Totenkopfverbande uniforms

[edward.heacook]

I am new to this website and would like to be more informed on a few subjects.
I find the structure and myriad of uniform combinations confusing. The internet sometimes has it's limitations, so I turn to all of you for information.
My main confusion is this:
If you were an SS soldier assigned to a concentration camp would you have any specific uniform patches, badges etc.. to identify this specific assignment? Or was it the same uniform worn at the front and didn't change regardless of assignment?
Was it just the 3rd SS division that dealt with the camps?

[Ian Hulley]

Was it just the 3rd SS division that dealt with the camps?

The 'Totenkopf' Division was formed from a cadre of fit and healthy guards from the SS-TV who had guarded the camps, they were replaced by older and less and less fit men gradually as the demand for manpower increased.

Many Waffen-SS men were posted in and out of the camps during the war as their units were reformed and they had rest and recuperation time, towards the end of the war many camp guards were from Wehrmacht units, these were supposed to wear the double armed swastika collar patch designed for them by Himmler.

There was a difference between the camp Kommandant's permanent staff who actually ran the camp and the Wachtsturmbann who guarded the perimeters of the grounds.

Ian

[Fritz]

Actually the Totenkopf-Division was composed in the very late 30s of a good deal of members of the Totenkopfverbände, about 50% of its personal came from the TV, the others came from the police, allgemeine SS etc.. Means that even in the earliest days quite a number of its members have never seen a camp from the inside.

By that time the physical quality of these men was worse than in the SS-VT as the TV had much lower standards, men of the TV were usualy much older when compared to those of the VT (often 10 -20 years older), they could be wearer of glases etc., things that were impossible in the entire VT.

Up to the demjansk battle the face of the T-Div. didn't change that much, during that battle the original cadre of the T-Div. was virtually destroyed. The first large reinforcements composed of men that, for the most part, were not related to the TV (camps) arrived during the demjansk battle.

Camp guards usualy wore special insignia, the insignia changed more than once during all these years. The T-Div. wore different insignia and the gap between the camp and T-Div. insignia grew larger over the years incl. specific branch colors for shoulder straps etc..

Many former camp guards served in the wehrmacht or other ss divisions during the war. It is however true that at least the early T-Div. was the combat unit that was the most related to the camp system (although a camp system long before Auschwitz and other extermination camps which mustn't be confused with "ordinary" concentration camps such as Dachau, Sachsenhausen or Buchenwald).