28th of October 1941. The Soviet crew abandoned this train after it had got stuck to section of rails demolished by Finnish soldiers.This train had two artillery wagons and locomotive. Nowadays one of two artillery wagons in Panssarimuseo (Finnish Armour Museum) in Parola. - Jarkko V. (Jaeger Platoon)

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The Shriners got pretty hardcore during the war...

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I'm kidding. 13th SS Mountain Division - "Handschar". Bosnian Muslims, and despite wearing the third-most-useless hat ever (after the pillbox hat and the beret) quite serious lads.
 
The Handschar, and Shriners, wear a fez. Also, Sidney Greenstreet in Casablanca:

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This is a pillbox hat:

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And aside from keeping one corner of your head hot in the summer and allowing the other corner to freeze in the winter, it's worthless and goofy-lookin', to my eye anyhow.
 
At least with the 20th Waffen SS Grenadier Division (Estonian Legion) they had better sense to wear the actually useful and comfy M43 Feldmutze...

Plus, they liked kittens! :)

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Interesting note about the Estonian Baltic SS Divisions:

In the spring of 1946, out of the ranks of those who had surrendered to the Western allies in the previous year, a total of nine companies were formed. The most notable was the "4221 Guard Company", formed from some 300 veterans, with a mission to guard the external perimeter of the Nuremberg International Tribunal courthouse and the various depots and residences of US officers and prosecutors connected with the trial. The men were also entrusted with guarding the accused Nazi war criminals held in prison during the trial, up until the day of execution.[13][19]

Created on 26 December 1946, and led by Captain Vaido Viitre, the company consisted of six armed platoons and one staff platoon. Each platoon consisted of four squads, totalling 40 men; the staff platoon included medics, supplymen, cooks, carpenters, drivers, mechanics and secretaries, a total of 30 men.
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"Former legionnaires, wearing black uniforms with blue helmets and white belts, guarding Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess and other top Nazis during the Nuremberg Trials"
 
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