KM field jacket used in the Waffen-SS ?

[Helbe]

Hello,

I have a question for the uniform specialists.

I have two different pictures of the same french volunteer. The first on the left when he was in the Kriegsmarine and the second picture one the right when he was in the Waffen-SS.

I wanted to know if you can identify the model of the jacket (he was in the KM from early June 1944 up to September 1944), and if the KM jacket is still the one he is wearing on the right picture as a Waffen-Sturmmann ?

As I know KM volunteers didn’t get any SS jackets, and they kept their KM jackets.

The volunteer said that he just exchanged the KM insignias for the SS ones and kept his original KM jacket until the end of the war.

Regards,
Loïc

[km-spain]

Hello, by the style of the flaps of the breast pockets I would say that is the same tunic, a KM feldbluse.

[NickG]

When foreign volunteers from NSKK, Speer, OT, KM or local para military-political-security units (like Milice, Falange, GNR ) voluntarily transferred into the Waffen SS,
they usually showed up at their new barracks in their former unit's uniforms ...and in the case of the KM the rebadging would make sense.

The recruits would still receive their (full suplement) of standard SS kit and their left over KM coastal uniforms were either sent back or I imagine rebadged,
if they were entitled to keep these...(= bonus kit)

Here a French Kriegsmarine volunteer who joined Charlemagne at Sennheim in February 1944 among his new SS kamaraden still wearing his field gray KM coastal uniform...Rebadging and re-buttoning would be easy to do!

[NickG]

Here some French volunteers assembled in Paris for transfer into the Waffen SS. Note OT uniform and Milice security troops.

[pak 40]

if you look very closely you can actualy see the outline the kriegsmarine adler.So its certainly possible . i would love to own such a tunic . :-)

[Dimitri D]

It's possible that it's his initial KM feldbluse if the vet told you.

A lot of members from heer and kriegsmarine joined later in the war the waffen SS so it's possible.
There was a thread on WAF showing period pictures with SS soldiers wearing tunics with track of ghost breast eagle.

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

thanks for all for your nice replies !

@ NickG : this picture is taken in front of the SS-Ausbildungslager Sennheim, in the road leading to the entrance (the road still exist but is in a private company). It was probably taken on a Saturday (day of the sport events in Sennheim), and it was (probably) on the finishing line. Other pictures in NARA exist, with the "winner" being interviewed by a (SS ? i don't remember) PK radio journalist.
The sport event was probably a single running or a team running.
The guy with KM insignias may be infact... just a KM (foreign) volunteer, as the Lager had also HJ and KM formation units. In our case the 28. Schiffs-Stamm-Abteilung.

The second picture is taken by André Zucca (archives now in BHVP - Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris), french photograph for "Signal" in Paris, in the Caserne Clignancourt (destroyed after the war, near the location of the Clignancourt flea market), Boulevard Ney on October 30 (or 23 ?), 1943.
The Caserne Clignancourt was the first place in which volunteers from France were checked, before being sent by trucks to the Gare de l'Est, then to Sennheim.
Various volunteers were identified in the series of pictures.

@ Pak40 : yes we "saw" that, but we were unsure of us, it was maybe just auto-suggestion.

@ Dimitri : very interesting info ! Do you know if the topic is still on the WAF ?

See You

Vince

[Dimitri D]

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...smarine&page=6