A Day in the Countryside
In German Occupied Croatia During World War 2
By NovaCaster
So this picture is another historical pinup obviously. It depicts the 13th Waffen SS Handscher mountain division 1st Croatian. They were an interesting branch of the German army due tot he fact that they were heavily Muslim. Kinda a little known part of World War 2 history. To be quite honest, as much of a history nerd as I am, I had no idea this was even a thing until DoctorDweeb came to be and asked me to do the commission. The fez was actually part of the uniform, although the red one depicted was more for dress ceremony than use in the field (for obvious reasons…. Wearing a bright red target on the top of your head in combat is…. questionably wise…). In reality, they would have been wearing a Feldgrau (or field gray) fez to match the rest of the uniform. They had a number of vehicles at their disposal, but the Sd. Kzf. 221 Maschinengewehr (The machine gun variant) was one of them. It was armed with a single MG34 and had a 2 man crew. It also happened to be 4 wheel drive. Anyway, there ya go! History!