The Himmler's SS (48 page)

LAH, SS-VT and SS-TV officers on parade outside the Führer Building in Munich, 9 November 1938. During this period, the black uniform was still used by the armed SS on ceremonial occasions, here being worn with the aluminium wire aiguillettes and brocade belt of commissioned rank. Most of these men have been issued with the M35 steel helmet, although a few still retain the traditional M16/18 pattern.

The victors of Kharkov: Rolf Möbius, ‘Sepp' Dietrich, Rudolf Lehmann and Hubert Meyer in April 1943. Möbius wears a standard issue army pattern field blouse, which is rougher in appearance than the privately tailored outfits of Dietrich and Lehmann. Meyer's tunic is a converted prewar ‘Rock', and still bears the 1936–8-style SS arm eagle.

The uniform regulations for Waffen-SS officers differed somewhat from those for other ranks. Until 1939, officers in the Leibstandarte and SS-VT had only one field-grey tunic, the ‘Rock', which was identical in cut to the black SS service tunic and was always worn open at the neck with a brown shirt and black tie. At the beginning of the war, some SS officers avoided the expense of having to buy a field blouse for combat wear by having their existing tunics converted, with the addition of stand-and-fall collars which could be closed at the neck. Others had dark-green open-necked collars fitted, even though that was expressly forbidden by Himmler. A number of similar stopgap measures were taken until the issue of a general order in December 1939, which stipulated that officers' field tunics were henceforth to be identical in style to those of other ranks. Throughout the remainder of the war, Waffen-SS officers generally wore either privately tailored field blouses like those of their army colleagues, or basic issue tunics purchased from their unit stores. White summer versions were also produced, although these were officially prohibited in June 1940, and the olive-green waterproof cotton duck from captured Soviet groundsheets was often made up into lightweight unlined field tunics for hot weather use on the eastern front.

A captured SS-Sturmmann of the Leibstandarte is questioned regarding Russian banknotes found in his possession, autumn 1944. He wears the model 1943 tunic with straight pocket flaps, and a late war round-headed arm eagle.

Three Waffen-SS medical officers assist personnel of the 15th (Scottish) Division after the liberation of Neuengamme concentration camp, April 1945. The Untersturmführer on the left wears the 1944 field uniform, which bears a striking resemblance to the British army battledress also shown in the photograph. The man in the centre, with the M42 tunic, has contradictory rank insignia, i.e. the collar patch of an Untersturmführer and shoulder straps of an Obersturmführer. The Einheitsfeldmütze worn by the third SS officer sports the rarely seen triangular one-piece eagle and death's head insignia.

As tunics developed, so too did their matching trousers. The 1937-pattern SS field trousers, or Feldhose, had straight legs for wear with jackboots, whereas the Keilhose, or wedge trousers, of July 1942 had tapered bottoms designed to fit inside the new ankle boots and gaiters. Officers on duty in the field generally wore riding breeches, with grey buckskin reinforcements on the seat and inside leg. In August 1944, however, they were ordered to wear only long trousers, to show a degree of uniformity with their men. Needless to say, that order was seldom adhered to.

While most Waffen-SS units were issued with one or more of the foregoing series of uniforms, depending upon their dates of formation, the Italians alone were not. At the end of 1943, SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff, the HSSPf in Italy, successfully bargained with the army's Quartermaster-General for the supply of 100,000 captured Italian army uniforms for wear by his SS and police anti-partisan forces. Many of these items were subsequently used to kit out the 24th and 29th SS divisions, whose members duly sported a hodge-podge of Italian garb in grey-green, colonial khaki and Mediterranean camouflage, with their own unique insignia.

