SS-Scharführer Ahti Pio, was one of the many Finns decorated with the Iron Cross 2nd Class.
He was one of those 400, who served in various divisional units of 5.SS-Division “Wiking” in 1941. He was later transferred to the Finnish Battalion “Nordost” along with the Panzerjäger Zug.
A Finnish-SS Battalion SS-Scharführer who has been warded the Iron Cross 2nd Class, enjoying some down time in his position.
SS-Oberscharführer Josef Spöck was a popular NCO in 9.Kompanie.
He was later wounded in the battles around Malgobek.
Judging by the weapons, helmets and uniforms I’d say these fellows belonged to 41 or earlier 3.SS-Division “Totenkopf.”
Yeah, I am leaning that way, but if so I’d say no further into the war than Unternehmen Fall Gelb. I say this due to the following factors:
a) vertical instead of horizontal collar tab insignia
b) the use of the German ZB26/30(t) MG
c) their M37 tunics
d) their helmets looking to be M35 (reissued) type.
Martin Junge
Martin Junge served with Hauptmann Zimmermann for much of the war, and saw the human side of the man behind the German Cross. Junge himself entered military service in 1938. He served in an infantry division in the invasion of Poland and France, then volunteered for the paratroops. He attended jump school in Braunschweig, then transported 7. Kompanie/Fallschirmjäger Regiment 2 in july 1940. In March 1941, he took part in the attack to seize the Corinth Canal, and was about 100 yards from the bridge when it went up, and on May 20, he jumped with Zimmermann into Crete. He served in Russia, where he was wounded a total of five seperate times, earned the EKII, EKI, Kreta cufftitle, Ostfront medal, General Assault Badge, Wound Badge and marksmanship lanyard, and rose to the rank of Haptfeldwebel before being captured by American forces near Saint Malô. From 1940 until Hauptmann Zimmermann left for North Africa in 1943, Junge was seldom far away. He tells it this way:
” I promised myself after France with the infantry I wasn’t going to stay with that Scheißhaufen! I hated it there. They came around asking for volunteers for the paratroops, and I wanted adventure and something better. In the Fallschirmjäger, we were an elite, better than the SS, very special…jump school was hard yes, but it trained you well. The training was good, it had to be. You had to be quick to stay alive. Once in Russia, I remember, four Russians and I popped up on either side of a snow drift about 5 yards apart at the same moment. I had my MP40 and I shot first. That was it. How did I get my EKI? Well on Crete, I used some hand-grenades and some parachute cord to know out one of the British tanks. When it got close enough, I pulled the detonator cord, and the explosion blew it over onto its side…but there were more tanks, and we were out of grenades…Yes, I was wounded in Russia, The first time I was hit with shell splinters in the swamps around Wolchow. I got hit with shell splinters in the head, larynx and mouth, knocked out three teeth and a piece of the upper jaw. When I got back to the aid station, they took off my steel helmet, then another shell hit and I got hit in the head. I was in a hospital a long tim after that, in Breslau.”
“Horst Zimmermann was not just our company commander, he was a Kamerad. His motto was, “Einer für Alle, Alle für Einen.” That’s the way he led his company. From September 1940 until March 1941, he worked hard on the military and cultural development of the men. He took the company to concerts, to movies and the opera. He spent a great deal of effort on the companies turnout on parade as well, making sure all the uniforms matched exactly in length and cut, and instilling real pride in the company as the sharpest on parade. If a mans tunic were a few millimeters too long, he would have to go to town and have it tailored.
The battalion commander, Pietzonka, he was an outstanding officer, too. I think he broke his foot jumping on Corinth, because he wasn’t with us at Crete. General Student was as well. I remember one night on Crete, after the battle, we had built a little shed and we were playing cards. Student knocked and came in. We all jumped up in respect, but he said ‘No, no lads, don’t get up, don’t make a fuss about me coming in, I just wanted to have a look at your game. He chatted with us for a few minutes, watched a hand of skat, and went on his way.
Those were Fallschirmjäger officers. They shared everything with their men. When I was in the infantry, I never even saw a General!
