SS Research Question - Help if possible

[Rossi]

Thanks Doug. He did reach out to my reply today. I am going to do some more digging on my own and see what else I can come up with for now. Appreciate the introduction. He was very responsive and I have his site now on file.

Unless he has changed I think he charges a base fee of $120 plus time spent. Usually I pay about $150 but I try to give him multiple research projects at one time.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

As for the abbreviations (although you probably know those already):

"SS-Uscha." stands for the rank SS-Unterscharführer, i.e. a Corporal.

"Nachr. Abt. 106" is Nachrichten-Abteilung 106, i.e. Signals Detachment 106. The SS-Korps-Nachrichten-Abteilung 106 was the corps signals unit for the VI. SS-Freiwilligen-Armeekorps, i.e. the VI. SS Volunteer Army Corps, which included the 15th and 19th Latvian divisions.

"2 Fe" is the component unit. I would assume this to be the "2. (Fernsprech) Kompanie", i.e. the 2nd (Telephone) Company. As I understand it, corps signals detachments had one telephone- and one radio company.

As for the man himself:

As has been said above, researching him will be difficult. Data on a commissioned officer may be found in the SS' officer seniority lists, but this was a humble JNCO. Even with additional data available, the Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt) wouldn't be of help, as they only provide data to veterans and their relatives. (Sorry, I have no experience with other possibilities for archival research.)

I have checked the database of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (the German War Graves Commission) for the name, but came up with no definitive result. It lists 8 pages of men with the name Otto Fritz. We can obviously disregard those who died in WWI and those with a Wehrmacht rank, but that still leaves a substantial number of men with no rank given. It might be that your Otto Fritz is one of them, but there really is no way of knowing.

What a fine, learned and clear response.