The Himmler's SS (49 page)

A captured SS-Unterscharführer being searched in February 1945. His lack of collar tresse indicates that this man was probably recently promoted in the field. The undyed grey-white interior of the camouflage drill tunic is clearly visible.

On 15 April 1942 a camouflage face mask, which had initially been rejected by Hausser during prewar trials, was issued for use in conjunction with the helmet cover and smock. It comprised a series of strings fitted to an elasticated strap and hung like a curtain over the face. The mask was very effective when used in bushy or grassy terrain, and was much prized by snipers. On 1 June the same year, a camouflage field cap, again made from waterproof Zeltbahn material, was introduced. It was shaped like the Bergmütze and was generally unlined and reversible. From December 1942, special insignia woven in green and brown artificial silk were produced for wear on the cap, but they do not appear to have been widely adopted.

On 1 March 1944, a camouflage version of the drill uniform was introduced for both field and working dress. It comprised a tunic and trousers in the same cut as the model 1943 field uniform, but made from lightweight unlined herringbone twill with a standardised spotted or ‘pea' pattern camouflage printed on one side only. It could be worn on its own during the summer, or on top of a standard field uniform in cold weather, and was designed to replace the smock and, ultimately, the normal field and drill uniforms. Only the eagle and swastika and special rank badges were intended to be worn on the left sleeve of the tunic, but shoulder straps and other insignia were also occasionally seen. Between 1 November 1944 and 15 March 1945, distribution of the camouflage drill uniform was suspended because of intolerable losses during the winter months. In effect, it was never reissued.

Waffen-SS infantry advancing through the Ardennes, December 1944. The man in the foreground, armed with an MP40, wears the camouflage drill jacket on top of a standard field-grey tunic.

While the vast majority of Waffen-SS troops wore one or more of the foregoing camouflage garments, there were many instances of non-regulation items being adopted. It was not uncommon for tunics to be tailor-made in the field using spare Zeltbahn material, and large quantities of caps, tunics and trousers in German cut were manufactured from captured Italian camouflage cloth in 1944. There were also isolated cases of Waffen-SS personnel, particularly members of the 14th SS Division, wearing German army-pattern camouflage smocks. A photograph even exists apparently showing the capture of an SS sniper in Normandy who is wearing the one-piece camouflage overall issued to US troops serving in the Pacific theatre. However, that may well have been a propaganda shot staged by the Allies. By the spring of 1945 it had become apparent that both the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS should ideally have one common camouflage pattern. After various tests and trials carried out by Schick and three SS officers from the Bekleidungswerke at Dachau, a new design incorporating carbon-black segments which had the effect of protecting the wearer against infrared detection was introduced. It never saw distribution during the Third Reich, but was to form the basis of the camouflage patterns adopted by most post-1945 armies.

On 9 July 1940, the reconnaissance battalion of the SS-Verfügungsdivision crossed the Hendaye Bridge on the Franco-Spanish border to form a guard of honour at a meeting between Hitler and General Franco. These men are from the armoured car platoon, and wear the SS panzerjacke and the ill-fated Baskenmütze, which was discontinued shortly thereafter.

SS-VT armoured troops received their own black panzer uniform in 1938. Its special headgear took the form of a floppy woollen beret, or Baskenmütze, fitted over an internal crash helmet, the Schutzmütze, which comprised a heavily padded liner. A large embroidered SS eagle and a uniquely designed Totenkopf, not unlike the army's panzer death's head but with a lower jaw in the SS style, was sewn on to the front of the beret. The Baskenmütze was discontinued in 1940 after proving impractical in combat. It was replaced by a black version of the Schiffchen field cap, which in turn was superseded by a black Einheitsfeldmütze in October 1943. The Waffen-SS tank tunic, or Panzerjacke, was a short, tight-fitting double-breasted black jacket fastened with concealed buttons. It differed from its army counterpart in that the front was cut vertically instead of being slanted, the lapels were smaller and there was no central seam down the back. The collar of the jacket was piped in silver for officers but was unpiped for other ranks, and only NCOs of the Leibstandarte were permitted to sport their regulation collar tresse.

SS-Untersturmführer Michael Wittmann and his Leibstandarte Tiger crew after being decorated in January 1944. They were killed near Caen seven months later, but not before they had become the most successful team of tank soldiers in history, destroying over 270 enemy vehicles. Only the gunner, Balthasar Woll (second from left), survived the war.

In the spring of 1941, a field-grey version of the panzer uniform was issued to members of the Leibstandarte's Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung. By August 1942 this outfit had been distributed to other assault gun units, and four months later its wear was extended to all Waffen-SS anti-tank formations.

