WWII era German lighters.

[RZM]

Quick question on German lighters. I have three that are identicle. Brass,bit smaller than a lipstick tube. Inside the bottom half was a folded over piece of what looks like thick mausolin for the absorbent part.
It worked terrible. So I removed and saved that piece,and packed it with cotton loosely,and it works much better now. But,it needs to be filled daily. Whereas Zippos from that era you can get four days out of.
My question is,in Germany during that era,what would they have used as fuel.? Methanol? Gas or diesel? Whatever was on hand.? I'm just wondering if modern lighter fluid is the culprit as far as how well or not well this lighter works. Any ideas?
Danke Kameraden

[Pyotr]

This is something I have wondered about. I suspect that shipping lighter fluids to the forward areas would have been very far down the supply line' priorities!

My father, a WW2 USN sailor, said that he and the other sailors (enlisted, not officer) used to take the fuel for their lighters from the life boat on his patrol craft. Seems they had one boat that had a small motor and a small jerry can type can of gasoline. He said it worked. I have thought of using gas, but decided that I just want to play safe in at this one small area of life. I always wondered how much was drained off and if they were ever caught. It is a long term bad idea of one's ship is sunk, but a short term good idea.
Peter

[RZM]

Interesting. If you read about WWI trench lighters,it claims they could be run on anything flammable.
As for WWII,I imagine the same would apply. I've managed to get the one I'm using to run rather well with modern lighter fluid. I had packed the cotton tight initially.Figuring the more cotton,the more fluid it would hold. But the contrary applys.And the wick wasn't up enough. When I packed the cotton loosely and raised the wick a bit I noticed it lights the first time everytime now,and the flame is much bigger. And on one fill it now lasts a day and a half. Before I could only manage to light 3 cigarettes.
A lousy lighter on the front lines could mean your life. Repeatedly striking a lighter off I'd imagine would get you shot right quick. I was just curious if there were better fluids to use.

[peiper1944]

I believe they would've used petrol cadged from either
Panzertruppen or Kradtruppen, either that or taken
from the Kerosine lanterns, they wouldn't have been
issued fuel specifically for lighters but it was around
if you knew where to look

[RZM]

Awesome thanks Peiper..think I'm gonna avoid the diesel and gasoline lol. Not that cigs are healthy either lol.

[Crazy Feldgendarme]

Pipes is quite correct, when I was in the mob we would fill our lighters by removing the petrol filler tube under the seats of the landrovers and dipping them in the petrol, it stank it made the fags taste horrible and it emitted loads of black smoke BUT IT WORKED.

Mind if we were really brave we would fill them up from drips off the Avgas bowser filler hose. 130 octane made them like a mini flamethrower.

[peiper1944]

Awesome thanks Peiper..think I'm gonna avoid the diesel and gasoline lol. Not that cigs are healthy either lol.

Diesel wouldn't be any good for lighters anyway as it
has a low flash point, also most of the vehicles as far
as i know only used petrol apart from one which was
the eight wheeled Puma armoured car which ran on
Diesel, the rest ran on petrol

[RZM]

Excellent guys,thank you. I have three of these lighters. One of which is mint. The other two are ok. The worst of those two I use,the other will be a spare.