What did the headscare mean from the SS ?

I still didn't find the answer or a clear answer about the headscare that the SS used like on this foto:


Why im asking this is because they also used it in Holland by tmf(like MTV) and also in some clothing and that was exactly the same

And i just saw it today when i was watching another documentaire about the WOII. and i'm pretty shocked that they used it.

I hope some one can give me a clear answer =)

 

Do you mean the death's head ravertje?
It's been a military symbol for far longer than the brief usage by Adolf & his chaps, Prussian usage going back to Frederick the great in the late 18th / early 19th century, other military use earlier than that :

Prussian Hussars:

http://headgears.free.fr/fr/salles/coiffure.php?ID=65&DISPLAY=h

UK 17/21st Lancers:


French Hussars de la Mort:
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/minismodels/figurines/hussards_de_la_mort/hussards_de_la_mort.htm

French Hussar markings (?) on an early aeroplane:
http://www.tao-yin.com/baron-rouge/img/photos/nungesser-2.jpg

etc.

~A

 

Thanks for the fast reply.
I did mean the death'shead.

Hmm well i thought i was something that the adolf and his followers introduced in the second world war. But it's clear for me now ! thanks !

 

i thought the same thing

 

I think the deaths head is perhaps a uniquely german hat/helmet emblem. Compared to say the US, who may perhaps have had the largest assortment of unit emblems, nose art, insignia and badges of any country in WW2 but usually did not officially approve grisly insignia of this type.

(One might be reminded of the quote from Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now near the end of the movie where he is raving into the radio: "They train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write "F$CK" on their airplanes, because...It's OBSCENE.")

Anyway for the most part, images of this kind were not often allowed to be adopted for a standard issue uniform badge in the US military (although some units did have shoulder patches than included skulls esp. later on in the Vietnam era but these troopers were mostly recon, lurps or SF troopers).

The death's head was unique in that alot of SS soldiers reported joining the SS just so they could wear it! Young men being what they are, many yearned to be a member of an army of elite troops, and that is part and parcel to what Himmler wanted for his SS. I dont know if it was Himmler who came up with the idea for the Death's head badge and insignia, but he certainly must have been the one to approve it- since the SS was entirely his creation and like Hitler with the army, no details were too small for him.

 

That's a cracking hat the Field Marshal's wearing!

Steve W.

 

Not necessarily. Julius Schreck was the first Reichsfuhrer SS when he formed the strosstrupp Adolf Hiter followed by Joseph Berchtold then Erhard Heiden and finally Himmler. If you look at Himmler in early SS uniforms prior to him becoming Reichsfuhrer, the death's head is used.

 

I apologize for my own post, I had done that from memory and not by bothering to look anything up. It was upon "googling" that I discovered this next:

Frederick the Great formed Husaren-Regiment Nr.5 (von Ruesch), a Hussar regiment commanded by Colonel von Ruesch. These Hussars adopted a black uniform with a Totenkopf emblazoned on the front of their Mirletons and wore it on the field in the War of Austrian Succession (1740) and in the Seven Years' War (1754).

The "skull and crossbones" are still on the Regimental cap badge of the Queen's Royal Lancers. The British Army's Queen's Royal Lancers inherited its use by the 17th Light Dragoons, a unit raised following General Wolfe's death in Quebec (1759), with an emblem of a death's head and the words 'Or Glory' chosen in commemoration of him.

In 1792 a regiment of Hussards de la mort (Death Hussars) was raised to defend the young French Republic from the Austrian attempt to invade France. During the Napoleonic Wars, when Frederick Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg was killed in battle, his troops changed the color of their uniforms to black, with a Totenkopf on their Shakos in mourning their dead leader (Other sources claim that the "Black Brunswickers" were so equipped while Friedrich Wilhelm of Brunswick lived, as a sign of revenge on the French).

The Kingdom of Sweden's Hussar Regiments wore it in the Prussian Style on the front of the Mirleton. The Russian Kornilov regiment adopted it in 1917.

The Totenkopf was also used in Germany throughout the inter-war period, most prominently by the Freikorps. In 1933 it was in use by the regimental staff and the 1st, 5th, and 11th squadrons of the Reichswehr's 5th Cavalry Regiment. In the early days of the NSDAP, Julius Schreck, the leader of the Stabswache (Adolf Hitler's bodyguard unit), adopted the Totenkopf for his unit.

