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The M1956 was designed and tested during WWII, but not adopted or produced. The East Germans picked it up and produced it so as not to offend the Soviets by using the existing M1935 Stahlhelm.
That is correct. The NVA also used what would have been the new design for Wehrmacht uniforms. The heritage is quite obvious:
http://www.nva-uniformen.de/epages/63366721.sf/de_DE/?ObjectPath=/Shops/63366721/Categories/Uniformen/Bekleidung/Uniformen_NVAI own one of these myself. Even the colour codes were by and large the same than in the Wehrmacht ones (I have pink for Panzers
). Same goes with the shoulder plates for ranks, even if the designations of some ranks were changed:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienstgrade_der_Nationalen_VolksarmeeRather than pure comodity, aoll of this this was to tap into Prussian/ Wehrmacht military tradition and allow for a certain continuity in the military apparatus which immediately after the war was obviously highly experienced and to some degree (the survivors) very skilled.
Also, using the symbols or esthetics of previous times would help to present East Germany as "a Germany" in its own right rather than just a puppy of the Soviet Union (which it really was).
And now to your interesting project: If you have a hard time finding appropriate figures, you can probably use Wehrmacht figures with new helmets and Warsaw pact gear and some careful modifications... However, this does not apply to the combat fatigues the NVA used later on.
I did find the following, though:
http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aviapress.com%2Fengl%2Ficm%2Ficm35321_1.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aviapress.com%2Fviewonekit.htm%3FICM-35321&h=259&w=480&tbnid=1-7dmG9IjgfqOM%3A&docid=EzL-Iqg3AHxEWM&ei=s12gV8KkOquVgAbJ5IDICw&tbm=isch&client=firefox-b&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=2408&page=1&start=0&ndsp=52&ved=0ahUKEwiCyqzuq6LOAhWrCsAKHUkyALkQMwguKAkwCQ&bih=1039&biw=2144Cheers and best of luck!!
