Life and Death on the Eastern Front: Rare Colour Photographs From the Second World War 9781784387235, 1784387231

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ANTHONY TUCKER-JONES, a former intelligence officer, is an author and commentator who specialises in military history, with over 50 books to his name. His work has also been published in an array of magazines and online. He regularly appears on television and radio programmes commenting on current and historical military matters. His books include Kursk 1943, Slaughter on the Eastern Front, Stalin’s Armour and Stalin’s Revenge.

This stunning collection of more than 250 original colour photographs takes the reader on a visual journey through the landscape of war along the Eastern Front. Accompanied by text by renowned author and commentator Anthony Tucker-Jones, these images offer a rare and often surprising insight into the realities of

This incredible visual record of life and death along the Eastern Front features images from Ian Spring’s PIXPAST Archive, a collection of more than 32,000 original colour photographs taken between 1936 and 1946.

the Second World War and the people caught up in it. Collated into three parts and organised thematically, the book begins with images of the ground war, including Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union and the tanks, vehicles, weaponry and infantry on both sides. Moving into the war in the skies, the images depict aircraft in flight and on the ground, the bombers, fighters, Luftwaffe personnel and the destruction wrought from battle. And finally, the images take us behind the lines to the prisoners of war, partisans and medics, the daily lives and leisure activities of soldiers and civilians along the front and the impact of the harsh Russian winter.

Developing a fascination with historical imagery from a young age, Dublin-born IAN SPRING began collecting colour photo slides of the war from all over the world. Determined to preserve these moments from the past for future generations, he created the PIXPAST Archive. Thought to be the world’s largest collection of Second World War colour photography, the archive has supported historical research and contributed to more than 50 publications.

This is the Second World War as it has never been seen before.

Greenhill Books c/o Pen & Sword Books Limited 47 Church Street Barnsley, S. Yorkshire S70 2AS, England [email protected] www.greenhillbooks.com Printed in India ISBN 978-1-78438-723-5

9 781784 387235 Cover design: Jem Butcher Design

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Life and Death on the Eastern Front

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Also by Anthony Tucker-Jones

Kursk 1943: Hitler’s Bitter Harvest Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945 Stalin’s Revenge: Operation Bagration and the Annihilation of Army Group Centre Stalin’s Armour 1941–1945: Soviet Tanks at War

Images of War Armoured Warfare on the Eastern Front Armoured Warfare and Hitler’s Allies 1941–1945 Tank Wrecks of the Eastern Front 1941–1945 The Battle for Budapest 1944–1945 The Battle for the Caucasus 1942–1943 The Battle for the Crimea 1941–1944 The Battle for Kharkov 1941–1943 The Battle for Warsaw 1939–1945 The Eastern Front Air War 1941–1945

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LIFE AND DEATH ON THE

EASTERN FRONT Rare Colour Photographs from the Second World War

TEXT

ANTHONY TUCKER-JONES F RO M T H E P I X PA S T A RC H I V E

BY

IMAGES

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Life and Death on the Eastern Front: Rare Colour Photographs from the Second World War

First published in 2022 by Greenhill Books, Lionel Leventhal Ltd c/o Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS For more information on our books, please visit www.greenhillbooks.com, email [email protected] or write to us at the above address. Anthony Tucker-Jones text copyright © Greenhill Books, 2022 Illustrations copyright © Pixpast, 2022 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. CIP data records for this title are available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78438-723-5 Typeset and designed by www.mousematdesign.com Printed and bound in India by Replika

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Contents Introduction: The Cameramen Goebbels’s Kriegsberichter Himmler’s Black Corps Going Freelance Stalin’s Red Star The Road to Destruction Remarkable Collection Life and Death on the Ostfront

7 9 11 12 14 15 17 20

Eastern Front Chronology: Key Events

21

Part One: The Ground War 1 Day of the Panzer 2 ‘Had I Known’ 3 Yellow Waffenfarben 4 Beasts of Burden 5 Poor Bloody Infantry 6 God of War 7 ‘The Door Knocker’ 8 Stalin’s Debris 9 The Art of Logistics 10 The Officer’s Limo 11 A Job for the Engineers

24 36 48 62 74 88 100 106 118 128 140

CONTENTS

• 5

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Part Two: War in the Skies 12 The Luftwaffe’s Fighters 13 Smashed on the Ground 14 Wail of the Dive-Bombers 15 The Welcome Auntie 16 Air Defence Duties

153 160 170 180 190

Part Three: Behind the Lines 17 Troublesome Axis Allies 18 Prisoners of War 19 The Partisan War 20 The Medics 21 Leisure Time on the Ostfront 22 Enduring Russia’s Winter

202 220 230 244 252 266

Sources and Further Reading

287

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Introduction: The Cameramen

T

HERE IS A TENDENCY to think of the Second World War, especially on the Eastern Front,

largely in terms of black and white. Although colour film was available, it was expensive and often restricted. Colour ‘combat’ film footage was shot on the Western Front and the Pacific, most of it by American cameramen. In Germany Agfa pioneered the use of colour in the 1930s, which was adapted into negative print and slide film, with the first German colour feature movie made in 1940. This was in response to the development of Kodachrome and Technicolor in America, where Hollywood was just beginning to embrace colour. During the 1930s photography caught on in Germany in a big way. The country became an international centre of excellence, for the manufacture of not only cameras and film, but also lenses. Agfa’s marketing was very seductive, especially when it came to urging Germans to take holiday snaps. Lens-makers such as Carl Zeiss based in Jena took a similar approach with their advertising. In 1941 the company proclaimed in the pages of Signal: Snapshots of everyday experiences are lasting memories. But the rapidly changing scenes of everyday life bring with them opportunities for the photographer in which a good camera and the best lenses are necessary. – A reliable aid in obtaining better photographs is the ZEISS LENS, the eagle eye of your camera.

Joseph Goebbels, head of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry immediately saw the value of Agfacolor to both the German film industry and Nazi propaganda. Initially, the Nazis did not make much use of colour photography as much of their propaganda was illustrated by artwork designed to deliver very simplistic messages. Goebbels, though, understood the power of the moving image and stills photography to sway public opinion. Indeed, it was this that had helped the Nazis come to power. As early as 1932 Adolf Hitler was photographed in colour on an election tour, as was Goebbels the following year during a visit to Königsberg in East Prussia. In contrast, the Soviet Union produced just seven colour films between the late 1930s and 1945. The first was of a sports parade in Moscow’s Red Square attended by Joseph Stalin. On the whole, the British Ministry of Information and the British services film and photographic units made little use of colour. When publications were presented with colour images they often simply reproduced them in black and white due to wartime limitations. Nonetheless, the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force both used colour to good effect. The Second World War was a propaganda war like no other. Both sides employed cine footage, photographs and radio reports to shape public perceptions of the conflict. At its most basic the message was simple: we are right and we are winning. That was all that civilian INTRODUCTION • 7

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Just a brief moment of respite in the warm sunshine. A grime-covered Otto Vieth, who served as a combat photographer and reporter with the Kriegsberichter, takes a break somewhere on the Eastern Front. He worked for the Luftwaffe’s propaganda magazine Der Adler, with his dramatic photos regularly appearing on the cover. When Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 such reporters operated with headquarters staff, but as the war progressed they were increasingly embedded with front-line units. Regular soldiers, although forbidden to do so, also recorded the war in Russia, using their own cameras.

A slightly cleaner-looking Vieth, again in Russia, seated on a motorcycle’s sidecar. He is wearing the Fliegermütze or side cap with the Luftwaffe eagle/swastika cloth badge. Note the cuff title Kriegsberichter der Luftwaffe on his Fliegerbluse or flying blouse. The latter was initially only issued to aircrews to be worn under their flying suits, but became popular with all Luftwaffe personnel. Its colour is supposed to be blue grey but looks more akin to the field grey worn by the German Army. His yellow collar tabs and epaulette or shoulder strap piping are the corps colour (Waffenfarbe) for pilots and ground crew. The single chevron on his collar shows he is a Flieger, the lowest rank possible in the Luftwaffe. The object by his elbow is a German Army-issue water bottle.

populations needed to know. From 1939 to 1941 German national morale was boosted by unending images of a series of remarkable military victories across Europe and the Balkans – no more so than on the Eastern Front, where Hitler’s armies raced to the very gates of Moscow. He did this with a force of some 3.5 million German and Axis troops supported by 3,700 tanks and 2,700 aircraft. They vanquished a Soviet force of 5 million backed by at least 15,000 tanks and 8,000 aircraft. Within a month Hitler occupied an area twice that of Germany. Fortunately for Stalin and the Red Army, the Russian winter came to their rescue and Hitler became confused over whether his goals were purely geopolitical or natural resources.

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Army Propaganda Kompanie Kriegsberichter Austrian Franz Krieger. No cuff title is visible but his Waffenfarbe appears to be lemon yellow, which denote signals or military communications. He was deployed to Russia but fell ill and was sent home, narrowly avoiding being trapped at Stalingrad. He charted not only the war but also the rise of Hitler and Germany’s post-war reconstruction. During those years, he took a staggering 35,000 photographs.

Goebbels’s Kriegsberichter Colonel Hasso von Wedel’s Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops answered to Goebbels and General Alfred Jodl’s Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW – High Command Armed Forces) Operations Staff. His job was to boost both the morale of the German armed forces and Germany’s allies. At the start of the war he had thirteen Propaganda Companies or Propaganda Kompanien. Their personnel were known as PK-reporters or Kriegsberichter and included cameramen, photographers and writers. Once Hitler invaded the Soviet Union the demand for PK-reporters outstripped demand and training courses were run at Goebbels’s State Film Institute and the Hansa Film School in Berlin, which produced 300 film reporters. Members of the German League of Miniature and Amateur Photographers were also recruited for their skills. All officially taken film and pictures were sent to the Nazi-run Picture Press Bureau. German cameramen favoured German-made Leica and American Kodak cameras. However, Goebbels insisted that the PK-reporters only use German-made equipment. This meant that the most common stills cameras were Leicas and Rolleis and the most common cine cameras were Arriflex, Askania and Siemens. Many of these were present when German troops triumphantly rolled into Kiev, Kharkov, Minsk, Odessa and many other major cities of the Soviet Union. The summer of 1941 represented halcyon days for German propaganda units; the winter was another matter. INTRODUCTION • 9

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This PK-reporter somewhere in Russia spots a suitable subject and shoots it with his Leica. His headgear comprises the Einheitsfeldmütze or standardised-design field cap rather than the side cap. Like the American baseball cap, it was designed to keep the sun out of the wearer’s eyes. This greatly helped with camera work. The patterned neck scarf is not regulation issue.

