Germany, SS. A Rare Identity Card to SS-Unterscharführer Erich Kuhmichel, with Royal SS-Obergruppenführer Signature

(Schutzstaffel Ausweis). Constructed of card stock with a pale blue watermark throughout, the obverse bearing typewritten particulars to “ERICH KUHMICHAEL”, SS member “201796”, who held the rank of Unterscharführer on the Staff of SS-Oberabschnitt Fulda-Werra, retaining a certified portrait of Kuhmichel in a black Allgemeine SS uniform complete with visor cap and with a collar tab for SS-Standarte 25, the reverse with an issue date of “15. JANUAR 1937” and an active service date of “24. 12. 36.”, issued from Arolsen, notably certified by the handwritten signature of Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, in his capacity of SS-Obergruppenführer, measuring 9 cm (w) x 12 cm (h), a rare example of an identity document featuring the signature of a member of a deposed German royal house in active service with the SS and NSDAP, in extremely fine condition.

Footnote: Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont (1896–1967), was born into the ruling family of the small German principality of Waldeck and Pyrmont. He served as a Heer (Army) officer during the First World War and subsequently became active in nationalist circles before joining the NSDAP in November 1929 and the SS in March 1930. His aristocratic background, and close relationships with Heinrich Himmler and Sepp Dietrich, helped him rise rapidly through the SS hierarchy. He became a member of the Reichstag in 1933 and attained the rank SS-Obergruppenführer. During the NSDAP consolidation of power, he participated in the June 1934 “Night of the Long Knives,” helping organize the executions of SA leaders at Munich's Stadelheim prison. He subsequently held several senior positions within the SS, police, and national state, becoming Higher SS and Police Leader for Wehrkreis IX in 1938, a position that gave him supervisory authority over the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Waldeck-Pyrmont's association with Buchenwald was particularly consequential. Although he was not the camp's commandant, his office exercised regional authority over it, and he was held responsible after the war for crimes committed within his jurisdiction. In 1941, he initiated an investigation into Buchenwald commandant Karl-Otto Koch after discovering that prisoners, including Walter Krämer, had been murdered on Koch's orders; the investigation exposed murders, corruption, and embezzlement and ultimately contributed to Koch's execution in April 1945. At the same time, Waldeck remained an active senior official within the governing apparatus of the Third Reich, which was responsible for political persecution, forced labor, concentration camps, and mass murder. He was arrested in April 1945 and tried by a U.S. military tribunal in the Buchenwald Trial in 1947. Convicted of war crimes connected with the camp, he was initially sentenced to life imprisonment; the sentence was reduced to 20 years in 1948, and he was released in December 1950. He became head of the House of Waldeck and Pyrmont in 1946 and died in 1967. His career illustrates a rare example of the extent to which members of Germany's former aristocracy could become deeply integrated into NSDAP and its organs, even while occasionally acting against individual abuses within that system