The black uniform was designed to be feared, and its own makers said so. When the SS adopted its all-black service dress in 1932 — designed by the SS artist Karl Diebitsch with the graphic designer Walter Heck — the intent was not smartness but menace: a deliberately sinister, aristocratic look, black tunic and breeches with silver death's-head and lightning-rune insignia, meant to set the SS above ordinary Germans and to frighten everyone else. Heinrich Himmler was candid about it, remarking that many people "fall ill when they see this black uniform," and that the SS did not expect to be loved. The uniforms were manufactured by German clothing firms, among them the factory of Hugo Boss, which also used forced labour. Few costumes in history have advertised menace so efficiently.

The figure is a senior Leibstandarte SS officer — an SS-Brigadeführer, roughly a major-general — standing rigidly at attention in the full black dress uniform, aiguillette cord across the chest, sword drawn and held point-down. He is the black uniform at its most formal and forbidding. Set him with the collection's other senior SS figures, the SS Inspection Officer and the general who led them, Sepp Dietrich, over the ranks of the Leibstandarte. In a display of the SS he is the officer class made visible — the polished, deliberate face of an organisation built for terror.

Model: LAH244 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set