Max WΓΌnsche: The Waffen-SS Pin-Up Girl
βSepp Dietrichβs other companion is a young HauptsturmfΓΌhrer, tall, slim, light blond β a Siegfried with aristocratic features, who appears to be his adjutant. His name is Max WΓΌnsche. He is constantly holding the map on a wooden board. Whenever he speaks about the ongoing operations, I notice that he is completely familiar with this profession.β
β Romanian officer, Balkan campaign, 1941
βFrau Meyer was particularly taken with the hawkish Max WΓΌnsche, always decked in his splendid black tank uniform. He would strut around the drawing room of ChΓ’teau de la Guillerie with an air of imperious disdain, his blond hair oiled, his eyes piercingly cold.β
β Frau Meyer, France, shortly before the invasion, 1944
βPW is definitely a museum piece. He is 150% Nordic warrior, wearing every order of the Iron Cross; an officer of the Leibstandarte since 1933 on and a fanatic of the most extreme order, with a well disciplined and calculating brain. His information is reliable on military matters, but his attitude is irreconcilable.β
β Allied intelligence report on Prisoner of War Max WΓΌnsche, 1944
βWΓΌnsche arrived wearing dark trousers topped by a mustard-coloured tunic with high collar. His chest was littered with decorationsβincluding the Knightβs Cross. He was young, tall, slender, blond and blue-eyed, with his hair combed straight back and unbelievably handsome. He should have been a movie star.β
β Major-General Harry Wickwire Foster, during the trial of Kurt Meyer, December 1945
βWΓΌnsche was an SS pin-up type β¦ with a vigorous loyalty complex."
β Major John Jerome Stonborough, during the trial of Kurt Meyer, December 1945
βMax WΓΌnsche has become one of the favourite heroes of German youth. His portrait, in his black tanker's uniform and with the Knightβs Cross gleaming at his collar, is displayed in magazines everywhere. He resembles the Siegfried of legend and seems to pursue a perpetual dream of glory.β
β Jean Mabire, Les jeunes fauves du FΓΌhrer (1976)
βMax WΓΌnsche was blond and strikingly handsome in his black SS tanker's uniform. He could easily have been the model for an SS or Hitler Youth recruiting poster.β
β Charles Whiting, Retreat to the Reich: The German Defeat in France 1944 (1979)
βThe perfect example of Aryan youth as laid down in the pages of Mein Kampf.β
β Anonymous, Special Interrogation Reportβ¦, Canadian Military History (2002)
βStunningly blonde, WΓΌnsche was an equal SS prince to Jochen Peiper.β
β Danny S. Parker, Hitlerβs Warrior (2016)
Max saw himself, not as a βNordic clotheshorse,β but as a soldier β yet in the end, it made no difference. Again and again, memoirs, official reports, and post-war books return to the same observation: WΓΌnsche embodied, almost uncomfortably perfectly, the regimeβs aesthetic fantasy of the βAryan warrior.β
So what was the truth about the "unbelievably handsome" Max WΓΌnsche?
A series of posts will follow, taking a closer look at his life. Have questions? Ask them β Iβll try to include them.
Want to know more? Hereβs the guide.