One of Wedel’s most famous propaganda publications was Signal magazine, published in German, English and French in Paris. It was distributed in the Axis countries and Germanoccupied territories and included colour photographs of the German armed forces. At its height Signal had a circulation of 2.5 million copies in 1943 and was produced in almost thirty languages. It is notable that Agfacolor made up one-third of the photos published in Signal. Signal was never sold to German civilians within Germany as they believed the propaganda would be counter-productive. After 1940 almost all photographs submitted to Signal were in colour (Agfacolor), though Signal decided to convert many colour photos to black and white for cheaper printing. Similar magazines were also produced for the German armed forces, Luftwaffe and Navy – Die Wehrmacht, Der Adler and Kriegsmarine, respectively. Die Wehrmacht was aimed at the young with a view to attracting new recruits. German propaganda units delighted in filming the Luftwaffe’s bombers or Sturzkampfflugzeug, especially the Junkers Ju 87, better known generically as the Stuka. Its distinctive wings and its wailing siren made it hard to miss. From the Eastern Front to North Africa the Ju 87 always featured prominently in propaganda newsreels shown in German cinemas. The Pixpast collection contains some outstanding images of the Stuka both on the ground and in action. It was only after the Red Air Force began its slow recovery from Hitler’s opening onslaught that it became apparent just how vulnerable the Stuka was to enemy fighters. Goebbels was dismayed when Hitler prematurely instructed Otto Dietrich, Chief of the Reich Press Department, to announce that the Soviet Union was on the verge of defeat in October 1941. As the war progressed, Goebbels’s PK-reporters went from reporting remarkable victories over the Red Army to trying to put a positive spin on a catalogue of humiliating defeats. Once the German Army reached the Volga the good news stories soon 10 • L I F E

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This German Army cameraman has an incredible backdrop. The German movie industry’s rivalry with Hollywood spurred on technology in Germany, though the first German colour feature film did not appear until 1940. The Nazi Party was slow to recognise the merits of photography as a propaganda weapon and instead initially relied on artwork. However, the likes of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, made in 1935, showed the true power of film as a propaganda weapon. Ironically, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was jealous of Riefenstahl’s relationship with Hitler and Heinrich Himmler and did everything he could to undermine her career.

began to dry up. After the surrender of the German 6th Army, trapped at Stalingrad in early 1943, Goebbels’s ministry had an increasingly difficult task. ‘Death’, wrote one reporter, ‘has ceased to appal the German soldier on the Russian front; he now regards it as his inescapable fate.’ After Stalingrad, Goebbels’s desperate mantra became ‘Sieg um jeden Preis’ – ‘Victory at any price’. Among those German cameramen at the equally decisive Battle of Kursk that summer was Göetz Hirt-Reger, who had illicitly shot Operation Barbarossa until recruited as a PK-reporter. Luftwaffe photographer Otto Vieth, working for Der Adler, served on the Eastern Front including the Stalingrad area.

Himmler’s Black Corps Goebbels’s greatest rival for the hearts and minds of the German people was Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, who also ran a very efficient propaganda machine. The two men hated each other and Goebbels did all he could to ensure that Himmler did not take over his Propaganda Ministry. The WaffenSS had their own newspaper known as the Black Corps, which was edited by SS-Colonel Agfa film stockists such as Rudi Rostin’s photo shop Kurt Eggers and then Günther d’Alquen. were a common sight throughout Germany. The This was fed news by embedded war corre- commercial use of photography caught on and it soon spondents from the SS-Kriegsberichter became a hobby for thousands of German civilians. company formed in January 1940. Shortly before the invasion of the West in May that year the company’s first three sections were assigned to the Liebstandarte, SS-VT and Totenkopf divisions. I N T R O D U C T I O N • 11

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This little boy epitomises the enthusiasm with which Germans embraced photography. This meant that by the mid-1930s there was a burgeoning band of professional photographers who were prepared to support and chronicle the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. The composition of this photo with the pink flowers and the boy’s red dungarees was deliberately intended to capitalise on the strengths of Agfacolor. The company’s marketing extolled its virtues for holiday snaps.

The embedded SS war correspondents were recruited from Germanys cinema, newspaper and radio industries. Initially the SS-Kriegsberichter reported from the safety of the headquarters of their Waffen-SS units, but as the war progressed they became increasingly front-line war correspondents. The company was expanded to battalion size in August 1941 shortly after Hitler launched Barbarossa. It was enlarged to a full regiment in December 1943 and renamed SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers, in honour of Eggers who was killed in action. The cameramen, photographers and writers then wore a white on black armband with the name ‘Kurt Eggers’. Some continued to wear their old Kriegsberichter cuff titles as well as the armband of the SS regiment or division they were attached to.

Going Freelance Official photographers such as Otto Vieth also took photos for pleasure during rest and recreation periods. This book includes examples of Vieth’s off-duty work and indeed shots of the man himself. Other PK-reporters are known to have taken both professional and private photographs. They always used two camera at the same time, having backups that 12 • L I F E

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The film that drove the burgeoning colour photography industry in Germany – Agfacolor. It is possible that the price of the film was subsidised by the Nazi government in the late 1930s, paid for by wage freezes and higher taxes, in order to make the film an affordable purchase for the average German worker. Certainly Kodachrome film was a lot more expensive. Agfacolor first appeared in 1932 and was followed four years later by Agfacolor Neu or New Agfacolor. For taking home movies the company also produced 8mm and 16mm cine film. Agfacolor was less light sensitive than black-and-white film and cheaper. The three examples in front of the box date from May 1943, November 1944 and February 1945.

they could keep for themselves and copies to send to Berlin. Many German soldiers grew up using colour film, and when deployed to the Eastern Front they could not resist the temptation to take their cameras with them. Unless they were PK-reporters, of course, they were not officially permitted to take cameras and film to the front, nonetheless many did surreptitiously. Getting the film developed presented a serious challenge, but this did not deter them in the least. A prime example of such an ‘unofficial’ photographer was Colonel Helmut Ritgen, who rode into battle with the 6th Panzer Division and his trusty Leica. Ritgen’s wife was a former employee of Agfa and a keen photographer. Through her contacts she was able to obtain Agfacolor 35mm film for her husband. Fortunately for Ritgen, his divisional commanders Generalmajor Landgraf, Raus and von Huenersdorff took no notice of his activities, which included photographing them. Many officers turned a blind eye to unofficial photographers and even encouraged them to create a pictorial record of their unit’s experiences.

This Luftwaffe lieutenant is operating an Agfa 8mm Filmkamera model 1937 while smoking. This was capable of shooting colour or black-and-white home movies. The man is believed to be the first cousin of famous Afrika Korps photographer Fritz Moosmüller who served with the 90th Light Division in Libya with General Rommel. I N T R O D U C T I O N • 13

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German Army officers such as this one took their own personal cameras to war even though it was against regulations. Helmut Ritgen, serving with the 11th Panzer Regiment, 6th Panzer Division, unofficially chronicled the war on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1943 using a Leica III (Summitar f 1.2 lens). Frau Ritgen was a one-time employee of the Agfa company and was able to keep her husband well supplied with film.

This young German woman in her vibrant yellow summer dress may have been the sweetheart, wife or relative of a soldier sent to the Eastern Front. Her camera is possibly new hence her posing with it.

Ritgen’s exposed films were sent back to Agfa from Russia through the Army’s Feldpost or field postal service. His processed films were then passed on to Frau Ritgen for safekeeping. Ritgen’s camera, slung from his neck in a leather case, survived the rigours of battle remarkably well. After his Panzer III was set on fire during an encounter with a Russian KV-1 heavy tank he still managed to save it. He finally lost the Leica in Normandy in 1944 when it was destroyed along with his panzer’s stowage box by British naval gunfire. Ritgen and his photographs survived the war and he later wrote books on his experiences with both the 6th Panzer and Panzer Lehr divisions.

Stalin’s Red Star At the start of the war on the Eastern Front there was little good news for the hard-pressed Red Army and the Soviet people. The Red Army, thanks to its unpreparedness and in many cases poor leadership, suffered a litany of appalling defeats. Tens of thousands were killed and millions captured. Trying to put a positive spin on this proved an impossible task. The Russian armed forces had journalists embedded with them – notably from the Red Army’s official newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) and the civilian Izvestia as well as the Soviet Information Bureau (which later became Novosti). The most famous of the Krasnaya Zvezda 14 • L I F E

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correspondents was Vasily Grossman, though Konstantin Simonov who covered the closing days of the Battle of Stalingrad was equally revered by Russian soldiers. Both served under General David Ortenberg, the editor of Krasnaya Zvezda. Grossman worked closely with journalist Pavel Troyanovsky and photographer Oleg Knorring to chart the turn of the tide and the slow defeat of Hitler’s marauding war machine. Many of Knorring’s photographs would become famous. Grossman accompanied the Red Army from start to finish, being present at Stalingrad, Kursk, Warsaw and Berlin. Although non-combatants, Krasnaya Zvezda reporters – like their German counterparts – wore military uniform. In Grossman’s case his wire-rimmed glasses tended to make him look more like a schoolteacher than a fighting man. He also professed to being unable to operate a pistol or a rifle should he have been required to act as an infantryman. Grossman was not a member of the Communist Party, which meant he was not entitled to officer’s rank nor the title of commissar; being a lowly private would have impeded his access to some situations. Ortenberg got round this by appointing him a quartermaster. The only problem with this was that because of his green shoulder tabs he was regularly mistaken for a medic. A similar arrangement was made with Grossman’s colleagues Boris Lapin, Konstantin Simonov and Lev Slavin.

The Road to Destruction Over the years I have seen thousands of photographs from the Second World War, the majority of which were taken on the Eastern Front. Many do not have captions and those that do often only give minimum information, usually because of wartime restrictions. Images taken by private individuals normally contain even less information, especially if they have been culled from a family album. This means you have to become a forensic expert trying to pick up clues. The key questions are: when was this taken, where was it taken and what story does the image tell? Types of vehicles, especially tanks, and personal equipment normally gives some clue as to when the image was taken and geography some idea of location. Many models of the same tank are very similar, though, which can make the detective work a challenge. Often there are enough clues that add up to show that you are right, but occasionally you are later proved wrong.

‘Watch the birdie.’ A tripod-mounted camera, perhaps to take a portrait. Many German soldiers before deploying east had their photos taken for their families in case they did not return. They were always smartly turned out and smiling. I N T R O D U C T I O N • 15

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Inevitably with photographs of the fighting on the Eastern Front there are clear trends. At the start the Germans took pleasure in photographing captured Red Army equipment, particularly tanks, aircraft and artillery, and the vast columns of dejected Russian prisoners trudging west. German cameramen were often fascinated by the Red Army’s cumbersome heavy tanks that were left stranded and by the Army’s very cosmopolitan composition. They were surprised by the large numbers of ‘Mongols’ in the Red Army’s ranks, though in reality they were actually Azeri, Kazakh, Tajik and Uzbek recruits from the Soviet Central Asian republics, many of whom were unable to speak Russian, let alone German. The presence of these men helped convince some Germans that Stalin must be scraping the bottom of his manpower barrel, which was far from the truth. German preparations for Operation Citadel, Hitler’s offensive at Kursk in mid1943, provided the PK-reporters and SSKriegsberichter with their last real propaganda opportunity. They recorded the final great massing of Hitler’s panzers on the Another shot of Vieth without his side cap, showing Russian steppe. The German armour just how dusty his face is. The cigar must have been presented a very impressive sight, but it was decidedly gritty. The vehicle he is leaning on is a simply not enough to overcome the Luftwaffe Kfz (Kraftahrzeug – motor vehicle) 2 rejuvenated strength of the Red Army. Mercedes-Benz 170V signals car. This only had a single seat in the back to allow for a work Instead of husbanding his strength, Hitler bench/radio set. The Mercedes-Benz logo is just threw away the last of his offensive power. In above the radiator grille. the wake of Kursk, Red Army photographers and intelligence units were swift to take pictures – most notably of the newly introduced Panther and the Ferdinand. Hitler dubbed the latter a ‘pile driver’ but, although they knocked out hundreds of Russian tanks, half of the Ferdinands broke down and many were easily overrun. As the war progressed, German photographs were often more likely to be of their fixed defences or of a tactical victory whereby a relieving force had cut its way through to a trapped pocket of German troops. During 1943, by which time the tide had begun to turn firmly in favour of the Red Army, the Russians were able to make the most of the propaganda value of their victories at 16 • L I F E

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Stalingrad and Kursk. The eviction of the Germans from the Caucasus and the Crimea also became cause for celebration. By 1944 Goebbels and Himmler’s cameramen and photographers had increasingly fewer victories to report. Germany was firmly on the defensive. This was especially the case once Stalin launched his answer to D-Day with Operation Bagration, which completely crushed Hitler’s Army Group Centre within a matter of weeks. In revenge for the earlier defeats, Stalin marched thousands of bewildered German prisoners through the streets of Moscow and then afterwards pointedly had the roads sprayed with disinfectant to cleanse the city. The SS-Kriegsberichter took delight in recording the brutal and pointless destruction of both the Polish Home Army and Warsaw in the summer of 1944, but from that point on Stalin had the upper hand in the propaganda war. Towards the end of the Second World War, large quantities of Agfacolor stock were seized by the Red Army and was copied to serve as the basis for the Sovcolor process. After the war, Agfa’s former production plant at Wolfen was located in the Soviet occupation zone which became East Germany. For several years after the war, the Wolfen plant continued producing Agfacolor film, until 1964 when East Germany lost the licence to the Agfa brand name brand name, DDR ORWO.

