I have always thought the SS uniform cut in this manner was black. As for the SA (Sturm Abteilung) "storm troopers" named after the specially trained front line soldiers who used stealth, cover and concealment, and close combat to defeat the lethal effects of grazing machinegun fire and shell fragments. The Nazi SA was not a part of the German Army. It was their demand to be a part of the Army that triggered the "Night of the Long Knives" in which the SS arrested the SA leaders and shot them down. This was Hitler's way of dealing with those who put him in power and wanted their reward ... a more "socialist" division of the spoils. The SS was originally Hitlers personal bodyguard, as much to protect himself against the SA,as against the other nationalist para military groups, the socialist red guards, and the communists. The SS became the armed forces of the Nazi Party, not the Army, and as such maintained a separate existence, uniforms, tactics, in what was called the Waffen SS. Originally the SS was restricted to pure "Aryans" who had no physical faults including cavities in their teeth. As the needs for more manpower grew in wartime, the SS became the umbrella organization for foreign volunteers serving as a part of the SS command structure. There were Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Bosnian, Italian, French, Cossack and even Indian SS units ... some recruited from PW camps. Some of these units fought to the last man in the final Battle of Berlin, particularly the Charlemagne (French) Division and the Viking Division. A separate structure of the SS, strickly not part of the Waffen SS were those who ran the death camps. These units included Ukrainians, Latvians, and other eastern european anti jewish elements. The Waffen SS was trained in a manner which stressed comradeship, cooperation, and in a manner far more laid back than is depicted in modern film. This is consistent with other elite forces of the world, historically. The fought courageously and often to the last. German Army forces with SS on the flanks felt more secure. Their ferocity in combat was sadly coupled with a ferocity against the innocent and have set the standard for evil only rivaled by the Turkish Janissaries and the NKVD. The SS insignia and uniforms were the sexiest uniforms devised since the Napoleonic Era and have evoked a lot of emulation and false militarism. They were unqualified bastards, and it would be refreshing to match these models with those of the forces that eventually crushed them ... such as the scruffy troops known as GI Joe ... and his allied buddies.

Gordon