The creation of standardised camouflage clothing was the most significant contribution of the Waffen-SS to the history of military uniform development, and had a profound effect on the appearance of all modern soldiery. In February 1937, SS-Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Brandt, who was a Doctor of Engineering and commander of the SS-VT reconnaissance battalion, began work on the design of camouflage clothing and equipment for use by his troops. He shared his task with the Munich professor Johann Georg Otto Schick, and their prototype camouflage groundsheets and helmet covers were successfully tested by the SS-Standarte ‘Deutschland' in field manoeuvres the following December, during which it was estimated that they would reduce battle casualties by 15 per cent. In June 1938, patents in respect of these items were granted to the Reichsführer-SS, so that they could not be copied by the army, and by 1 November contracted production was under way using the firms of Warei, Forster and Joring. By January 1939, despite great difficulties in obtaining sufficient quantities of waterproof cotton duck and the fact that printing had to be done by hand, 8,400 groundsheets and 6,800 helmet covers had been supplied to the SS-Verfügungstruppe. Smocks were also in the course of distribution, and Hausser instructed that at least twenty of these should be held by each company for the exclusive use of assault troops.

Camouflage clothing was not widely worn during the Polish campaign, but even so the revolutionary SS groundsheets and helmet covers earned high praise from Generalmajor Kempf, who sent samples of them to the Army High Command in Berlin for evaluation. By June 1940, hand-printing had been superseded by a much faster machine process using ‘Anthrasol' and ‘Indanthrene' dyes, which allowed the mass production of 33,000 smocks for delivery to all field units of the Waffen-SS. The ever-present problem, however, even at that early date, was the shortage of raw materials. It was calculated that over 42,000 metres of waterproof cotton duck would be required every month to produce sufficient numbers of groundsheets, helmet covers and smocks, and by January 1943 supplies had all but run out, resulting in its replacement by drill material which had no waterproof qualities.

Many styles of camouflage were ultimately manufactured simultaneously, including the so-called ‘oak leaf', ‘plane tree', ‘palm tree', ‘burred edge', ‘flower' and ‘clump' patterns. Four colours were generally used, and the tendency during the war was towards increasingly spotted designs in lighter shades. Most garments made from waterproof cotton duck were printed on both sides and were reversible, with one side predominantly green and the other brown for use as local and seasonal variations dictated. The later drill outfits were printed on one side only and could not be reversed. All of these patterns were issued indiscriminately throughout the Waffen-SS.

The groundsheet, or Zeltbahn, was the first item of camouflage uniform to see widespread distribution among SS units. It was triangular in shape, measuring 203 cm × 203 cm × 240 cm, and could be worn as a cape or poncho, or buttoned together with three others to form a four-man tent. In fact, any number could be combined to make even larger shelters. When attaching Zeltbahnen in such circumstances care had to be taken to use identical, or at least similar, pattern groundsheets to maintain the camouflage effect, and to that end identifying numbers were printed along their bases. Even when combining shelter quarters of different designs, ‘paving slabs' of colour were provided along the edges at regular intervals so that the various camouflage patterns would merge into each other. In December 1943, it was decided not to issue any more groundsheets to men on the eastern front for economic reasons, and by September 1944 their production had ceased completely.

The steel helmet cover was produced from segments of Zeltbahn material, and consequently occasionally featured the identifying printed pattern number. It was designed to conform to the shape of the model 1935 Stahlhelm and was attached by means of three spring-loaded blackened steel clips held on by bare aluminium rivets, one at each side and one at the rear. The 1937 prototype also had a fourth frontal clip, but that was later replaced by a simple fold of material and was never subsequently adopted for field use. Covers made from 1942 onwards had loops sewn on to hold foliage.

SS assault troops wearing newly issued camouflage smocks and helmet covers, May 1940.

The camouflage smock was a reversible pullover garment gathered at the neck by means of an adjustable cord and at the wrists and waist by elastic. It had no collar and the first pattern had no pockets, only two vertical openings at the front which gave the wearer access to his tunic underneath. During the war, various modifications were made to it including the adoption of a longer ‘skirt', foliage loops sewn in threes to the shoulders and upper sleeves, and the addition of two side pockets with buttoned flaps. However, all smocks conformed to the standard manufacturing process, being cut out from a long strip of Zeltbahn material, with a central hole for fitting over the head. Production ceased in January 1944, although smocks continued to be worn widely until the end of the war.