Remarkable Collection The Irish photo collector Ian Spring, the creator of the Pixpast Archive, has built up a simply remarkable collection of Agfacolor slides taken by the Germans on the Eastern Front. It is

‘Where are we?’ ponders the driver. The WL (Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe) on this Kfz 15 Auto Union/Horch 901 medium car indicates it belongs to the German Air Force (otherwise WH for Army – Heeres and WM for Navy – Marine). The vehicle is painted in dunkel grau or dark grey, better known as panzer grey, which was the standard colour for German military vehicles from 1939 until early 1943. The swastika recognition flag was intended to help prevent friendly fire from the Luftwaffe. The red Waffenfarbe shows the man belongs to an anti-aircraft unit. The truck appears to be a German-built Ford, which were manufactured in Cologne during the war. I N T R O D U C T I O N • 17

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his dedication over a two-decade period that made this book possible. He has amassed over 30,000 images; this selection is just a sample of what he has unearthed. It is important to note that these are private images, the majority of which were never intended for propaganda purposes. The selection of colour photos in this book are not staged shots, unlike those that appeared in Signal and Nazi Germany’s other propaganda publications. They simply captured an unguarded moment and therefore have a much greater honesty in showing the realities of war. There are no theatrical heroics depicting the Aryan master race as all-conquering warlords. Instead they

These signallers have a wealth of propaganda literature scattered about their dugout. At least eight newspapers are visible, one paper includes the image of a scantily clad woman. They are sharing slices of bread, probably washed down with black coffee.

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are candid snapshots of what the men really saw and endured. What is so striking about these photos is the vibrancy of the colours, particularly the blues and the greens. This is thanks to Agfa – they have not been subsequently colourised. Likewise, the clarity and sharpness of the images are very good. Colour makes the conflict feel so much more immediate and conveys the vast scale of the fighting much better. Considering that these images are over seventy-five years old and bearing in mind the different conditions in which they were taken, the quality is even more remarkable. Nonetheless, there is some debate among photographic experts about how accurate the colour reproduction with Agfa really is. Film stock could be affected by storage and climate conditions as well as chemical ageing. Lighting and camera settings could also have an impact A keepsake for home. This German Army officer is photographing Ukrainian children in the summer of 1941. The fact that he has been photographed doing so almost suggests an ulterior motive. Initially many Ukrainians welcomed Hitler’s invasion, hoping that it would free them from Stalin’s grasp. Instead they exchanged one form of totalitarianism for another. Increasingly the Wehrmacht High Command forbade such fraternisation. The freedom fighters of the Ukrainian People’s Army ended up fighting both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army.

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on the end results. A prime example of this is the rendering of dunkel grau, better known as panzer grey, which was the standard dark-grey finish for German military vehicles during the first half of the Second World War. In the following pages readers will see that this varies enormously from a dark blue/black, to dark olive green and pale blue/grey. The weather and bright sunshine helped to fade it, as did the all-encompassing Russian dust. The water-based whitewash applied during the winter months had a tendency to lighten dunkel grau when it was washed off. In addition, sun, rain and frost were capable of blistering and cracking the best of paint finishes. The net result of this is that relying on Agfacolor makes it difficult to determine the true nature of panzer grey. On the Eastern Front mud was regularly daubed on vehicles to create a natural camouflage that gave the appearance of an indeterminate pattern and again lightened the base colour.

Life and Death on the Ostfront German troops and their multinational Axis allies found themselves fighting in the dense forests, deep marshes and open grass steppes of the Soviet Union. They also had to endure three bitter winters on the Eastern Front. In particular, the winter of 1941/42 alone almost finished off the German armed forces after it inflicted over 100,000 cases of frostbite. The injuries it caused were such that an entire division’s worth of men had to undergo amputations. General Heinz Guderian was incensed that his soldiers – still in their summer uniforms – were needlessly left to freeze to death in temperatures that dropped well below zero. Equipment and vehicles also froze solid. In contrast the Red Army, especially General Georgy Zhukov’s tough Siberians, raised amidst Mother Russia’s weather, were on the whole well prepared and adequately supplied with warm clothing. The climate posed problems other than the extreme cold. The spring thaw resulted in vast seas of mud that caked men and machines. The once-frozen ground quickly bogged down everything. In the summer the suffocating dust thrown up by vehicles attracted the unwanted attentions of enemy artillery and bombers. Then in the autumn the heavy rains brought a return of the mud. During the winter freeze soldiers were forced to become troglodytes retreating deep into their bunkers and wooden dachas, desperately trying to keep warm. Ironically, in many instances the winter forced German troops and Russian civilians to co-exist peacefully. The alternative was a miserable death in a snowdrift. The war on the Eastern Front was the most appalling bloodbath. The Soviet Union lost a staggering 20 million dead and Germany some 5 million. In comparison America suffered less than 300,000 dead and Britain and France lost less than 500,000 each. The Red Army also captured 3.5 million German soldiers, of whom 1.2 million died while in captivity. The Soviet Union’s cities were left in ruins and when the Red Army reached Berlin it saw no reason to spare the German capital from destruction. What follows is a very graphic testimony to that conflict, recorded by the men who were there.

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Eastern Front Chronology: Key Events 1941 22 June: Hitler invades the Soviet Union, almost completely smashing the Red Army and Red Air Force. 28 June: Hitler captures Minsk. 8 September: Hitler supported by Finland lays siege to Leningrad. 19 September: Hitler captures Kiev, trapping a huge pocket of Russian troops. 30 September–5 December: Hitler renews his offensive towards Moscow. 2 October: Hitler captures Vyazma, west of Moscow. 16 October: Hitler captures Odessa. 24 October: Hitler captures Kharkov. 5 December: Stalin counterattacks at Moscow, saving the Russian capital, but suffers heavy losses. 1942 18 May: Stalin’s poorly prepared counteroffensive to liberate Kharkov fails. 28 June: Hitler commences his push to Stalingrad on the river Volga. 4 July: Hitler captures the port of Sevastopol in the Crimea and at the end of the month invades the Caucasus. 17 August: Hitler captures Maikop in the Caucasus, but his offensive stalls before Grozny and he fails to take the vital oilfields. 19 November: Stalin launches a winter offensive to trap the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, by destroying the supporting Romanian forces to the north and south of the city. 12 December: Hitler attempts to fight his way through to Stalingrad and fails. 16 December: Stalin cuts through the Italian Army deployed to the north-west of Stalingrad and pushes south. 1943 31 January: Hitler’s 6th Army surrenders at Stalingrad, forcing him to abandon the Caucasus and part of southern Ukraine. 14 March: Hitler recaptures Kharkov and smashes Stalin’s latest offensive. 5 July: Hitler launches Operation Citadel to crush the Red Army at Kursk; it fails, and Stalin immediately counterattacks. 5 August: Stalin liberates Orel to the north of Kursk and Belgorod to the south. 23 August: Stalin finally liberates Kharkov. 6 November: Stalin liberates Kiev.

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1944 15 January: Stalin launches an offensive to end the 900-day siege of Leningrad. 19 March: Hitler occupies Budapest to stop the Hungarians defecting. 12 April: Stalin liberates Odessa, trapping the German 17th Army in the Crimea. 9 May: Stalin liberates Sevastopol and the rest of the Crimea three days later. 9 June: Stalin attacks Finland, forcing the Finns to sue for peace. 23 June: Stalin launches Operation Bagration, which crushes Hitler’s Army Group Centre, liberates Minsk and takes the Red Army as far as Warsaw. 23 August: Romania changes sides and Stalin occupies the country. 8 September: Stalin occupies Bulgaria and the country defects, having previously supported Hitler’s war effort in the Balkans. 1945 12 January: Stalin launches an offensive that takes the Red Army from the Vistula in Poland to the Oder east of Berlin. 17 January: Stalin belatedly liberates Warsaw. 13 February: Stalin captures Budapest after a seven-week siege and lays siege to Breslau in Lower Silesia. The city does not capitulate until 6 May. 6 March: Hitler’s final offensive of the war fails to hold the Red Army in Hungary. 9 April: Stalin captures Königsberg in East Prussia. 13 April: Stalin captures Vienna. 30 April: Hitler commits suicide in Berlin. 2 May: Stalin captures Berlin, finally bringing the conflict on the Eastern Front to an end. 8 May: Germans formally surrender to Stalin. 11 May: German resistance ceases in Czechoslovakia.

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Part One

The Ground War

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1 Day of the Panzer

O

Operation Barbarossa Hitler massed his panzer divisions ready for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Army Group North was poised in East Prussia, Army Group Centre in western Poland and Army Group South in Hungary and Romania. Their job would be to surround the Red Army and secure Russia’s major cities. N THE EVE OF

The crew of this early model Panzer IV could not resist the temptation to photograph their tank on the streets of a Polish town. It belonged to the 29th Panzer Regiment, 12th Panzer Division, which came under the command of Generalmajor Josef Harpe. The dunkel grau or panzer grey looks almost dark olive green. The vertical object on the turret cupola is an MG34 machine gun on an anti-aircraft mount. The circular objects on the rear of the tank are spare road wheels. To give them added range, many panzers towed a twowheeled fuel trailer that carried two extra 44-gallon petrol drums. These were produced in the field by their engineers. Some crews also strapped jerrycans to their turrets to make them less reliant on the supply columns. The 12th Panzer was created from the 2nd Infantry Division (Motorised) in Stettin in October 1940. It fought in central Russia before taking part in the siege of Leningrad. 24 • L I F E

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A German armoured column belonging to the 3rd Panzer Division ready for the off. It includes Panzer IIIs and IVs. The main types of military motorcycle with sidecar were produced by BMW and Zündapp. The Einheits sidecar could carry a machine gun and mortar. In some cases, the role of the motorcycle with sidecar was replaced by the VW Kübelwagen. This BMW R12 is undergoing some maintenance while an officer (standing) watches on. The 3rd Panzer divisional symbol is clearly visible on the front of the sidecar. It was one of Germany’s original three panzer divisions formed in 1935, followed by five more in 1938–39. In this instance the panzer grey is almost black in appearance. Panzers roll! On 22 June 1941 the Wehrmacht stormed into the Soviet Union. This column of Panzer IVs is very dusty. For some reason the rear vehicle has one of its track guards in a raised position. The fascine, or bundles of logs, on the engine decks of these tanks were intended to help the tanks traverse ditches and anti-tank traps. The rear of the hull bears the distinctive German national insignia known as the Balkan cross (Balkenkreuz). This was a development of the solid white cross used in the invasion of Poland, which was found to be too conspicuous. The white outline cross was standard between 1940 and 1942, by which time the black Balkenkreuz with white edging had become more popular. The billowing smoke in the background is probably the result of dive-bomber attack. The drawback of dunkel grau was that it was intended to help vehicles blend in with the shadows cast by trees and buildings in western Europe. On the open steppe in Russia it simply made vehicles stand out as a solid object.

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Right: Russian anti-tank ditches ultimately posed little problem for the panzers. German pioneers were able to breach such defences swiftly. When Hitler attacked, the Red Army was still in the process of establishing new frontier defences in Soviet-occupied eastern Poland, and they were far from ready. In the meantime, most of the old Soviet border defences had been dismantled and were being moved into Poland.

