Hanno:
Thanks for posting yet again a very rare photo. I bow down to Bill Gates and whoever else invented the internet every day.
And....no, it was not Al Gore.
Your vehicle is assuredly a GM product but a bit strange for a raid car as if you look at the relationship of the German troops size to the vehicle it appears to be based on a light truck chassis as opposed to a passenger car. The wheels/tyres also seem to indicate something other than a passenger car chassis. Or, by 1944 the Germans may have just been putting whatever wheels/tyres they could find on anything that was still running.
Bit off of your subject, but I have read in several books that Germany, based on not only Hitler's thought process but also seconded by his top aides, refused to go to a total war footing as regards conscripting German citizens for the war effort well into 1944. The reason most often cited was that it would be bad for the German public's morale to admit that they could not wage a war outside Germany and not maintain a "normal lifestyle" inside Germany. So, as you indicated, they "vacuumed" the whole of the occupied territories for labour forces almost to the end.
I am still working on the MH Ford project, perhaps something tonight, surely tomorrow.
Bill
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