My Great-Grandfather and his service in the SA and Waffen SS

[ItsWillCmp]

Hi everyone, thought it would be a good idea to post this here. I have a few more early war photos I need to scan and then upload here but this will do for now I suppose. These photos and a few personal documents are the only things I have left from Josef Paul Kasinger. His SA dagger survived the war, along with a few of his medals and a good deal of his Nazi related items. They were given to his son, my great uncle, but a flood in his apartment while he was on vacation destroyed it. Unfortunately he did not try to salvage any as he was not very fond of his fathers past. Very frustrating but I am lucky to have these items. A very other items I have are photos from his brother in laws during war time, including photos of Paris during occupation, and a copy of Mein Kampf. I think the coolest thing is the interesting units he served in throughout his life, from the Austrian SA to the SS-Skanderbeg. Anyways, here are the pictures and history of Josef Paul Kasinger.

[ItsWillCmp]

To note: The official death note that was sent out to his wife after the war had his final rank listed as SS-Oberscharführer. I do not have any pictures of him while he held this rank. This letter also clarified that the last unit he served in was the SS-Skanderbeg. All of the information gathered on the timeline comes from roughly 40 pages of German documents on him which were retrieved from NARA.

[Almost Samurai]

Thank you for sharing. Very cool piece of your family history!

[John A.]

Thank you for sharing!

Very interesting!

It's good that you are keeping his memory alive. It's a shame so many of
his documents, etc. were lost!

John

[phild]

Thanks for posting this. Very interesting story, timeline and photos. Not often to see soldiers who served In Skanderbeg. I’m glad this material survived.

[ItsWillCmp]

Thanks for posting this. Very interesting story, timeline and photos. Not often to see soldiers who served In Skanderbeg. I’m glad this material survived.

I know, the Skanderbeg part is extremely fascinating to me. My oma said that he sent back letters to his wife at the time saying it was a bit odd that he was serving with muslims rather than an entirely german unit.

[phild]

I know, the Skanderbeg part is extremely fascinating to me. My oma said that he sent back letters to his wife at the time saying it was a bit odd that he was serving with muslims rather than an entirely german unit.

As I'm sure you know, the German cadre was critical in these non-German units. He was obviously very mature in both character and and age, hence a valuable leader as a senior NCO.

[ItsWillCmp]

As I'm sure you know, the German cadre was critical in these non-German units. He was obviously very mature in both character and and age, hence a valuable leader as a senior NCO.

Yes, he must've been quite valuable as he was a SS-Stabscharfuhrer even though he only held the rank of SS-Unterscharführer during this appointment. To give context to this, it was rare for even an SS-Scharfuhrer to get this appointment!