You are right. That is a great photo
Yep, I like these images that show no specific events but capture a kind of "zeitgeist".
I don't think the soldier on the left is really covering his face deliberately, rather he is in a "we were drinking" pose if a pose at all.
We can't see much of their uniforms but I don't see any kind of wartime distinction so I am guessing this represents the pre-war "halcyon days" before things got hot, sweaty and very real!!
Regards
Mark
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
Too bad his cuff title is blocked by the chair, great photo.
Indeed: He's not covering his face, he's simply finishing his beer.
It is actually a wartime photograph for sure.
Collar- and collar patch piping have already been discontinued. The field blouses are of the army model and display wartime simplifications: The collars are not of dark green badgecloth anymore, but of field grey base cloth and the lower patch pockets of the man on the right are unpleated. Resting on the knee of the beer drinkin' man on the left is a second model SS field cap, which is already without the soutache. I would tentatively date the photo to no earlier than 1942.
(Come to think of it, the very fact that they are wearing their field grey field uniforms while taking their ladies to the Biergarten is a clue that this is a wartime image: Prior to the outbreak of war, the black service dress was the only permitted walking out-, dress- and parade uniform for all branches of the SS.)
Thank-you for that description. Your perspective gives the photo a depth not seen with the eye alone.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
Didn't mean he was actually hiding his face, however he is smirking.
The shoulder board of the man on the right, with the cuff title, appears to have something more than just a button on it.
Ralph.
Searching for anything relating to, Anton Boos, 934 Stamm. Kp. Pz. Erz. Abt. 7, 3 Kompanie, Panzer-Regiment 2, 16th Panzer-Division (My father)
I noticed that same thing Ralph, looks like a slip on tab, as the piping is blocked.
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