A nice picture of albanian SS soldier

[Arto O]

Hi,
Here a nice picture of albanian SS soldier. Collar patches are not seen, so could from "Handschar" or "Skanderbeg" division. Seems to be from a french language book.

Source: division-historia.bloq...

[Arto O]

Now observing the photo again, makes me to remember another one from "Siegrunen" magazine. The man playing a flute. He is carrying a blanket in a russian style over his shoulder.

[Ivan Ž.]

Now that's one great photo, thank you for sharing!

He is an Albanian from "Skanderbeg" without any doubt.

Does anyone know if there was another Waffen-SS unit which included a blanket as a standard part of the gear? I've noticed only "Skanderbeg" men wearing it (and I don't mean that there were some individual cases of soldiers carrying a private blanket, but that it was issued to all soldiers - as several photographs suggest). I would also like to know the reason for this detail.

Cheers,
Ivan

[Hecht]

I would also like to know the reason for this detail.

Cheers,
Ivan

Well, if I can say my opinion, I think albanians SS didn't need any zeltbahn since they were used mainly as Jagdkommandos so often sleeping under the bare stars, then a blanket was enough.
But that's just my immagination.

[Arto O]

Albanian SS soldiers? Could be.
Source: bandenkampf.blogspot.com

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[Ivan Ž.]

Why a question mark and a "could be" when these are known/confirmed photos of Albanian SS soldiers which come from a heavily sourced and a firmly reliable site with detailed captions. As it was written on the site and on the photos themselves, their initial source is ECPAD (the same as of the first photo posted in this thread), which has the original negatives. Anyhow, no doubt there.

Cheers,
Ivan

[ML59]

Very poor looking guys and apparently poorly fed. Men from Handschar looked (in pictures, at least) much more fit and "martial" then those poor Albanian peasants.

[Ivan Ž.]

I'm not sure whether they were in fact poorly fed (they probably were indeed poor, most volunteers were). It's the terrain and the way of life over there, people are usually thin - but tough. I've served the army in those areas and I remember the Albanians and Montenegrins as thin and tough people. I myself soon became thin/tough back then too. The Handschar men were mostly poor peasants as well, but their military discipline (at least in appearance) turned out to be way better, as you've noticed yourself (the same goes for the Albanians while they were part of the Handschar). I assume it had a lot to do with their commanders; while Sauberzweig (Handschar) arrived in the unit as a Prussian Heer officer from Germany, Schmidhuber (Skanderbeg) was already a two year veteran of the Yugoslav war theater and was more than a bit looser (in many ways) than Sauberzweig (soon Sauberzweig became "loose" too, had serious mental issues, and had to leave the Yugoslav front). But, apart from having different (strict/loose) commanders, there's also the difference in peoples' mentality, volunteers' (de)motivation and so on.

Cheers,
Ivan

Here a nice picture of albanian SS soldier. Collar patches are not seen, so could from "Handschar" or "Skanderbeg" division. Seems to be from a french language book.

That scan comes from our member Charles Trang's book "Dictionnaire de la Waffen-SS", vol. 3 (initial source: ECPAD).

[Arto O]

Thanks Ivan for the information about the source of the first photo. By the way you have very interesting blog. Thanks.
I want to add this photo more from there. It has higher resolution than I ever seen about this photo.

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[Ivan Ž.]

Cheers, Arto, and thanks for the kind words The last photo shows an Albanian member of the Handschar division (notice the full gear & neat look, in contrast to their look in the Skanderbeg-days). On the internet, it was spread around for years as a photo of a Skanderbeg member, which is incorrect (if he survived long enough, this NCO probably was indeed transferred to the Skanderbeg div., but in this particular photo he was still in the Handschar).

Cheers,
Ivan