This later grew into the Schutzstaffel (SS), which continued to use the Totenkopf as insignia throughout their brief history. As they had done with the Swastika, the Nazis simply adopted the Totenkopf from the historical tradition and used it for their own purposes, leaving it marked with a stigma that has continued to the present.

 

That is a good find Clint.

 

Funnily enough, footage exists of some SS officers discussing this very issue.

YouTube - German SS officers - That Mitchell and Webb Look

 

I'm new here, so hello everybody!

SS-Totenkopfverbände (to which the skullmark refers and was used by) was second fully armed formation of SS. Another fully armed formation was the Verfügungstruppen which later became known as Waffen-SS. This SS-Totenkopf formation was put together from separate smaller units and this main unit was mainly responsible of maintaining concentration camps. First of these SS-Totenkopfverbände was founded late 1933 by SS-Standartenführer Theodor Eicke to Dachau. Later Eicke founded many more of these units to work in different concentration camps. In mid 1934 Eicke (SS-Brigadenführer at that point) was responsible of the whole concentration camp system. Eicke has also a very big role in the SA purge that took place in 30 of July. Eicke's formations was responsible of the executions of SA members together with Leibstandarten Adolf Hitler.

Right before the war these formations grew quite big and they were also participating in occupations of Austria and Czechoslovakia. During the war these units acted as a "police force" in the occupated areas and was responsible of deportations and executions. During the Barbarossa most of these units were melt into Waffen-SS, but SS-Totenkopfverbände was still responsible of the concentrations camps and generally speaking of the crimes that the SS committed during the nazi regime.

EDIT: Ok, read again the first post and thought, maybe I didn't fully understand the actual question The question seem to be about the actual badge and what was behind that and not the units that used it.

 

Correct and welcome to the forum.

 

Cheers, I was so excited about this forum and just wanted to post something without even reading the topic well enough.

 

__________________

So it was Himmler that chose the deaths head after all...it was also Hitler that chose the Swastika as the Nazi emblem and so enshrined a simple little symbol into infamy forever (if you dont believe that, have your kid make one on his term paper and then turn it into the teacher...on second thought, just dont do that.)

Say what you will about the evil Nazis and their corrupt ideas etc., they sure were a bunch of snappy dressers. I like the pictures people have posted, the first one of Heinrich having a good chuckle with his posse, probably after an argument about who could goose-step the highest without their boots flying off. And the other one of young Himmler with the now-quite-stylish goatee.
Even though they lost, the Germans had the coolest uniforms. The US uniforms pretty much resembled janitor clothing if you ask me, the Russians designs were as simple and utilitarian as a tractor seat cover, the French had ridiculous helmets and really, really stupid and crappy infantry weapons, and the same goes for Mussolini's boys.
The odd thing about the war is the German uniforms actually got snappier as the war progressed. Until the point in 1945 where they were lucky to get any uniform, along with their broken WW1 rifle and 5 bullets.

(warning this is a totally Tongue in cheek post, hope someone got a laugh)

 

Ed:

If you look at a history of the SS-Totenkopf division you will see that they were on the field for long periods of time, sometimes too long leading to the division being heavily drained of men and then pulled back from the front for a few months of rest. Very few of them survived the war and only a handful survived Soviet captivity.

What you might of got confused about was the "camp guards" term. The unit was specially handpicked of the cruellest toughest SOBs terrorizing the concentration camps. You can see the result of this with their bear minimum casualty rate in Poland and France. When they went to Russia... you know the rest.

Sorry for my rambling! Welcome to the forum!

 

Tongue in cheek or not, there's an element of truth in it. A fashion designer ex-girlfriend once told me that the Nazis had the best-designed uniforms, and she knows what she's talking about.

Along with the iconography, the stage-management of events like the Nuremburg Rally and the film-making of Leni Riefenstahl, the exploitation of fashion may have been part of the Nazi propaganda machine. I can imagine German women swooning over the snappily-dressed officers.

 

That's pretty funny! thanks for posting it!

 

The Totenkopf was also used by the Husards

 

The Totenkopf ("Death's Head") Hussars have been around since the time before Frederick The Great, it would seem only right that that bastard Hitler would ruin their name and use it with the SS regalia...