Below: Russian children look on as their homeland is invaded. Luckily for these Panzer IVs exposed on such an open landscape, the Luftwaffe swiftly destroyed the Red Air Force, both in the air and on the ground. The Panzertruppen are in their distinctive black uniforms, this consisted of a Feldjacke with pink Waffenfarbe on the collar and shoulder straps along with matching trousers and Feldmütze. The two men riding on the tank on the left are wearing denim fatigue overtrousers. These were normally dyed grey or black. Assault gun and self-propelled gun crews generally wore a field-grey version. As the war progressed, crews wore a combination of whatever was available. Interestingly, the panzer grey on the turret looks almost blue. The bluish and yellow tinge to the grass is a typical Agfacolor problem.

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A full house in terms of Hitler’s early panzers. Left to right are a Panzer IV, III and II, while in the foreground is Hitler’s very first tank, the Panzer I. The two earliest ones were little more than training vehicles that were poorly armed and armoured. The Panzer III was designed as a tank-to-tank weapon and the Panzer IV was 28 • L I F E

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intended initially as a support tank. Once again, these tanks look almost olive green; the culprit for this is presumably the Agfacolor. In the background can be seen a panzer crane, used for removing turrets and engine blocks. D AY

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Above: Army Memorandum No. 181 of 18 February 1943 standardised the basic colour for all German military vehicles and equipment as dunkel gelb, a deep sand yellow. From that point all new vehicles produced under the Kriegslieferungsprogram (programme of supply for war purposes) were to be sprayed at the factories in this colour. Units at or deploying to the front were also instructed to paint their vehicles and larger equipment dunkel gelb. The roman numeral on the turret of this Panzer II Ausf. F indicates that it belongs to the panzer regiment’s 2nd Battalion, followed by the company number. The memorandum also introduced a camouflage pattern using two other colours: oliv grun (olive green) and rotbraun (chestnut or reddish brown). These were applied by the crews using spray guns, brushes or even rags, resulting in an array of different patterns depending on local conditions. Left above: A despatch rider examines a burnt-out Panzer II Ausf. F. The rubber tyres on the central road wheels have been reduced to ash by the heat of the fire. This model of Panzer II was produced from March 1941 to December 1942 with a total of 524 built. Like its predecessors it was only armed with a 20mm cannon and one 7.92mm MG34. The driver’s hatch is open, suggesting some of the three-man crew managed to bale out. It saw service in all the major German theatres of operation, including Russia. Left below: German pioneers working on a road step back as a Panzer III from the 9th Panzer Division rumbles by. This division was formed in January 1940 from the 4th Light Division and the 33rd Panzer Regiment. It saw action in Poland, the Netherlands, France and the Balkans before deploying to Russia. It fought at Kursk and after suffering heavy losses in the winter of 1943/44 was withdrawn to France and remained on the Western Front, seeing combat in Normandy. D AY

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This Marder III self-propelled anti-tank gun is parading through the streets of an occupied Russian city. This utilised the Panzerkampfwagen 38(t), a Czech-built light tank. It was an interim solution in an effort to counter superior Russian armour, which was achieved by mounting captured Russian 76.2mm guns on the Czech chassis. Between April and October 1942 some 344 Panzerjäger 38(t) für 7.62cm PaK36(r) were 32 • L I F E

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D AY

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PANZER

produced and the following year nineteen tanks were also converted to this role. During the invasion the Germans captured large numbers of Russian guns, including Model 1936 and 1939 field guns which were rechambered to fire the PaK40 (Panzerabwehrkanone 40 – anti-tank gun) 75mm round. This type of Marder was mainly issued to the Panzerjäger units in Russia, though some were sent to North Africa. AUTHOR

OR CHAP TITLE

• 33

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New Panzer IIIs in dunkel gelb taking part in a parade in Germany prior to deploying to Russia. These are one of the versions that came into service in 1942 – they are armed with the long-barrel 50mm KwK39 L/60 tank gun which replaced the short 50mm KwK L/42. However, this new gun still proved inadequate in frontal engagements against the Russian T-34 or KV-1. By late June 1942 there were about 600 Panzer IIIs armed with the KwK39 L/60 on the Eastern Front.

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2 ‘Had I Known’

I

1930S German intelligence assessed that the Red Army had about 17,000 tanks. By 1941 they probably numbered around 20,000; fortunately for the Germans, though, most were obsolete. Before Hitler’s invasion some 75 per cent of Joseph Stalin’s tank force consisted of the BT-7 fast tank and the T-26 light tank. The BT series was designed to run on both its narrow tracks or just the road wheels. In light of the poor condition of Russia’s roads, the capability to run without tracks was not a great advantage. Likewise, the narrow tracks were ill-suited to cope with the muddy conditions in the spring and autumn or the winter snows. N THE LATE

A German Panzertruppe poses in the turret of a Russian BT-7 fast tank. The combination of rust and dust makes it look almost grey. Closer inspection suggests that it had had a coat of whitewash that is extremely weathered. It is likely that it had been lost during the Battle of Moscow and was photographed in the spring of 1942. Between 1932 and 1940 the Russians built 7,000 BT-5/7s, so this type of tank became one of the most photographed following Hitler’s victories in 1941 and 1942. 36 • L I F E

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These BT-7s make for an arresting sight. The one nearest the camera is orange because it has gone rusty. It was hit and burnt, the rubber road wheel rims are now ash, the exposed metal then rusted. The shape of the turrets marks them out to be the Model 1932, as the subsequent Model 1937 had a conical turret and twin ‘Mickey Mouse’ style round turret hatches. Russian tank crews proved to be woefully trained and Stalin was just in the process of reconstituting his disbanded mechanised corps at the time that Hitler attacked. The driver of a German staff car rests by a burning obsolete T-26 Model 1939 light tank. The turret is in the reverse position so is being engulfed by the flames from the engine fire. The Model 1933 was the most common, with over 5,000 produced by 1937. The subsequent Model 1939 had the conical turret and improved armour, but only 2,000 were built. Production of both the T-26 and BT-7 was stopped in favour of the new T-34 medium tank that was just entering service.

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Another abandoned T-26 Model 1939; the tank to its left facing the other way is a BT-7. Inept Russian crews often managed to get their tanks stranded and then simply fled. Again these tanks are quite rusty. When Hitler visited the headquarters of Army Group Centre at Novy Borissov on 4 August 1941 he was amazed at the amount of knocked-out Russian armour he saw. ‘Had I known they had so many tanks as that,’ he said to General Heinz Guderian, ‘I’d have thought twice before invading.’ Guderian fell out with Hitler, arguing if they did not make good German losses rapidly they would be unable to cope with the Russians’ numerical superiority.

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These four early model T-26s were victims of the 14th Panzer Division. Caught in the open, they were easy prey for German gunners. The men in the picture are from the division’s 103rd Rifle Regiment.

The lack of track marks through the long grass shows that these five T-26 Model 1933 have been there for some time. The central tank belonged to a company or platoon commander as it is fitted with a horseshoe hand rail antenna, marking it out as a radio tank.

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This new tank was of much more interest to the Germans. This is a T-34 Model 1940 armed with a short L-11 76.2mm tank gun mounted in a distinctive cast cradle. It was produced with both welded and cast turrets. As well as the relatively good gun, this design featured groundbreaking sloped armour and wide tracks. The latter gave the tank good cross-country capability. The dark-green paint has been considerably lightened by the liberal coating of chalky dust. Fortunately for the Germans, this early model suffered from transmission problems, poor crew training and a lack of ammunition. Luckily for the Red Army, the subsequent versions eventually proved to be a war winner.

The subsequent T-34 Model 1941/42 was armed with the F-34 tank gun, which had much better armourpiercing qualities. Generally Russian tanks were delivered to their regiments with a dark-green factory finish, the crews then added unit markings and Soviet propaganda slogans. This tank looks brand new, though it has suffered a fender-bender with the right-hand track guard. During the summer months there was some experimentation with two- and even three-colour camouflage schemes. These involved the addition of brown and/or sand colour over the factory finish. During the winter they were either whitewashed or had a twocolour disruptive pattern added, depending on geographic conditions. ‘ H A D I K N O W N ’ • 41

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Quite how this T-34 came to be abandoned in the middle of this village is unclear. The local children certainly seem to be paying it little heed. At some point it has shed its left-hand track, which would have left it stranded. Unlike the BT-7, the T-34 was not designed to operate on just its road wheels. The large, heavy cast single turret hatch on the Model 1940, 1941 and 1942 were unpopular with the crews and on the 1943 variant were replaced by twin circular ones.

‘ H A D I K N O W N ’ • 43

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This Model 1941 was hit and caught fire; the flames melted the rubber rims of the wheels. The hatch is down, suggesting the crew did not escape. It was destroyed by the 204th Panzer Regiment, 22nd Panzer Division, near Kharkov in Ukraine. More Model 1940 T-34s captured by the Germans. Both tanks are slewed across the road and it looks as if they were reversing in a desperate bid to escape before being hit.

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The Red Army’s formidable-looking Model 1941 KV-1B heavy tank came into service in 1941. On paper it was a good tank; however, it was greatly inhibited by the driver having to come to a halt in order to change gear. Furthermore, the clutch was difficult to operate and visibility from inside the tank was not good. The man seated on the turret is from a Luftwaffe flak unit. A Red Army Model 1940 helmet has been left on the tank’s glacis plate. Despite its shortcoming, the KV-1 was kept in production until 1943. German troops examine the earlier Model 1940 KV-1A abandoned at the roadside. The overhang on the back of the turret was found to create a dangerous shot trap. The Model 1941 had a cast turret that partially rectified this problem. The tow cable has been attached at the front, indicating that this tank broke down. The chassis and running gear were later used as the basis for a series of successful tank destroyers.

‘ H A D I K N O W N ’ • 45

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An even heavier KV variant was the KV-2 artillery tank or assault tank. This carried a 152mm howitzer in a 12-ton turret, making the tank 53 tons in total – some 10 tons heavier than the KV-1. This additional weight simply further aggravated the clutch and transmission problems. It was unable to fire on the move and the turret could only be traversed on level ground. This meant the KV-2 could only be really operated on roads. Although the turret could withstand all German anti-tank guns, the Germans simply resorted to shooting off the tracks. In Lithuania the 1st Panzer Division hit a KV-2 seventy times without penetrating it. Most were lost to mechanical breakdowns rather than enemy action. Production ceased in October 1941.

Opposite above: The Red Army also had a whole series of small two-man light tanks, none of which were able to hold their own against the panzers. The T-40 light tank, seen here, was accepted for production in December 1939. In this case it has unusual spoked wheels instead of the normally solid cast ones. Weaponry consisted of one 12.7mm machine gun or 20mm cannon and one 7.62mm machine gun. Although they were designed for reconnaissance work, the Red Army – desperate to stop the Wehrmacht – resorted to committing them to all-out combat. Opposite below: Souvenir hunters clamber on a T-26 Model 1933. This type of light tank first saw combat during the Spanish Civil War, the Russo-Japanese Border War and the Russo-Finnish War. The Russian crews did not like the petrol engine, which made the tank highly flammable. Despite being built in large numbers, the T-26 could do little to save the Red Army from defeat in 1941. 46 • L I F E

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3 Yellow Waffenfarben

T

GERMAN ARMY DEPLOYED a series of 4x4 light and 8x8 heavy armoured cars in Russia. These were used in a reconnaissance role and as radio cars. A 6x6 variant was also produced but this was withdrawn from front-line service in 1940 after the fall of France, due to its limited off-road mobility. HE

Below and opposite: This impressive-looking German heavy cross-country armoured car is a Sd Kfz (Sonderkraftahrzeug – special-purpose motor vehicle) 231 8-Rad, which was built from 1936 to 1943. It was an eight-wheel reconnaissance vehicle with steering and drive to all the wheels, which gave it a cross-country performance comparable to that of tracked vehicles, although it had a rather complicated transmission arrangement as a result. In early 1940 an 8mm armoured shield called a Pakschütz was fitted to the front. The space behind this was used as a storage bin by the crew. Armament in the turret comprised one 20mm KwK30 or 38 cannon and one 7.92mm machine gun. This example from the 22nd Panzer Division was photographed in the Crimea in 1942. Two of the crew had stored their helmets on the outside as they tended to get in the way in the fighting compartment. A Romanian soldier can be seen on the left beyond the railings.

