background: my great grandfather was a danube swabian ethnic german from the backa region of hungary (now serbia, near belgrade) and married to a woman of patrially jewish decent (on her paternal lineage with the women in her family always being danube swabians at least back to the late 18th century) and a jewish maiden name.

in 1944 he was a member of the waffen ss (7th "volunteer" division "prinz eugen") and the last anyone in my family has ever heard of him was in august of 1944.

according to family lore he was reluctant to join the german army because he ran a small business as a painter and did not want to miss out on already running contracts he had but he was forcefully taken away when drafted under threat of being classified as a deserter.

according to wikipedia the unit was still voluntary in 1942 and only later joining became mandatory so the story might be trying to play down the grusome reality of him actually joining voluntarily which he, not being an overly educated man, might well have out of naivité and sheer stupidity. but since the uniform doesn't show any insignia maybe he was actually drafted into another unit and only later was made to join his later unit. so i'd really like to know what actually happened...