The uniforms


Clear this up for me please.

We have a Gestapo guy who's wearing an SS-uniform, a Kommendant that clains to be a Waffen-SS man yet wears a Wehrmacht uniform, also there seems to be a reference to another SS-man that's wearing a Wehrmacht uniform as well, and I see in the Goofs-column that the Allied paratroppers wear uniforms not in use until 1950 or 60-ish.

Help me out here, is anybody actually wearing the right uniforms and is in the right military grouping in this movie??

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"During the briefing sequence, when Schaffer is in Army dress uniform, he is wearing a Senior Parachutist Badge, designating him as a jumpmaster. The Senior badge was not created until 1949."

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Anton Diffring who plays Col. Kramer is wearing field grey Waffen SS uniform. Ferdy Mayne who who plays General Rosemeyer is wearing field grey army uniform so these are both correct.
As it has already been said Derren Nesbitt's character is Gestapo and he wouldn't have normally worn SS uniform, they usually wore civilian clothes, but if he did it would be the field grey SS pattern but without the SS runes on the collar tabs- the tabs would be plain black.
The black SS was a parade uniform rarely worn during the war- the obvious exception being the guards at the Reichchancellerie which are shown wearing it with white gloves.
The reason Von Hapen wears it in the movie?- Simple, first it clearly marks him out as a villain and secondly, as someone stated at the time "Because Derren looks damn good in it!"
Ironically, Derren Nesbitt is IIRC Jewish!

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Cool thanks. Seems I need to read up on my historical uniforms... :-)

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Anton Diffring who plays Col. Kramer is wearing field grey Waffen SS uniform.


Interestingly, he also has an edelweiss emblem on his uniform. Apparently he's part of an SS mountain troop (in the novel, he is said to be from intelligence, meaning he should have "SD" on his cuff).

http://deutschesoldaten.wikia.com/wiki/Paul_Kramer

I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?

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Everyone speaks English..so,I guess getting the uniforms correct wasn't high on their list of factual accuracy.

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It's too bad they didn't have the Germans speak German. Some of the better WWII movies like The Longest Day did. It seems more realistic, although a lot of movie goers are too lazy to read captions.

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As far as I can remember without watching that part of the film again, the jump wings Schaffer wears on his Class A coat during the briefing session flashback are basic parachutist's wings, not senior wings, which have a star on top of the badge's parachute canopy.

Although correctly identified by the poster as not having been in existence in World War II, senior parachutist's wings are awarded to paratroopers after 30 jumps with additional qualifiers during those jumps, one of which is having served as a jumpmaster.

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Von Hapen also has a Close Combat clasp on his uniform, a somewhat unlikely decoration for a Gestapo agent.

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