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Y E L L O W W A F F E N F A R B E N • 49

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Above: The shattered remains of a Sd Kfz 261 light armoured radio car. The remnants of the frame antenna for its long-range radio set are draped over the back of the vehicle. The superstructure armour at the front has been completely shattered – such a direct hit would have killed the four-man crew instantly. The divisional sign on the front of the hull on the left-hand side indicates it was from the 22nd Panzer Division. The Sd Kfz 260 was equipped with a medium-range radio with a rod antenna.

Opposite: A well-camouflaged Sd Kfz 232. This version featured a much more powerful radio that required a prominent frame aerial, which was fitted over the turret and the rear of the hull. This was designed to allow rotation of the turret. Both variants were produced at the same time, although only the Sd Kfz 232 was kept in production after May 1942 and this stopped in September 1943 when it was replaced by the Sd Kfz 234 series carrying 50mm or 75mm guns. Six Sd Kfz 231 and 232 were issued to the heavy platoon of the armoured car squadron of each motorised reconnaissance detachment. Y E L L O W W A F F E N F A R B E N • 51

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Above: These five men from an armoured car unit, with skulls on their collars and yellow Waffenfarben, have all been awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class and are wearing the bronze Panzer Battle Badge. The latter version was typically awarded to armoured car crews and Panzergrenadiers. Assault gun crews also wore the skulls but had a field-grey version of the tank uniform. Four of the men are wearing winter caps similar to the ushanka (ear-flap hat) worn by the Red Army. The man on the right has a variant similar to that made by German hatters Erel. This had the inner padded cap of the Schutzmütze covered in field-grey cloth with the addition of ear, neck and front flaps faced with rabbit fur. The two men behind may be part of the crew of the Sd Kfz 231, which belonged to the 22nd Panzer Division.

Opposite: Another man from the same unit. He is particularly well turned out and is enjoying a cigarette. The yellow Waffenfarbe can be seen on his collar tabs and shoulder straps. The silver Battle or Assault Badge was introduced for tank crew at the end of 1939, with the bronze version instituted in June 1940. The doublebreasted Feldjacke was black to help conceal oil stains. 52 • L I F E

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Y E L L O W W A F F E N F A R B E N • 53

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Above and opposite: An Sd Kfz 232 under tow by an 8-ton Sd Kfz 7 semi-track or half-track. The latter, in addition to being used as an artillery tractor, also provided the platform for self-propelled 20mm and 37mm flak guns. The driver is wearing a reversible winter parka that, although warm, was very heavy. The frame antenna on the Sd Kfz 232 made it very evident that it was a radio vehicle and therefore rendered it a prime target for enemy gunners. This example has snow chains on every other wheel. During the war the Germans made increasing use of simpler and less prominent pole aerials that replaced the clumsy and easily damaged frame aerials.

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The crew of this Sd Kfz 231 have concealed their armoured car in either the remains of a thatched barn or a homemade straw hide. The result is very effective as it breaks up the profile of the vehicle, especially the turret. From a distance it would have been almost invisible. What looks to be the 22nd Panzer logo can just about be made out on the left-hand side of the Pakschütz. This armoured shield was discontinued from May 1942 on the 232 as the frontal armour on the hull and turret had been increased on the latest production models. A turretless version of the 231 known as the 233, armed with a short 75mm StuK L/24 gun, was built in 1941 as a support vehicle. The drawback with this variant was that the fighting compartment was open and the weapon had very limited traverse.

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Above: Camouflaged for summer combat, this Sd Kfz 231 is sporting a three-colour paint scheme, using the two colours, oliv grun and rotbraun, that Army Memorandum No. 181 of 18 February 1943 introduced in addition to the factory finish of dunkel gelb. Judging by the finish, the crew applied the paint using a brush rather than spray gun. Even on the flat open landscape the colours have helped the vehicle to blend in. The jerrycans on the hull have been left in the old panzer grey. The crewman is wearing the lightweight green uniform that was issued as combat clothing for armoured car units. Some tank crews also adopted it as hotweather or working uniforms. The image gives a good idea of the vehicle’s speed, which could reach up to 85km/h (50mph). If not occupied by the Germans, the Russian state farm buildings in the background would have been a good location for partisans to hide out in. Below and opposite: The Sd Kfz 222 light armoured car, armed with a 20mm KwK30 cannon and MG34 machine gun, was designed to provide covering fire for the radio cars. It only carried a short-range radio. The cannon was able to elevate vertically so could also be used as an anti-aircraft weapon. This bogged-down Sd Kfz 222 has an unusual camouflage that is composed of panzer grey with a very pale green sprayed over it. The vehicle is well and truly stuck and – to the embarrassment of the three-man crew – required a tow truck.

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Y E L L O W W A F F E N F A R B E N • 59

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Above: The crew of an Sd Kfz 222 have done their utmost to hide their vehicle from prying eyes. In this case it will be either enemy gunners or spotter planes. The crumpled and partly concealed red aerial recognition flag on the front means they are doubtful they will receive any Luftwaffe support. Just under a thousand of this type of armoured car were built between 1936 and June 1943. It was very widely used on the Eastern Front.

Opposite above: These smartly turned-out armoured-car crew are attending a briefing that appears to include assault-gun crews. The short Feldjacke was designed to try and help reduce snagging inside tanks and other armoured vehicles. It could be buttoned to the throat, providing extra protection from the weather and sharp objects. Opposite below: A special modification. This armoured car commander and gunner have found a novel way of keeping the baking Russian sun off them. They look well tanned but much of their skin, especially their hands, is covered in grime. Military vehicles were splattered in grease, oil and petrol, making it impossible to stay clean. Both have taken off their field jackets. Y E L L O W W A F F E N F A R B E N • 61

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4 Beasts of Burden

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use of semi-tracks or half-tracks and pioneered the deployment of dedicated armoured personnel carriers. On the Eastern Front semi-tracks were used in a huge variety of roles and on the whole coped admirably well with the conditions. The most well-known of these was the Hanomag Sd Kfz 251 with its distinctive sloped armoured body. ERMANY MADE EXTENSIVE

German officers confer beside an Sd Kfz 250 semi-tracked light armoured personnel carrier. The officer on the left is from an armoured reconnaissance unit. The presence of the aerial and radio man show that it is a 250/3 communications variant. The very small fighting compartment did not allow much space for the driver, MG34 gunner, signaller and officer. The radio was located at the back on the right-hand side. This type was designed to direct motorised formations. Two other versions of the 250/3 were issued to Luftwaffe ground units for air-support control. The 250 went into production in June 1941 and by October 1943 some 4,250 had been built; at this stage a much simplified version was produced. The sunlight on the panzer grey makes the vehicle look almost blue. The Balkenkreuz is black, edged with white. The front drive sprocket for the tracks is extremely clogged with mud. An Sd Kfz 231 armoured car is in the background with a swastika aerial recognition panel.

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The Sd Kfz 251 semi-track medium armoured personnel carrier first went into production in June 1939 and included numerous specialised variants. It became the standard form of transport for German Panzergrenadiers supporting the panzers. It took two crew and could carry up to ten passengers. There were many different types, including self-propelled carriages for various types of anti-tank gun. Armament on the personnel carrier consisted of a single MG34 or MG42. BEASTS

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The Sd Kfz 251/1 was fitted with a projector frame capable of firing six Wurframen 40 rockets. These could be launched in just ten seconds and, depending on the type of rocket, which could be high-explosive or incendiary, and could reach over 2km (1.25 miles). This particular example is awaiting reloading as the side launchers are missing. The man at the front is holding a camera and may have been photographing their handiwork.

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Two 18-ton Sd Kfz semi-tracks. In early 1943 all existing vehicles at the front were ordered to be repainted dunkel gelb, although smaller equipment was exempt. The crew of one of the semi-tracks evidently decided that the dunkel gelb would be better employed to create a spotty camouflage over the existing panzer grey. While the vehicle is covered in very fine spots, the canvas cover over the cargo bay has much larger ones. The horse-drawn carriage on the right has been camouflaged with sand and light-grey stripes. BEASTS

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This Sd Kfz 7 has been painted completely in dunkel gelb. In contrast, the 150mm howitzer has been left panzer grey. Such calibre artillery with a range of over 13km (8 miles) typically operated at corps or divisional level so were well behind the front line and therefore did not usually need to be camouflaged.

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The rugged Sd Kfz 2 Kettenkrad gave great service on the Eastern Front. Its official designation was Kleines Kettenkraftrad or small tracked motorcycle. Originally designed to support airborne units, it was so successful that between 1940 and 1944 some 8,345 were produced. The Sd Kfz 2/1 variant, seen here, acted as telephone-cable layer with a cable reel mounted in a cradle above the central engine compartment. Others were used as gun tractors for lightweight anti-tank guns or howitzers.

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One previous owner. The tiny two-man French Chenillette d’Infanterie Type UE tracked carrier was built by both Renault and AMX. The Germans captured so many of them during the invasion of France that they reemployed them as the Infanterie Schlepper UE 630(f). It served as an artillery tractor, as well as an ammunition and weapons carrier. Some were converted into 37mm self-propelled anti-tank guns and rocket 70 • L I F E

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launchers. This example of the former was photographed with the 125th Infantry Division in Rostov. As the war progressed in Russia they were increasingly used behind the lines with security units. The Luftwaffe also deployed the Chenillette for a variety of towing and transport tasks. Some were converted into rudimentary light tanks by the Luftwaffe, with the addition of a fixed turret, for airfield defence. BEASTS

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Some vehicles were produced specifically to cope with the conditions on the Eastern Front, such as the Austrian Steyr-built Raupenschleppper-Ost 01 (tracked tractor, East, or RSO). Visibility for the driver here has been marred due to a heavily cracked windscreen on the pressed-steel truck-type cab. The vehicle had a tank-like torsion-bar suspension and steel tracks. It ran on conventional narrow tracks of 340mm, but during the winter could be fitted with 600mm tracks to cope with snow and slush. The final model was the RSO/03 built by KHD/Magirus, which had a much more angular cab with a soft top. The RSO had a towing capacity

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of 3 tons. During the latter part of the war it was also employed on the Western Front. In addition, the Germans used the Czech-built tracked Praga T3 and T9 as artillery tractors. In 1943 fifty RSOs were converted into self-propelled carriages for the 75mm PaK40 anti-tank gun. Early the following year they were sent to Army Group South in Russia for combat trials, but plans for further production do not seem to have come to fruition. While the carriage gave the gun greater cross-country mobility, it left the crew excessively exposed to enemy fire.

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5 Poor Bloody Infantry

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HITLER’S INFANTRY DIVISIONS plunged into the heart of Russia they were not very mobile. In preparation for the invasion around 15,000 Polish pattern Panjewagen horse-drawn carts were procured to give German infantry some additional transport. Helmut Ritgen recalled, ‘The Panje – the tough little Russian peasant horse – became a most valuable possession.’ When the snow came the German Army also resorted to using Panje-sledges to move ammunition, artillery, rations and the wounded. HEN

Grinning dust-covered German infantry. They are dressed in the standard field-grey uniform comprising field blouse, trousers and marching boots. Two of them are wearing their standard-issue side cap. They would also have with them steel helmets and greatcoats. By the winter of 1941 their remarkable victories of that summer would be just a distant memory. 74 • L I F E

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Much cleaner-looking members of the 164th Infantry Regiment on the march in the summer of 1942. They are carrying the standard German Mauser 7.9mm 98K rifle. German infantry divisions were far from motorised or even mechanised at the start of the Second World War. This unit’s equipment is being carried by numerous Panjewagen.

