That one guy reminds me so much of a young Malcom McDowell, it's uncanny.
And of course McDowell (forever typecast after his brilliant Alex-role in Clockwork Orange) would have been exactly the guy to cast as an SS officer in a movie.
The skull wasn't only used by the Waffen-SS but also by regular German Wehrmacht tank crews who - unlike the Waffen-SS - also wore black uniforms (only the Allgemeine SS did that, the Waffen SS in the early years looked like Wehrmacht and in the later years sported a look very similar to how US troops look today) which added to the confusion. I think it goes back to medieval mercenary/
Landsknecht times.
Whenever I look at US uniforms today, I wonder whether that one solitary picture (notwithstanding very low ratings on the pc-o-meter) that is hanging on the wall at the Military Academy of Westpoint to this day - and not a US soldier by any means - has perhaps had a sartorial creeping (or creepy?) effect over the decades ...
