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ABmilitaria

Wehrpass - RAD officer / Luftwaffe member / Waffen SS applicant

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1st edition Wehrpass issued to Franz Schneider in May 1936, a resident of Lingen, Germany. Born in October 1913, Schneider joined the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD) paramilitary organization in September 1936. He remained a member of the RAD until the end of war, his ID photo clearly shows him wearing his RAD uniform. The RAD section of the Wehrpass is very well-filled, tracing his service in various units throughout WW2. He reached the junior officer rank of Unterfeldmeister (2nd Lieutenant), which is mentioned in a piece of RAD correspondence that is inserted in the Wehrpass pocket. This letter appears to appoint Schneider as a commander of a local RAD unit / position in Oldenburg, Germany, in March 1945 (at that time the RAD would have been assisting in the city's defence against the advancing Allies). 


The Wehrpass is stamped “Luftwaffe” and Schneider served in the Luftwaffe from August 1939 to the end of July 1940. He served on the homefront with a Construction / Guard battalion (I can’t fully identify the exact unit that he served with, it’s difficult to read). A 1942 stamp indicates that he was paid the standard 50 Reichsmarks Entlassunggeld (one time payment when leaving the military). 

There is a very intriguing entry that indicates that he attempted to join the Waffen SS, specifically the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, in the summer of 1942. Presumably he didn’t meet the entry requirements or wasn’t enrolled for some reason, I was only partly successful in translating this entry. He may not have met the "ancestry requirements" if my translation is correct. I'm not 100% on this but I'm fairly certain since the words "ahnenschein für die Waffen SS" are fairly easy to read.

Interesting Wehrpass for an RAD officer who has an affiliation with both the Luftwaffe and the Waffen SS. 

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