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This platoon of infantry is also being followed by a horse and cart. In reality they travelled no faster than the marching infantry, but at least were a way of carrying additional rations and ammunition.

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In this instant some of the invading German infantry have gained added mobility by riding bicycles and horses. A lorry has just driven by, throwing up an unwelcome plume of dust over man and beast. German soldiers soon discovered that Russia seemed endless – no matter how far they marched. Equally worrying, they discovered that the Red Army had the uncanny ability to regenerate itself despite a series of catastrophic defeats.

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Above: A quick smile for a friend holding the camera. Digging trenches was hard work and these men no doubt welcomed the brief respite. The man on the left is happily puffing away on his pipe. Opposite above: A German heavy weapons squad takes stock of its mortars, which are laid out on the ground. A Red Army prisoner of war stands hesitantly in their midst. Communication would inevitably be a problem unless a Russian-speaking German intelligence officer arrived on the scene. Opposite below: Stripped to their waists and in some instances their underwear, these soldiers are preparing field fortifications. Come the winter such bunkers, kitted out with stoves, created welcome havens from the weather. Intoxicated by his early victories, Hitler refused to permit his Army Group commanders to build permanent static defensive lines. By the time he changed his mind it was too late. P O O R B L O O D Y I N F A N T R Y • 79

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Above: A triumphant Adolf Hitler arrives in Ukraine in 1941 to congratulate his troops and his generals. They had conquered a vast area and were poised to take Moscow. His visit turned into a giant public relations exercise and at least three cameramen can be seen among the crowd, who are chanting ‘Heil Hitler!’ At this stage of the war there was no denying his genuine popularity.

Opposite above: Hitler’s wartime uniform naturally mirrored his dual position as supreme political leader and military commander. Therefore, he liked to combine elements of the Nazi Party and Army uniforms. For his trip to Ukraine he wore a leather trench coat, white shirt and black tie. His field-green cap has a brown velvet band with gold piping around the top and white around the band. The cap cords are gilt gold with a black or brown peak. Opposite below: In response to the cheering crowd Hitler gives his version of the Nazi Party salute. The SS officer to his right is reportedly Felix Steiner, who commanded SS Division Wiking, made up of Belgian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish and Norwegian volunteers. As a motorised division, Wiking took part in the invasion of Russia on the southern sector of the front. At that time, it numbered about 19,000 men, of whom about a third were non-German. Steiner ended the war in charge of the weak 11th SS Panzer Army, which was supposed to help with the defence of Berlin. However, he refused to commit his men to a pointless counterattack that would have seen them massacred. 80 • L I F E

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During a lull in the fighting this MG34 machine-gun team were recorded training. They are using the seventy-five-round saddle drum magazine but it could also be belt fed. This weapon was the first real example of a ‘general-purpose’ machine gun. Using a bipod, it acted as a squad light automatic; on a tripod it could be used as a medium machine gun; on another style tripod it could be deployed as an anti-aircraft weapon.

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A German officer having a go with the MG34 in belt-fed mode. The holes in the barrel are part of the cooling sleeve which helped dissipate heat and prevented the operator or loader burning his hands on the barrel. The man on his right was ill-advised to pick up the spent shell cases as they would have been hot, unless he was hoping to warm his hands.

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Time for a go with the MP38 machine pistol or submachine gun (identifiable by the ribbed receiver), probably the most famous of the German Army’s small arms. The body of the weapon pioneered the use of plastic as a substitute for wood on firearms. The improved MP40 was so successful that between 1940 and 1944 about 1 million were produced. Function and reliability were very good and the accuracy was excellent. The MP38/40 is sometimes mistakenly called the Smeisser, in the belief that it was designed by Hugo Smeisser, whereas he was only responsible for the MP41.

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The Russian equivalent of the MG34, known as the DP-27 (or DP-28); its pan magazine could only hold forty-seven rounds, reduced from forty-nine to help reduce jamming. It was an uncomplicated weapon that was robust and easy to operate and produce. Quite how this photo of a Russian gunner was obtained is unclear, especially as he is flanked by a drying German uniform.

Overleaf: Lying in ambush this MG42 team would have mown down anyone crossing the open ground in front of them. P O O R B L O O D Y I N F A N T R Y • 85

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6 God of War

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SECOND World War was essentially divided into four main categories: regimental infantry guns of 75mm to 105mm calibre; divisional field artillery consisting of 105mm to 150mm calibre; corps-level heavy artillery over 150mm calibre; and finally rocket artillery. There were also heavy coastal and siege guns. Initially German artillery was towed, but as the war progressed large numbers of artillery pieces were mounted on semitracked or tracked chassis to become self-propelled guns. RTILLERY DURING THE

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Above: The backbone of the German heavy artillery strength during the Second World War was the sFH 18 (schwere Feldhaubitze – heavy field howitzer), a 150mm howitzer developed in the late 1920s that entered service in 1934. In consequence it was regularly photographed by the gunners and interested parties. In order to tow it the split trail had to be lifted on to a two-wheeled limber and the gun disconnected from the recoil system, retracted back in its cradle and locked to the trails. This helped to distribute the weight more evenly when horse-drawn or towed by a prime mover. Full page image: The 150mm in firing position. The spades on the end of the split trail were intended to help reduce recoil. To lighten the sFH 18, Rheinmetall redesigned the weapon using an aluminium alloy. To reduce stress on the barrel they also reduced it from 4m (13.3ft) to 2.4m (7.9ft). Dubbed the sFH 36, this model went into production in 1938. However, as the war progressed the Luftwaffe were given priority with aluminium for aircraft, and production of the sFH 36 was stopped in 1942.

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Opposite: This sFH 18 in travelling position has broken an axle somewhere in Russia in 1943. The picture may have been taken by one of the crew. Due to its weight, the gun was difficult to manhandle, meaning it would have been difficult to fix unless an engineer’s vehicle arrived with a winch.

Below: Another 150mm howitzer in Russia in 1942; the crew have made some effort to camouflage its long barrel. The limber is on the right. This weapon belonged to the 19th Panzer Artillery Regiment, part of the 19th Panzer Division. From June 1941 to April 1943 the latter fought in central Russia until it was transferred to Ukraine to fight at Kursk.

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Above: A German artillery unit flounders around in a sea of mud. The weapon in the foreground is a 150mm sIG33 (schweres Infantrerie Geschütz – heavy infantry gun). Weighing in at 1,800kg (4,000lb), it was really not fit for purpose as an infantry-support gun because it was simply too heavy. Despite this shortcoming it entered service in 1936 and served until the end of the war. Attempts at lightening the carriage by constructing it from light alloys were thwarted by the Luftwaffe who had a priority on such metals. This gun’s prime mover has been detached to help some staff cars negotiate a particularly bad patch of mud.

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German gunners pose with a 150mm leFH18 (leichte Feld Haubitze –light field howitzer) in Sevastopol in 1942. The gun lacks its shield and the barrel has come out of the recoil cradle. This howitzer entered service in 1935 and was the standard German divisional field piece used throughout the Second World War. The key 94 • L I F E

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Crimean port fell to General von Manstein in early July 1942 along with 90,000 prisoners. It was not liberated until May 1944.

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Opposite above: German soldiers take a break from completing their crude-looking field fortifications in 1942. Opposite below: The Red Army was not short of artillery, which it considered the god of war; this forced the Germans to burrow deep underground. When this bunker, with its timber frame, was completed it would have been shell- and bomb-proof. Below: Heavy work in the sunshine. Gunners manhandle their weapon towards the prime mover parked up the road.

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A horse-drawn 105mm gun at the field railway near Kokorewka in 1944. While most German artillery was very robust, mobility was hampered by its excessive weight.

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7 ‘The Door Knocker’

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1941 THE GERMAN Army fielded 37mm, 50mm and 75mm anti-tank guns on the Eastern Front. The 37mm PaK36 was the standard German anti-tank gun at the start of the Second World War, and first saw combat during the Spanish Civil War. By 1941, when production ceased, over 20,000 had been produced. URING

Opposite: This gun crew are equipped with the 50mm PaK38, which began to replace the 37mm PaK35/36 as the standard German anti-tank gun after the fall of France. This was a much superior weapon and a tank gun version was retrofitted into Panzer IIIs that had initially been produced with a 37mm gun. It fired a tungstencored armour-piercing shot that could defeat any Allied tank then in service and made easy work of the Russian T-26 and BT-7. It also posed a threat to the T-34 at 500m (1,600ft). Although the use of tungsten stopped in 1942, the PaK38 remained in service throughout the war. Judging from the straw dangling from the barrel, this weapon was previously in an ambush position. A tarpaulin has been placed over the breech mechanism to keep out the mud. Below: This Unic P107 artillery tractor previously belonged to the French Army. It was built by Unic/Georges Richard in Puteaux in the late 1930s onwards and was one of the most common French semi-tracks. In Wehrmacht service it was dubbed the Leichter Zugkraftwagen 37 Unic (f) or the Zgkw U304 (f). The German armed forces pressed so many into service that they even issued the vehicle manual in German. The weapon under tow is the German 75mm PaK40 anti-tank gun, successor to the PaK38, introduced into service in late 1941 just in time to see action in Russia.

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The crew of an Sd Kfz 10 towing an anti-tank gun stop to ask for directions. This 1-ton light semi-track designed by Demag was hugely successful, with six manufacturers producing around 25,000 of them during the course of the war. The chassis was also used for armoured versions and self-propelled guns. Its principal role was to tow the 37mm, 50mm and 75mm anti-tank guns.

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Opposite above: A PaK38 gun crew engage enemy targets in southern Russia in the Stalingrad area in 1942. They have added foliage to disrupt the outline of the gun shield. This shield was curved, while on the PaK40 it was angled. The gun could fire both armour-piercing and high-explosive rounds. Opposite below: A shot of what appears to be the same weapon. Note the split trail to help stabilisation of the gun when firing. It is not clear what targets they are engaging, but they have fired at least four rounds. The gun could take on the T-34 at close range.

Below: PaK36 gunners engaging a Russian tank – just visible among the trees – which they appear to have caught in the flank or rear. The gunners’ only concessions to winter camouflage are their white helmets and gasmask containers. This lightweight gun was highly manoeuvrable and easy to conceal, which made up for its poor penetration capabilities; it was christened the ‘Army’s door knocker’ as a result. In the face of heavier Russian and other Allied tanks, it was rendered obsolete but was given a life extension in 1942 through the use of the Stielgranate 41 heavy fin-stabilised shaped charge bomb that at close range could be devastating. At 300m (980ft) this could cut through 180mm of armour.

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8 Stalin’s Debris

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1941 the Red Army suffered a series of enormous defeats. Through neither defence nor counterattack were Russian forces able to stem the tide of the marauding Wehrmacht. While snapshots of Russian tanks became commonplace, abandoned Russian equipment, especially artillery, was also a subject for the German Army’s amateur photographers. N THE SUMMER OF

No immediate damage is visible on this Red Army BA-10 armoured car, which was a development of the earlier similar-looking BA-3 and BA-6 series. Notably, though, the tyre on the front right-hand wheel has suffered a blow-out. The open hatches suggest that the four-man crew simply abandoned ship. This newer model entered service in 1938 and was armed with an improved 45mm tank gun as well as a coaxial machine gun. Like its predecessors, it could be converted into a semi-track by fitting tracks onto the rear wheels, which was intended to improve its off-road capability. Both the Germans and the Finns pressed this type of armoured car back into service for security duties. 106 • L I F E

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This Russian crew died alongside their 45mm anti-tank gun. They are in a horribly exposed position. Half a dozen spent shell cases are just visible either side of the right-hand carriage trail, indicating that they put up a fight. This type of gun appeared in several different models, including the M1932, M1934, M1937 and M1942. They were issued to independent anti-tank regiments and rifle divisions. The Model 1937 could just about cope with the early model Panzer III and IV but only at close range. The 45mm series was an improvement on the Russian Model 1930 37mm anti-tank gun, which had initially been designed by the German company Rheinmetall and drew on the PaK36. The Germans captured large numbers of these Russian weapons and reissued them as the 45mm PaK184(r).

