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First beginnings of camouflage exist for sure from time immemorial. In the story of Robin Hood is said, that he and his men wore clothes in the colours of the forest. Commonly, camouflage was proscribed and was considered as cowardice. One preferred hand-to-hand fight on the open battlefield.
Although fire weapons were introduced later, nothing changed. On the contrary! Ostentatious uniforms were worn to be able to differentiate the troops on the battlefield fogged by powder damp. First tests with uniforms in less conspicuous colours were made 400 years ago. But first towards the end of 19th century respectively at the beginning of 20th century, serious attempts were made to find less conspicuous colours. In Germany, the first attempts were made in 1905. Two years later, the field-grey shade was introduced as colour for uniforms and in 1908 also for vehicles and equipment.
At the beginning of World War I, only unicolour camouflage schemes were common in the German imperial army. During World War I, one passed over to multi colour camouflage schemes of dark yellow, green and rust-brown. Until 1945, several different camouflage systems were introduced. Normally, the introduction of the new camouflage patterns and sometimes also the details for the application were announced in the Heeres-Verordnungsblatt (H.V.Bl.), the Allgemeine Heeresmitteilungen (A.H.M.) and the Heerestechnisches Verordnungsblatt (H.t.V.Bl.).
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