Gents,
This very interesting picture is from a friend of mine who is related to the soldier in question. The guy shown is a Dutchman who was born in 1920. He volunteerd to go work in Germany in 1941 and was working there as a train driver. He wrote home that he volunteered for the Waffen SS in 1943. His parents were surprised as his family was not pro German or politically active and neither was he. He was attached to the Westland regiment. He continued to write home until early january 1945 and is missing ever since. He was reportedly last seen by a Dutch member of Westland in september 1944 in the fortress of Warschau. The picture shown was taken in december 1944.
I had the opportunity to see the Red Cross file drafted after the war when his family was trying to find out what happend to him. Most of the above information comes from this file. The file concludes that he probably had been killed around Budapest between January 10 and March 10, 1945. There is no mentioning him having been part of the Totenkopf division.
As you can see the uniform combi is very interesting! You would say that with an eventual transfer from Westland to TK he would only had to change his collar tabs
on his SS uniform but it seems he got a WH uniform (and M43 cap!) and added the collar tabs and skull to his cap. Likely there were no SS uniforms available at that time.
I am interested in your comments.
Erik
This very interesting picture is from a friend of mine who is related to the soldier in question. The guy shown is a Dutchman who was born in 1920. He volunteerd to go work in Germany in 1941 and was working there as a train driver. He wrote home that he volunteered for the Waffen SS in 1943. His parents were surprised as his family was not pro German or politically active and neither was he. He was attached to the Westland regiment. He continued to write home until early january 1945 and is missing ever since. He was reportedly last seen by a Dutch member of Westland in september 1944 in the fortress of Warschau. The picture shown was taken in december 1944.
I had the opportunity to see the Red Cross file drafted after the war when his family was trying to find out what happend to him. Most of the above information comes from this file. The file concludes that he probably had been killed around Budapest between January 10 and March 10, 1945. There is no mentioning him having been part of the Totenkopf division.
As you can see the uniform combi is very interesting! You would say that with an eventual transfer from Westland to TK he would only had to change his collar tabs
on his SS uniform but it seems he got a WH uniform (and M43 cap!) and added the collar tabs and skull to his cap. Likely there were no SS uniforms available at that time.
I am interested in your comments.
Erik
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