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More abandoned guns of various calibres. These have been unhooked from their limbers ready to be deployed, at which point their crews fled. The clouds of smoke to the left suggest the aftermath of an air attack. Some sort of bus can be seen in the background on the right.

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German air attack or artillery caught this 76mm regimental gun on the move. The unit’s draught animals were also killed in the attack. The Red Air Force was neutralised early in the German invasion, which meant that every time the Red Army tried to concentrate its units for a counterattack they came under heavy air attack.

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Left above: Remains of a Stalinets-65 artillery tractor and a 152mm Model 1910/34 field gun left at the side of an unpaved road. The S-65 was a widely employed version of an agricultural-type tractor. It was developed from the S-60, which in turn was copied from the American Caterpillar 60. By 1941 the factory at Chelyabinsk, east of the Urals, had produced 37,626 of this type of tractor. The Red Army also used the similar-looking Komintern and Voroshilovets tractors to tow artillery. The volume of Russian production should have warned Hitler that Stalin’s factories would easily be able to ramp up tank production. Instead he chose to ignore the figures. Most of the body and enclosed cab of this S-65 has been blown away. The gun has also been damaged as the barrel has slipped from the recoil cradle. An officer and his corporal decided the scene was a good place for a snap. A German column pauses near a derelict battery of Russian 107mm guns. These look to be the Model 1910/30, which was the updated version of the Model 1910 used during the First World War. This improved variant was produced from 1931 until 1935. Scorching on the ground in the centre around the ammunition limber suggests the guns were caught by counter-battery fire or the Luftwaffe. There is no sign of the crews.

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Opposite above: Abandoned Red Army equipment, including trucks, horse-drawn carts, limbers and various calibre guns strewn along a riverbank. On the left is a Model 1939 76mm divisional gun that required a crew of five; to the right there are two 45mm anti-tank guns. There are also a number of regimental howitzers. Much of the equipment has been camouflaged using foliage – which did the unit no good whatsoever. Opposite below: Another elderly 152mm howitzer being inspected by an officer of the German 94th Infantry Division in Ukraine in 1941. Many of the Red Army’s 152mm howitzers dated from the First World War and had been refurbished in the early 1930s. In an effort to replace such dated weaponry the Russians developed the 152mm howitzer-gun Model 1937. This could fire at high velocity and flat trajectory like a gun or low velocity and high looping trajectory like a howitzer, hence its designation. It became the workhorse of the Red Army throughout the war and captured examples were redeployed by the Germans. Below: Members of the 13th Panzer Division inspecting a smaller Russian 122mm Model 1931 field gun in Rostov on the Don in July 1942 during Hitler’s push into the Caucasus. They may be gunners from the 13th Artillery Regiment. Some of these guns were updated by the Russians using the 152mm howitzer-gun Model 1937 carriage to create the Model 1931/37. The Germans made use of captured 122mm guns such as this, as they did with the 152mm. By the winter of 1942/43 the 13th Panzer Division found itself engaged in defensive battles in the Kuban and the Taman Peninsula. Overleaf: The defenders of this Russian town not only failed to save the place from German occupation, but also lost their anti-tank gun. It was destroyed by the blaze that engulfed the adjacent building. The weapon’s ammunition ‘cooked-off’ – rounds or warheads plus brass shell cases are strewn all over the place, suggesting a series of explosions.

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9 The Art of Logistics

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logistical supply train, the Germans took with them a plethora of horses, mules, carts and trucks. Many of the latter were requisitioned from the occupied territories, in particular France and Czechoslovakia. Companies like Citroën, Peugeot, Renault and Tatra were forced to keep on manufacturing wheeled vehicles for the Wehrmacht throughout the war. The Germans also pressed into service large numbers of captured Russian trucks. In total French companies produced at least 48,500 motor vehicles for the Wehrmacht. Austrian companies, most notably Steyr, produced another 24,200. O SUPPORT THEIR VAST

Have mules, will travel. The German Army was far from mechanised and relied on pack animals to transport ammunition, food and other supplies. Here half a dozen mules are given a lift by this 4x2 cargo truck belonging to the 13th Panzer Division during the push into the Caucasus in the summer of 1942. The animals would have been of great help traversing the mountain passes. Supported by the Romanian 2nd Mountain Division, the 13th Panzer Division captured Nalchik at the end of October 1942 but failed to reach Grozny or the Caspian Sea. After that it was a slow retreat towards the Kuban.

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These were the muddy conditions faced by German troops during the spring and autumn in Russia, which is known as the rasputitsa. The vehicle has a captured Russian gasmask covering a headlight for night driving, a common way of making enemy air attack more difficult. The first vehicle in the column is a captured Red Army ZIS cargo truck, still in its green livery. Behind it is a motley collection of different types of Germanbuilt truck. Russian transport vehicles included the ZIS-32, ZIS-5 and ZIS-6, lorries were also built by GAZ, ZIL and YaG. As the war progressed, spares for commandeered vehicles became increasingly hard to source, especially as all the factories had been relocated out of German reach.

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Above: Russian civilians watch impassively as a German column including a Mercedes truck and a Kübelwagen passes by. The side panels of the truck have been adorned with branches to offer some rudimentary camouflage. The lighting is such that the panzer grey looks almost black. It is doubtful that this family kept their horse and cart for very long as the Germany Army was swift to requisition such Panjewagen for military use. Once the winter set in, horses also provided a source of food.

Opposite above: A Kfz 305 Opel Blitz signals truck sporting an interesting camouflage scheme. Over a hundred different types of Opel Blitz were produced. The most useful had the house-type van body (Einheitskofferansbau or Koffer-Aufbau), which could be kitted out as an ambulance, cipher office, command caravan, laboratory, laundry, radio van or workshop. The body was manufactured from compressed card and wood to save metal and for ease of production. The Opel Blitz was the Wehrmacht’s most successful truck, with 70,000 of the 4x2 and 25,000 of the 4x4 version being built during the war. Opposite below: Details of the light cars on the left are not clear, but they look to be Stoewer Spezial, of which 13,000 were supplied to the German armed forces. Four motorcycles, two with sidecars, are concealed by the long grass in the foreground. Most of the crews are wearing canvas weatherproof coats. THE ART

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Above: A snapshot of the ‘House of Soviets’ in Minsk, the capital of White Russia or Byelorussia, which was captured in late June 1941. There was a large statue of Lenin outside the building until the SS tore it down. The Germans systematically vandalised all symbols of Bolshevism throughout the occupied areas of the Soviet Union. After the Germans liquidated the Red Army trapped in the Minsk pocket in early July 1941 they claimed to have taken a staggering 342,000 prisoners of war, plus 3,332 tanks and 1,809 guns captured or destroyed. Opposite above: A roadside mishap. It is not clear how this truck managed to skid off the road in such a spectacular fashion, but the two trucks on the left have probably arrived to retrieve the spilt supplies. The man crouching by the central truck may be about to attach a tow rope. Opposite below: Asking for directions. Intriguingly, the man standing is pointing back the way the motorcycle rider and his passenger have just come. The flat-fronted trucks in the background either side of them are French built. During the occupation of France, Renault was forced to build its AHN, AHR and AHS range of cargo trucks, all of which were similar-looking, for the German forces. Large numbers of these vehicles were sent to the Eastern Front as general load carriers. The Germans also requisitioned numbers of the Renaultbuilt AGK and AGR, which had been in service with the French Army. THE ART

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Above: Under Nazi occupation. The Germans were quick to reinforce their authority by placing swastikas on bridges and public buildings. The truck on the left is an Opel Blitz 3.6 4x4 medium cargo carrier finished in panzer grey. A signals van and staff car are headed in the other direction. Judging by the rails in the foreground, this bridge may have once carried trams. Opposite above: German soldiers on patrol or on a supply run in a Panjewagen. They are wearing a mixture of field and side caps. The men on the left and right are in standard-issue greatcoats while the man in the middle is wearing a waterproof coat. This was all German troops had to protect them from the bitter cold during the first winter in Russia. Opposite below: The onset of autumn in 1941 and the coming of the rain turned Russia’s rudimentary roads into enormous quagmires. The more traffic that tried to pass along them the worse they became. On the right a civilian agricultural tractor has been requisitioned to try and help haul the trucks free of the axle-deep mud. Elsewhere German soldiers have resorted to pushing desperately in the hope of getting some traction. On 10 September 1941 a German Army communiqué signalled: ‘Weather cold and dull, with occasional torrential rain. Roads still impassable.’ It did not bode well. 124 • L I F E

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Above: Driving conditions in blizzards such as this were treacherous and accidents were commonplace. The drivers can have been none too happy posing for this photograph. The meteorologist of the German 6th Army on 4 January 1942 recorded a temperature of 42˚C below zero. Not even the most modern technology could cope with what turned out to be one of the coldest winters of the twentieth century in Eastern Europe. Hitler’s Blitzkrieg had fatefully ground to a halt and the horse once again came into its own.

Opposite: When the temperature dropped, the roads once again became passable unless they were snowed in. On the left the landscape has a light dusting of snow, though the road remains clear. The rear wheels of the lead truck are fitted with snow chains, indicating that they are expecting more bad weather. THE ART

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ERMAN OFFICERS USED A wide range of purpose-built and former civilian cars and utility

vehicles in Russia. The most famous of these was the sturdy little Volkswagen-built Kübelwagen. The Germans, like everyone else, employed staff cars that in many cases were simply civilian types in ‘war paint’. Numbers of these came from the occupied terrirories.

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Above: The soft-top Kübelwagen, Volkswagen Type 82, designed by Porsche, was the military cousin of the civilian Volkswagen Beetel Kafer or ‘people’s car’ and served with the German armed forces in all theatres of operation. It was also known as the Kübelsitzer or just Kübel. Around 52,000 of them were built during 1939–45. The Kfz 1 was the main variant, but there was also the Kfz 2 radio and communications car, the Kfz 2/40 maintenance/repair car and the Kfz 3 survey car. The Kübelwagen proved to be one of the few motor vehicles that was perfectly ‘at home’ on the Eastern Front. Its half-ton weight meant that it did not easily bog down and could be manhandled by just two men.

Opposite: Time off in the sunshine. The topless officer on the left is making the most of the opportunity to polish his boots and shave, while his colleague enjoys a leisurely cigarette. The vehicle with open doors is similar to the Czech-built Tatra 57K light car, which was used by both the German and Hungarian armies. T H E O F F I C E R ’ S L I M O • 129

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This column of utility vehicles belonged to the 13th Panzer Division and was photographed in 1942. The crews seem simply oblivious to the threat of air attack. It took until 1943 to rebuild the Red Air Force.

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Opposite above: Perhaps a photo for a loved one. This Horch 901 driver has adopted a puppy. He may have just bathed or done some laundry as his uniform, including his socks, are draped over the side of the vehicle. The panzer grey looks a deep green. The later versions of this car did not have the sub-axle-mounted spare wheels and could seat five instead of four. Opposite below: During the summer Russia’s roads turned to dust. Up until the spring of 1943, when the Red Air Force gained dominance over the Kuban to the east of the Crimea, the Luftwaffe enjoyed almost complete air superiority. This meant that until then dust thrown up by German vehicles did not often attract unwanted attention of enemy fighter-bombers. The object strapped to the top of the sidecar is a gasmask canister.

