Keeping Hitler alive was a full-time obsession, and riders like this were part of the cordon that did it. From the earliest days the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler provided his bodyguard — the outriders who flanked his motorcades, the sentries at his residences, the escorts who screened every route he travelled. The vigilance was not misplaced. Over the years Hitler was the target of dozens of assassination plots — more than forty by one well-known count — from lone would-be bombers to the army officers who nearly killed him in July 1944; he survived them all through a mixture of luck, tight security, and his own erratic, last-minute changes of plan. The black-clad motorcyclist, an "Adolf Hitler" cuff title at his wrist, is a small cog in that machinery of protection.

The figure is a Leibstandarte rider in black SS uniform on his motorcycle, the white parade belts marking him — as the copy notes — as a member of the SS's premier regiment, the "Adolf Hitler" cuff title at his wrist. He is an escort in motion: pair him with the motorcade he would flank, the Führer's Mercedes, the Hitler he was sworn to protect, and the rest of his regiment, the Leibstandarte. In a motorcade diorama the outrider gives the scene movement and menace — the sense of a cordon sweeping through cleared streets.

Model: LAH257 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / rider and motorcycle