Wünsche, Max, born 20-04-1914 in Kittlitz,
Brandenburg, as the son of a farmer and forester, joined an agricultural union in 1928 and for a short time he was employed as an estate manager. In November 1932, at the age of 18, he joined the Hitler Youth
. In July 1933, he joined SS, Nr 153,508, organization of the Nazi Party
. After officer training at Jüterbog
in Brandenburg and Bad Tölz



































In August, his regiment was trapped in the Falaise Pocket and here Hauptsturmführer Rudolf von Ribbentrop with the wounded Max Wünsche and Fritz Witt.
On 20-08-1944, he and two officers, Hauptsturmfüher Georg Iseke and Untersturmführer Fritz Freitag
attempted to escape the pocket on foot. While they marched on foot, they encountered a enemy outpost where the injured Doctor was taken prisoner while Wünsche got wounded in the calf.
Then Isecke became separated and was captured, too. Wünsche’s group was now down to two. Wünsche and Freitag found a German vehicle in good working condition and drove through St. Lambert in plain view of the Canadians that occupied the town. But later that day, while waiting under the cover of bushes for darkness they where captured by Allied soldiers on 24 August. After a day or two he was put in front of Bernard “Monty” Montgomery
who very angry explained to Wünsche that he treated the German POWS after the Geneva convention but not the SS who was political scums and worms, and would be treated after that. He was a prisoner of war at Camp 165 for German officers at Caithness, Scotland, United Kingdom until the end of the war. Total casualties among the Waffen-SS
will probably never be known, but one estimate indicates that they suffered 180.000 dead, 400.000 wounded, and 40.000 missing. World War II casualties indicates that the Waffen-SS suffered 314.000 killed and missing, or 34.9 per cent. By comparison, the United States Army suffered 318.274 killed and missing in all theaters of the war.




Max Wünsche was one of the SS men to receive the Honour Chevron for the Old Guard, Ehrenwinkel der Alten Kämpfer
, this was a Nazi Party decoration worn by members of the EE. The silver chevron, which was worn on the upper sleeve on the right arm, was authorised by Adolf Hitler in February 1934. All members of the SS, who had joined the Algemeine SS
, NSDAP or any other party organisation prior to 30 January 1933 were entitled to wear the insignia. Other notable recipients are Adolf Eichmann, Jacob Grimminger,
Reinhard Heydrich, Emil Maurice, Julius Schreck and SS Gruppenführer Karl Wolff
the adjutant of Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler. 






Death and burial ground of Wünsche, Max.




In 1948, Wünsche was released from captivity and returned to Germany. He became a manager of a industrial plant in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany until 1980. He married Ingeborg Dievetz, she died old age 80 on 14-12-2000 in Munich and they had 5 sons and became a manager of a industrial plant in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia, 1980. Wünsche rose from the ashes of nothing to financial security. Wünsche died at the high age of 80, on 17-04-1995 and is buried with his wife Ingeborg, born Piwitz, who died also age 80, in 2000, on the Nordfriedhof of Munich, close by the graves of the 1923 Putz victim Andreas Bauriedl and Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s personal photographer and his daughter Henriette “Henny” von Schirach-Hoffmann who married the Hitler Youth leader, Baldur von Schirach, Dr. Gustav Kahr President of the Bavarian court in 1923 during the Putz and some further the secretary of Hitler, Traudl Junge-Humps











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