Who is the man on the SS-Wallonie Poster ?

[frankandfrank]

Who is the man

The poster was from 1943.

«VIENS À NOUS! SS DIVISION BLINDÉE «WALLONIE».

Must be a 16year old SS Soldier from Belgium ??

https://www.hrp.co.uk/wallonie---ss-...ster-271-p.asp

[Max Wünsche]

While some poster artwork was derived from photos and real people I have never seen an image of a Wallonie grenadier that resembled this image.

It could very well be from a photo used as inspiration but it would almost be impossible to pinpoint who it actually is.

One of the most common and also the most widely faked of the Wallonie posters.

Here is one poster that I identified the inspiration for the grenadier. The image has of course been mirrored as he is facing the other way in the artwork
and his camo smock is drawn up at the neck, but the similarities are indisputable. I have a better stand alone image of the soldier in question at home
although I am currently at work so this is the best I could find at short notice.



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[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

i'm reposting the poster that started the question of this topic.

It is well known that Léon Degrelle - also sarcasticly called "Modest the First" - had a big big mouth, before and after WW2.

The illustration on the poster is most probably not taken from a particular volunteer, but i can't stop to think that the look of the guy is very similar to the one of Degrelle. And we may suspect that many other people at the time may have thought the same, and that it may have been Léon himself.

Below you will find a painting of Degrelle made by Albert Raty in 1927, a picture of Léon Degrelle from 1928 and a screenshot of a speech of Degrelle from 1936.

See You

Vince

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

now about the "volunteer bare-chested with a Tarnjacke", the picture was originally used by the Ersatzkommando der Waffen-SS Flandern und Wallonien for an A4-sized flyer made available in Flemish and French.

As the North of France departments were under the control of the Militärbefehlshaber in Belgien, it was the Ersatzkommando der Waffen-SS Flandern und Wallonien which had the control on the Waffen-SS propaganda for those departments. This explains why the same picture was used for the North of France "French SS Division" poster presented by Christian.
This also explains why we had exclusive (and different) posters/flyers/postcards for the North of France departments than what was proposed by the Ersatzkommando Frankreich der Waffen-SS.

The other poster using an illustration taken from that picture is for Belgien (the soldier is clearly a Belgian army soldier).

I'm posting below pictures of the Flemish flyer.

See You

Vince