Hello Peter
You might want to look at Preiser figures. They are made of hard plastic and so are workable. Preiser seem to specialize in German/Russian items. They vary in quality a little over the years but the more recent sets are really fine pieces of work.
My own figures are in resin - Thanks Stuart for the plug. For the time being I make mostly late WWII British subjects with a few Germans thrown in for company. I'm looking to expand the range of figures to many other topics over time...
Here's a direct link to my figure sets:
http://www.dantaylormodelworks.com/figures-14-c.asp
Here's a link to a place that lists the 1/72 Preiser figures:
http://www.gaugemaster.com/search_results.asp?searchstring=preiser%20scale~~¬1:72¬~~scale&style=&andor=&method=kws&strType=
Hope it helps.
Regards
Dan