King & Country WS255 Handschar Advancing NCO: An MP40 Carried Through a Forward Step

The formation belongs to the later war

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s chronology places recruitment for the 13th Waffen-SS division in 1943 and its Balkan deployment in 1944.

That dating prevents the figure from being casually placed in an early-war campaign just because the equipment looks familiar.

The weapon stays close to the body

The MP40 produces a compact line across the torso. Both hands and the bent arms make the figure look prepared while the legs provide the movement.

WS254 supplies the broader pointing gesture, and WS257 offers a rifle-carrying advance. Comparing the three shows how weapon choice and arm position change the same general idea of moving forward.

WS255’s catalog identity is the advancing NCO with the MP40, not a named historical individual. The product record does not identify a particular action or a specific man behind the sculpt.

A clear photograph should keep the weapon, face and leading step visible together. Those details make the figure distinguishable within a group whose headgear and clothing otherwise share a strong family resemblance.

Release record and collecting notes

Sager’s archived WS255 product record lists a release date of December 2013 and a retirement date of April 2022. These are catalog dates, rather than a statement about today’s secondhand availability. Compare the seller’s actual photographs with the reference image here, including any projecting equipment and the base; a familiar box title alone is not a condition report.