The Waffen-SS was the armed wing of the SS, and its record is inseparable from the crimes of that organization. It grew from a few regiments of Hitler's political soldiers into a force of more than thirty-eight divisions fighting alongside the German army, but it never stopped being Himmler's. Its units committed atrocities against enemy soldiers and civilians across occupied Europe, and the SS as a whole ran the concentration and death camps. In 1946 the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg declared the entire organization criminal — one of the few times a military body has been condemned in its entirety.

The figure stands with his helmet off — a rare quiet pose in a range of men in action, his young face bare, weapon slung, caught in a moment of pause. It is a reminder that the Waffen-SS was made of individuals, many of them very young, without softening what the organization did. Within the fuller story he stands among the rank and file like the Grenadier Kneeling with K98, under officers like the Waffen SS Officer, and in the shadow of the range's most notorious name, Joachim Peiper. A collection that includes the SS should present it whole — the ordinary soldier and the record alike.

W. Britain model 25266. 1/30 scale, matte-painted metal. Single figure — a Waffen-SS grenadier standing with his helmet off. Boxed.