Feldgrau.net

NCOs in the German Armed Forces (corporals were not considered NCOs) did not wear chevrons to indicate their rank. In common with the Army and Air Force, Waffen-SS NCOs' rank was indicated by stars or 'pips' on their shoulderstraps; the shoulderstraps themselves were bordered with a wide 'litzen' (m...

"Guarded by SS troops", could mean anything. It could mean Waffen-SS, SIPO, ORPO.... the list goes on! It's unlikely the writer would even know.

'Der Speiss' was an appointment and not a rank. My understanding is that it worked rather like the appointment of 'executive officer' on a warship, who (well, in the Royal Navy, at least) is always held by the senior seaman-specialist officer, and not normally by an officer from another branch of th...

Look for Bender's books on Luftwaffe uniforms and Brian Davis' book on the same subject -in both cases, I think the Forestry uniforms are covered in volume 2 of these books.

The film about the chasing of the Graf Spee was called, 'The Battle of the River Plate'.

Absolutely agree; it's not the beret, but how it's worn and whether it's the correct size! Also, a beret has to be aged and abused (Brits spend quite a lot of time on this 'softening-up' process) to some extent before it takes on the correct shape; brand-new berets always look awful! In the Middle E...

Panzer troops were issued with padded head protection which was worn under oversized berets. According to Dr Kleitmann's 'Feldgrau' magazine, this form of headgear made it difficult to wear headphones and, so, it was dispensed with in favour of 'boat shaped' caps. So, the padded helmet/beret combina...

I don't altogether agree. There are many feature films (including some made in the 50s and 60s) that treat the Germans fairly. Off the top of my head, I can think of 'The Battle of the River Plate', 'Ice Cold in Alex', 'A Bridge Too Far', 'The Longest Day' as examples in which the German's are treat...

Absolutely agree -Terry Wogan is the best thing about the Eurovision Song Contest; without the contest, we'd dip-out on Terry's wonderful commentary!!!!

One aspect which doesn't appear to have been brought up in this discussion thread is the fact that (certainly for the first few years of the war) bombing was woefully inaccurate, so carpet bombing was more-or-less the only way to hit back to Germany. The use of night-time flash photography revealed ...

Don't laugh.... I mean, Turkey is hardly a European country!!! And why is Israel in the 'Eurovision Song Contest'?

I, for one, will be voting against the EU Constitution when we get the opportunity. I don't even particularly care what it says! I'm simply against the EU on principle, and will be pleased to vote for any political party that wants to get us out of the damn organisation! I've removed the EU flag fro...

Hi, Sid: Absolutely agree with you on 'Saving Private Ryan', to which I would add 'Band of Brothers' -they were both about US units, so I don't really see what all the whinging was about! There was some talk about Ambrose's book about Pegasus Bridge being filmed, but I guess there wouldn't be the au...

No-one is saying ex-members of the Waffen-SS necessarily need to hide their membership in that organisation (unless they have something to hide), but to suggest giving enemy veterans donations when we have our own veteran charities is plainly an eccentric point of view! Further to the posting by jma...

I don't quite know what the British have done to upset the US film industry! Britain is the US's strongest ally in the so-called 'war on terror' (and most other things), yet is consistently either airbrushed-out of history ('U-571'), or portrayed as military idiots ('A Bridge too Far', 'Patton') or ...