Are these guys ss pow`s

[SHEARING-CROSS]

HI Iwould like to offer these 4 photos on the estand but would like to confirm if they are ss troops , german stuff is not my bag so please bare with me if im way off .

was told they are p.o.ws ( arm patch ?) also apart from the guy in the army tunic in the centre they all seem to have been stripped of insignia .
w
what make me think they are ss from my basic knowledge is this .

Some of the guys wear very dark ( black ) m43 caps and black sidecaps one has leather pants like the tank crews wore a couple of the guys have very dark shoulder boards one has blackk pants the guy seated far left has an openn neck tunic qworn with shirt and tie hope some one can help ,and sorry if im way off beam ,thanks ,Michael.

[SHEARING-CROSS]

a

[SHEARING-CROSS]

b

[Basil]

Probably not. The majority are wearing army tunics with six-button front closures. It's hard to tell what type of tunic the guy on the left of the first two images is wearing but it is probably a Heer M40 with 5 buttons.

Having said that, these aren't necessarily the uniforms these men were captured in. The Red Cross provided long term POWs with replacement uniforms and I doubt any difference between SS and Heer would have been observed.

[Vinland]

I doubt they are PWs as they're in front of what seems to be a Stoewer car. They all seem to be in the same anzug. Tempted to say they're ona driver's course. There's a white rectangle on the side of the vehicle that looks like the matching rectangle to the armbands...thoughts?

[Panama]

I doubt they are PWs as they're in front of what seems to be a Stoewer car. They all seem to be in the same anzug. Tempted to say they're ona driver's course. There's a white rectangle on the side of the vehicle that looks like the matching rectangle to the armbands...thoughts?

Hello,
no prisoners at all, the car is a german Steyr

Kind regards,
Panama

[chrischa]

With insignia removed, I was thinking imediate post war. The officers uniform is denazified? The german uniform was used imediately postwar by German troops in assisting the Western Allies and these guys are of an age group where they could have been wartime military police and / or polizei.

[Jørn Schmidt]

Indeed these are German POWs ,and I believe these are from Denmark.

#At the end of the war, there were estimated to be between 1.4 and 2 million land mines buried on the western coastline of Denmark. So many, in fact, that the Danish government wasn’t able to officially declare all of the beaches safe until 2012. The mines were the legacy of the Nazis, who occupied Denmark from 1940 to 1945, and believed the Allies might stage their expected invasion of Europe along the country’s massive coastline. They were wrong, of course. D-Day took place on the beaches of Normandy, France and marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi empire. Once the German Army was defeated, however, Denmark needed to excavate the still active mines from their shores. They decided to use German POWs, many of whom were just teenagers, to do so#

German POWs and refugees was not threated very well in Denmark after the war,there is a very good movieUnder Sandet/Land of Mine) about the POW cleaning the Danish beaches for mines.

The Soldiers was under German command,officers still had there side arms,after cleaning a field,they where ordered to walk in line through the field

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANL-Qnf6Eh0

I have two of these armpatches in my Collection
Minenkommando Dänemark and Sprengkommando Dänemark

Regards
J.S

[Sonderkommando]

*

J.S. excellent info, thanks for sharing.

[o.r.k.]

I never heard of these mine clearings in Denmark on this massive scale (2 million!), you always read this mainly took place in France and there are some stories from Norway.
As in France losses amongst POWs (plus many Frenchmen) were high, do you (Jorn schmidt) know if this was also true to the Danish mine clearings? It seems that the circumstances of the deadly job in Denmark were better, or am I wrong? Just curious to get to know more, as it is incredible what great amount of historical knowledge all members contribute.

[Jørn Schmidt]

Here you can read about the mine clearing in Denmark:

http://www.missing-lynx.com/library/german/denmine/denmine.htm

[galizien41]

I have a soldbuch of an 18 year old German panzer pioneer killed in August 1945 clearing mines in Denmark.

[o.r.k.]

thanks for the link Jorn, very interesting and detailed article.

[o.r.k.]

Referring to the pics: the upper picture shows a very relaxed group of mine clearers walking in a line- I suppose normally the guys wouldn´t be so casual and some even smiling when walking over a just cleared minefield as a final `check´. Perhaps just `fun´?