Waffen-ss Uniforms

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By 1943, a special staff non-commissioned officer position, known as Stabsscharführer had been adopted by the Waffen-SS. This position, equivalent to an army Hauptfeldwebel, was denoted by a special sleeve insignia and was not an actual rank, but rather a title for the head SS non-commissioned officer of a particular combat unit. The rank of Sturmscharführer was also unique to the Waffen-SS as a type of Regimental Sergeant Major. SS-Führer: Originally an early rank of the SS, the term SS-Führer designated commissioned officers of the SS and means "SS leader". The rest of the Waffen-SS divisions and brigades fared better. The Totenkopf and Polizei divisions were attached to Army Group North, with the mission to advance through the Baltic states and on to Leningrad. [35] [75] The Das Reich Division was with Army Group Centre and headed towards Moscow. [35] [75] The Leibstandarte and Wiking Divisions were with Army Group South, heading for Ukraine and the city of Kiev. [35] [75]

Remembering the invisible soldiers of the Battle of the Bulge". U.S. Wereth Memorial. 2012 . Retrieved 10 November 2013. Photo taken by the Polish Underground showing the bodies of women and children murdered by SS troops during the Warsaw Uprising, August 1944 The uniforms and insignia of the Schutzstaffel (SS) served to distinguish its Nazi paramilitary ranks between 1925 and 1945 from the ranks of the Wehrmacht (the German armed forces from 1935), the German state, and the Nazi Party. SS uniforms used a variety of insignia, the most standard of which were collar patches, to denote rank, and shoulder knots (which acted as shoulder boards), to denote both rank and position, along with sleeve cuff titles and "sleeve diamond" patches, to indicate membership in specific branches of the SS. SD-Leiter: This title was used by senior officers of the Sicherheitsdienst, typically those in command of a major SD office or regional headquarters.Rossino, Alexander B. (2003). Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-1234-3. In addition, any SS member who also served in the Gestapo or Kripo held a unique criminal investigator rank, one of the more common of which was Kriminalrat, a police investigator's rank denoting professional detectives. Arthur Nebe, a career policeman, went by the title of Kriminalrat for most of the 1930s, only using an SS rank when engaged in non- Kripo activities. The Gestapo also maintained an entire array of ranks, which might be used interchangeably with SS rank if the agent also belonged to the SS (many did not). [24] [25] [26] SS membership numbers [ edit ]

Hitler's personal guard, known at this stage by the original SS name of Stabswache (later to be known as the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler), was also expressing its independence and increasing its size under the leadership of Sepp Dietrich. In 1942, the Waffen-SS was further expanded and a new division was entered on the rolls in March. By the second half of 1942, an increasing number of foreigners, many of whom were not volunteers, began entering the ranks. [88] The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen was recruited from Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) drafted under threat of punishment by the local German leadership [88] from Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, and Romania and used for anti-partisan operations in the Balkans. [74] [89] Himmler approved the introduction of formal compulsory service for the Volksdeutsche in German-occupied Serbia. [88] Another new division was formed at the same time, when the SS Cavalry Brigade was used as the cadre in the formation of the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer. [74] Panzergrenadier divisions [ edit ] In 1990, Latvian Legion veterans started commemorating Legionnaire Day (Leģionāru diena) in Latvia. On 21 February 2012, The Council of Europe's Commission against Racism and Intolerance published its report on Latvia (fourth monitoring cycle), in which it condemned commemorations of persons who fought in the Waffen-SS. [206] Tessin, Georg (1973). Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS 1939–1945, Volumes II and III (in German). Biblio Verlag. McConnell, Winder, ed. (1998). A Companion to the Nibelungenlied. Boydell & Brewer. p.1. ISBN 978-1-57113-151-5 . Retrieved 20 May 2022.Reynolds, Michael (1997). Steel Inferno: I SS Panzer Corps in Normandy. Spellmount. ISBN 1-873376-90-1. Neitzel, Sönke; Welzer, Harald (2012). Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing and Dying. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-84983-949-5. CIA (24 August 1999). "Records Integration Title Book" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on January 23, 2017 . Retrieved 11 December 2018. The end of the war saw a number of war crime trials, including the Malmedy massacre trial. The counts of indictment related to the massacre of more than 300 American prisoners in the vicinity of Malmedy, between 16 December 1944 and 13 January 1945, and the massacre of 100 Belgian civilians mainly in the vicinity of Stavelot. [192] [ full citation needed]

Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6. Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre by the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS, 1944, Italy Probe into Nazi massacre at Sant'Anna di Stazzema, Italy, dropped". BBC News. 1 October 2012 . Retrieved 5 August 2019. Trevor-Roper, Hugh (2000). HITLER'S TABLE TALK 1941–1944 His Private Conversations. Enigma Books. p.143.

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Balkans [ edit ] Troops of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Division advancing into the Balkans, 1941 Bishop, Chris; Williams, Michael (2003). SS: Hell on the Western Front. St Paul, Minn: MBI Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7603-1402-9. Littlejohn, David (1987). Foreign Legions of the Third Reich Vol. 1 Norway, Denmark, France. Bender Publishing. ISBN 978-0912138176. On 23 April, SS- Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke was appointed by Hitler as Battle Commander for the centre government district (Zitadelle sector), which included the Reich Chancellery and the Führerbunker. Mohnke's command post was in the bunkers under the Reich Chancellery. [163] He formed Kampfgruppe Mohnke, divided into two weak regiments. It was made up of the LSSAH Flak Company, replacements from the LSSAH Training and Reserve Battalion from Spreenhagan (under Standartenfuhrer Anhalt), [163] 600 men from the Begleit-Bataillon Reichsführer-SS, [164] the Führer-Begleit-Company, and the core group—800 men of the LSSAH Guard Battalion assigned to guard the Führer. [163] Gosztony, Peter (1978). Endkampf an der Donau 1944/45 (in German). Vienna: Molden Taschenbuch Verlag. ISBN 3-217-05126-2.