”In the field, Hauptmann Zimmermann shared every hardship with the men. You never saw that in the infantry, I’ll tell you. You seldom even saw an oficer, at least on foot. In the infantry, they would yell at you from horseback! And in the positions, never! But that was not so in the Fallschirmjäger, not so with Zimmermann. He would literally give you his bread if you were hungry. When we marched with the gas masks on for training, for example, he wore it too, and he set the pace up front. He inspected us regularly too and everything had to be neat and clean! He would say:’You’re representing Berlin and all of Germany!’ But in the field, that was another story. After Crete, for example, I remember one morning just after the battle, one of the Oberjägers was out of his tent at sunrise, calling reveille. Zimmermann was up already with a cup of tea, going over reports, and he was pissed off! He yelled back,’Oberjäger, shut up, the men can sleep as long as they want!’ One night in Russia, (we were always hungry there), one of the men found a dead horse, and in the platoon we cooked up the meat. Zimmemann came by, and I said, ‘Herr Hauptmann, I’ve got something for you,’ and passed him a mess tin with some cooked horse meat. He ate some and asked what it was. Well I told him, and he finished it and said,’Thanks, Feldwebel, needed something hot,’ and went on with his rounds of the positions. He was just like that…like a father to us.
Family problems which played an important role in our lives were also solved by him. He gave us advice like an experienced father. When there was a soldier who was a little bit strange, he told us how to handle that person. When we did something wrong, he told us how to make it better. We played water sports a lot, water polo and so on, and he had all of us swim with our uniforms on, so we would be ready for river crossings. When it was just the two of you talking, he would switch to the (informal) ‘Du,’ only when we were two or more men chatting did he use the (formal) ‘Sie.’ I remember one night in the Wolchow together, you know it was hell there…Zimmermann came to my trench, as he often did, and chatted, you know what we’d do after the war, our homes, had a smoke together. I would have walked through hell for that man.”
Zimmermann sent Junge to a training school for combat engineers before he left for Africa, and Junge never saw him again. Junge went on to serve in Italy, then sent back to the Russian front in 1943 and 1944. In Russia, in December 1943, he was hit with a shell splinter again, this time in the foot, and then again in January 1944 in the shoulder. Neither wound was enough for evacuation. The Sanitäters just patched him up, and he went back up to the trenches. Some time later, in February 1944, he was hit by a Russian machine-gun round in the thigh and was bleeding to death on open ground. Another Fallschirmjäger sacrificed his own life to save his, carrying him on his back into the lines before dying. Junge never even knew his name. He was evacuated to France, where the D-Day invasion found him. Junge went as a POW to Aliceville, Alabama, and was finally released on November 1, 1947, two and a half years after the war ended (although the Geneva Convention stipulates the release of POWs within one year of the cessation of hostilities). He returned to his home in the Soviet sector. He married, raised a family and worked until retirement in East Germany. When the wall fell, he moved to Western Germany with his family and began to seek out his old Fallschirmjäger comrades, which wasn’t permitted in the GDR. He found them, and after 45 years, has been active in veterans affairs ever since.
Document for the Crete cuff-title for Fallschirmjäger Obergefreiter Jakob Stephani of Fallschirm. Regt. 3, it was issued on May 20, 1943, two years after the campaign.
Document for Crete cuff-title given to Gebirgsjäger Oberjäger Franz Wohlfart of Geb.Rgt. 100, who fought alongside the men of Fallshirm.Regt.3
I want the taxes I pay every month going towards something more productive thank you very much.
Hans Joachim Marseille
scarf!
Fallschirmjager:
I want to mention the use of the scarf was to keep the neck from chaffing,
Especially when you wear a wool tunic, it will make your neck raw as f**K, not to mention the general rule was you were to keep your tunic buttoned up. While this rule was often overlooked, the top button was as far as you could go. So when you look at pictures of Krauts in WWII, notice how much you will see scarves in use. Not to mention they are suave as hell.
Just my two cents.
Brigadeführer Hermann Fegelein commander of the 1. & 2.SS-Kavallerie Regiments in the rare M41 SS-Sommer bluse, sitting in a Feiseler Fi 156 Storch reconnaissance/liaison aircraft, August, 1941.
I couldn’t do a motorcycle set with out a nod to Steve McQueen and his Triumph Trident Special 650
‘We had four bikes for this film. I was running a TT Special 650 Triumph. We painted it olive drab and put on a luggage rack and an old seat to make it look like a wartime BMW. We couldn’t use a real BMW, not at the speeds we were running, since those old babies were rigid-frame jobs, and couldn’t take the punishment.’