On 15 January 1943, SS panzer crews received a one-piece combination work uniform made of camouflage waterproof cotton duck, identical to the material used in the manufacture of the smock and Zeltbahn. At the same time, a winter combination made from two thicknesses of cloth, white on one side and field-grey on the other, was introduced and was worn widely during the Battle of Kharkov. These coverall combinations were never very popular, simply because of the difficulty of getting in and out of them. That fact, allied with the success of the denim gear then on issue and the extreme shortage of waterproof cotton duck, led to the decision being made in January 1944 to discontinue the camouflage combination and produce instead a lightweight version of the panzer uniform in camouflage herringbone twill. It duly appeared two months later, at the same time as the camouflage drill uniform introduced for all other Waffen-SS units, and it was in the same standardised spotted ‘pea' pattern, unlined and printed on one side only. The camouflage panzer uniform saw widespread service, particularly on the western front. On 1 November distribution ceased for the winter, and the camouflage outfit was never re-issued.

While the clothing of Waffen-SS armoured personnel remained fairly standard, there was one major initiative at divisional level which drastically altered the appearance of many panzer crews participating in the Normandy campaign. During the autumn of 1943, the Leibstandarte had been involved in disarming capitulated Italian forces and in fighting partisans in northern Italy. In the process, the division had confiscated huge quantities of abandoned Italian motor transport and uniform equipment to supplement its own limited supplies. Among the uniform items seized were large numbers of German U-boat leather jackets and trousers, originally sold by Hitler to Mussolini's navy, and vast stocks of Italian army camouflage material. The latter was quickly used to produce caps, tunics and overalls in the German style, which were distributed to soldiers of the Leibstandarte and ‘Hitlerjugend' in France. The U-boat clothing went almost exclusively to the young tank crews of ‘Hitlerjugend', and duly protected many of them against serious burns.

Waffen-SS paratroopers also had their own order of dress. SS-Fallschirmjäger Bataillon 500 was formed for ‘special duties' at the end of 1943, in the wake of SS-Hauptsturmführer Otto Skorzeny's much-vaunted liberation of the deposed Mussolini that September, which had had to rely on Luftwaffe glider and paratroop support. Contrary to widespread belief, the battalion was not a penal unit. It was composed entirely of volunteers, fully trained in a paratroop role, and all its officers and NCOs were professional soldiers with a great deal of front-line experience. This expertise, combined with the Waffen-SS ethos, produced paratroopers of outstanding ability.

The first major action in which the battalion was deployed, Operation ‘Rösselsprung', or ‘Knight's Move', involved its being dropped by glider right on top of Marshal Tito's vast partisan headquarters complex at Bastasi, near Drvar in Yugoslavia, where Winston Churchill's son, Major Randolph Churchill, was head of the British military mission. The plan was to capture Tito on his birthday, 25 May 1944, and hold him until support could arrive from the ‘Prinz Eugen' Division and other nearby conventional ground formations. However, the SS paras were too small a force to take on the partisan brigades entrenched in the mountain fortress, and they were surrounded in Drvar cemetery and almost wiped out. The survivors were reformed as SS-Fallschirmjäger Bataillon 600, under Skorzeny's command, and trained for a drop on Budapest to capture the son of the recalcitrant Hungarian leader Admiral Horthy, who duly capitulated to the Germans. Some SS paratroopers were later involved in the Ardennes offensive and the remainder fought as infantry on the eastern front, going into captivity at the end of the war.

Of all the branches of the Waffen-SS, least is known about the clothing and equipment of the parachutists. No official uniform orders have come to light, and almost total reliance has to be placed on a few extant wartime photographs. It appears that the Luftwaffe assumed responsibility not only for the training and transportation by air of the SS paras, but also for supplying them with specialist dress and equipment. When Skorzeny and his small joint SS and Luftwaffe commando force rescued Mussolini from his imprisonment at Gran Sasso, they all wore regulation air force tropical clothing with full Luftwaffe insignia. At a celebratory rally held in the Berlin Sports Palace soon afterwards, however, the SS men reverted to their normal field-grey uniforms. The members of the SS-Fallschirmjäger Bataillone 500 and 600 wore 1940-pattern SS Schiffchen field caps, SS belt buckles and standard Waffen-SS field-grey tunics with the insignia of their previous units, since there were no specialist SS paratroop badges. The Luftwaffe supplied all their protective clothing, which comprised: the normal paratroop steel helmet, with or without the air force eagle decal and geometric ‘splinter'-pattern camouflage cover; the ‘splinter'-pattern camouflage paratroop smock, with or without Luftwaffe breast eagle; blue-grey or field-grey paratroop trousers; canvas gaiters; and ankle boots. One surviving photograph shows two German paratroopers wearing standard SS-issue camouflage smocks, but these are thought to be Luftwaffe Fallschirmjäger personnel in Italy, who would have had the opportunity of obtaining SS smocks from the ‘Hermann Göring' Panzer Division, which was kitted out with them. Another unique picture illustrates an SS paratrooper apparently wearing the ‘pea' pattern camouflage drill tunic and trousers while fulfilling an infantry role on the eastern front near the end of the war.