Below: The driver of an Auto Union Horch 901 Type 40 from the 22nd Panzer Division watches as a Russian farm burns to the ground. The unfortunate owners, dressed in white, can be seen beyond the front of the car. Early versions of the Horch 901 had the novelty of sub-axle-mounted spare wheels on both sides. The Romanian Army also employed the 901.

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Judging by their informal stance, these three men are probably posing for a friend. The man in the centre is Hermann Halang of the 103rd Schutzen Regiment. The man on the right in the waterproof coat is wearing rather modern-looking sunglasses. A Krupp light truck is pulled up behind them. Sleeping soldiers are sprawled out in the sunshine along the grass verge.

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Above: Time for some maintenance. This ‘civilian’ two-door Mercedes staff car is getting an overhaul that includes a change of tyre during the summer of 1941. The colour of the man’s body indicates he has not had much opportunity to strip off in the Russian sun.

Opposite above: Russian civilians seem bemused by this much-decorated Krupp light truck. Known as the Krupp-Protze or ‘Schnautzer’, this versatile six-wheeler had a distinctive sloping front. It first went into production in 1933 as the L2H43 and was followed by the L2H143. It was produced in a number of variants including personnel and radio trucks. The Schnautzer also saw service with the Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front. Oposite below: Another view of the same vehicle with the soft top down. Most served as gun tractors and this one is towing a gun limber. The normal crew complement consisted of five men. 136 • L I F E

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Above: Despondent Russian prisoners file past a German Army staff car. Their uniform consists of the rubaha, a khaki cotton shirt with stand and fall collar; the sleeves were gathered at the wrist and cuff and fastened with two small buttons. It was worn over matching khaki breeches with high, black leather boots. However, shortages of leather meant that many wore ankle boots with puttees. Their headgear comprised the fourashka peaked cap and the pilotka side cap, though in this instance some are also wearing civilian-type caps. Most Russian prisoners of war were shipped off to Germany and never returned home.

Opposite above: The driver of this damaged staff car seems relieved to be taking a break, while the officer is preoccupied by the bunker to their left. Typical German bunkers can be seen here in the sides of the rolling hills on the outskirts of Stalingrad, 1942. Opposite below: A rather muted crowd greets a German column, which is holding up the local trams. 138 • L I F E

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11 A Job for the Engineers

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GERMAN ARMY IN its drive toward Moscow in 1941 had to fight its way over numerous wide rivers, including the Bug, Neman, Berezina, Dnieper and the Dvina. To support these operations, its engineers took with them pontoon bridges and assault boats. HE

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Above: German troops used Schlauchboot or rubber dinghies as assault boats to cross the Meuse to attack France in 1940. These men happily navigating a river in Russia are clearly not anticipating attack as they are not wearing their helmets or personal equipment. Russia’s vast waterways and the Pripyat marshes would soon become a haven for partisans who launched constant raids against the Germans behind their lines.

Left: This is what faced the Germans as they pushed ever deeper into the Soviet Union during 1941–42. The fleeing Red Army attempted to slow them by destroying all the bridges over Russia’s major rivers. This girder bridge has all but vanished. While such destruction was a setback, as it had been during the invasion of France, German engineers were quick to build replacements. A JOB

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This river, as it was not in full flood, was fordable on foot. It appears that the photographer stood in the water to get this shot. German infantry who have removed their boots and socks are wading across while others are hitching a ride on the outside of the trucks.

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Opposite inset: German Bautruppen (construction personnel) and engineers enjoy the sun while constructing a pontoon bridge. This had to be capable of taking the weight of the heaviest vehicles, including 20ton panzers. Two powered assault boats are being used to nudge the first section into place. Note the light-green paddles in the lower right of the frame, which the engineers could use to help guide their next section into position. This pontoon bridge was being built over the river Don to support the advance on Stalingrad in August 1942. To help with such bridging operations Rheinmetall-Borsig produced the tracked amphibious Land-Wasser-Schlepper, which was designed for towing. Only twenty-one were ever ordered and most of them saw service in Russia. Once assembled and firmly tethered, German pontoon bridges were soon taking a steady stream of vehicles. Boards have been placed on the outside to enable infantry to cross without getting in the way. The original Russian bridge, built on high stone pylons on the right has lost its central spans.

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Above: Using pile drivers mounted on pontoons, engineers were able to construct more permanent bridges. The bridge on the right taking tanks is a combination of pontoons and piles anchored into the riverbed. These are Panzer IIIs belonging to the 3rd Panzer Division crossing the Dnieper in Byelorussia. The division captured a bridge over the Dnieper at Rogatchev on 4 July 1941; the 20th Panzer Division took one over the Dvina at Ulla four days later. However, the latter discovered that the impressive bridge over the western Dvina had been destroyed and engineers had to construct a new one. These divisions came under the 2nd and 3rd Panzer Groups respectively. The ferry in the middle has been made by lashing together two large Schlauchboot overlaid with timber boards. Power was supplied by the outboard motor of a smaller assault boat.

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Below: Once more permanent structures were completed, the pontoon bridges were freed to be deployed elsewhere. Here a column of infantry is christening a new lightweight girder and scaffold bridge. The man second from the right appears to be loading a camera ready to capture the moment. A tented encampment has been established on the far bank.

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Opposite inset: This timber structure was a vastly more ambitious project and may have been intended to take a railway line. German engineers appreciated that river crossings had to be weather-proofed, especially once the winter set in. Heavy ice-flows on the Dnieper crushed the temporary bridges built by the Germans during the first winter. The wooden piles for a previous bridge can be seen on the right. One vehicle produced to help with river crossings on the Eastern Front and indeed patrol waterways was the Schwimmwagen Kfz 1/20, Volkswagen 166, or ‘Schwimmer’ for short. This was essentially an amphibious version of the Kübelwagen. Although designed by Dr Porsche to cope with the wet conditions in Russia, it was also used on the Western Front. Its ingenious hinged three-bladed propeller, connected to a ‘dog’ on the rear-axle differential, gave a maximum water speed of 10km/h (6mph). Steering was achieved by using the front wheels as rudders. The positioning of the engine at the rear helped keep the nose up when entering the water. There are almost twenty vehicles from the 22nd Panzer Division in this shot.

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Above: The patrol leaves the river. The driven front axle helped the vehicle climb riverbanks, otherwise it would have had to reverse out. These vehicles are fitted with long rods to lift the propeller clear of the water ready to reengage the gearbox. They are also equipped with paddles in the event of an engine failure. The Schwimmwagen was really only suitable for slow and calm inland water, and it was unarmoured, so was not in any way an assault vehicle. Nonetheless, it was well suited to the conditions in Russia. It went into production in 1942 and by the time it ceased in mid-1944 some 14,265 had been built. Below: Ferries were also a traditional way of crossing rivers. In this case an ambulance is about to be taken over to the far bank. Like bridges, ferries were very vulnerable to air attack and had to be protected by flak units.

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Pen & Sword Advanced Information

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

11/04/2021, 19:18

URN: 135774

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS Tel: +44 (0)1226 734222 Fax: +44 (0)1226 734438 Email: [email protected] Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Life and Death on the Eastern Front Rare Colour Photographs From World War II Author: Anthony Tucker-Jones, Ian Spring Highlights A stunning collection of more than 250 rare, original colour photographs from the Second World War A visual journey through the landscape of war along the Eastern Front as never seen before Text by renowned author and military historian Anthony Tucker-Jones Images taken from photo collector Ian Spring’s extensive PIXPAST Archive

Description This incredible visual record of life and death along the Eastern Front draws from the PIXPAST Archive, a collection built by Ian Spring of more than 32,000 original colour photographs taken between 1936 and 1946. Collated into three parts and organised thematically, the book begins with images of the ground war, including Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union and the tanks, vehicles, weaponry and infantry on both sides. Moving into the war in the skies, the images depict aircraft in cight and on the ground, the bombers, dghters, Luftwaffe personnel and the destruction wrought from battle. And dnally, the images take us behind the lines, to the prisoners of war, partisans, medics, the daily lives and leisure activities of soldiers and civilians along the front and the impact of the harsh Russian winter. With 250 photographs and text by renowned author and commentator Anthony TuckerJones, these images offer a rare, often surprising insight into the realities of the Second World War and people caught up in it, in vivid colour detail.

Author Details Anthony Tucker-Jones, a former intelligence oecer, is an author and commentator who specialises in military history, with more than 50 books to his name. His work has also been published in an array of magazines and online. He regularly appears on television and radio programmes commenting on current and historical military matters. His books include Stalin’s Revenge, Slaughter on the Eastern Front, Kursk 1943, The Eastern Front Air War, Armoured Warfare on the Eastern Front, D-Day 1944 and The Devil’s Bridge. Developing a fascination with historical imagery from a young age, Dublin-born Ian Spring began collecting colour photo slides of the war from all over the world. Determined to preserve these historical moments for the future of mankind, he created the PIXPAST Archive to digitize and share this extraordinary collection. Thought to be the world's largest collection of World War II colour photography, the archive has supported historical research and contributed to more than 50 publications.

Price: Price: Pages: Trim: Format: ISBN:

£ 25 $ 40 288 246x172 Hardback 9781784387235

Illustrations: 260 colour illustrations Pub Month:

March 2022

Imprint: Greenhill Books Subject: Unpublished colour photographs from the Eastern Front in World War II Key Dates:

Regional Interest:

Rights: World language rights Author Local Area: Barnstaple, Devon; Munich, Germany Marketing Activity:

https://liberator.pen-and-sword.co.uk/ai/collection/07fe5689-ddd1-4e36-a896-7a3bf822fe24

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Part Two

War in the Skies

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Messerschmitt Bf 109s preparing for action in Russia in 1942. The Bf 109 formed the backbone of the Luftwaffe’s fighter squadrons throughout the war and produced numerous aces. The Hungarians commenced building the plane in 1943 for use by the Hungarian Air Force on the Eastern Front. It was also operated by the Croatian, Italian, Romanian and Slovakian air forces. Total production amounted to about 35,000 aircraft.

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12 The Luftwaffe’s Fighters

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air war on the Eastern Front proved to be a turkey shoot for the Luftwaffe’s young fighter pilots. On 22 June 1941 some 480 German fighters destroyed the Red Air Force in a single day. They hit at least sixty-six Russian airfields, home to 75 per cent of the Red Air Force’s fighters. When Russian bombers tried to counterattack they were shot from the sky by the Luftwaffe’s agile single-seat Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter. By September 1941 the Red Air Force had lost about 7,500 aircraft. Moscow was left vulnerable but was saved by the onset of bad weather, which curtailed the Luftwaffe’s operations. HE OPENING OF THE

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Above inset: Captain Johann Zemsky (second from the left) briefing his fellow Stuka pilots somewhere near Stalingrad in 1942. Note his Knight’s Cross. During the hot summers in Russia tropical uniform was widely worn. This typically consisted of a shirt, breeches and boots. Three of the men are wearing black leather flying jackets, which crews tended to find more comfortable than the flying blouse and beige canvas onepiece flying suit. Some versions of these jackets included white or black fur collars. The Luftwaffe emblem is on the right breast. Opposite inset: Not a happy meal. Conditions on Luftwaffe airfields during the summer in Russia were far from idyllic. These pilots are trying to eat, but are plagued by swarms of flies. The man on the right has tried to distract them with a plate of fluid of some kind. The summer also brought clouds of dust which choked the air intakes on their aircraft. Main image: A Bf 109 coming into land on a snowbound airfield. One of the drawbacks with this aircraft was that its unstable narrow-track undercarriage, which retracted outwards into the wings, could be unforgiving on uneven terrain. Pilots operating in Byelorussia and Ukraine had to take care when flying from rough airstrips or they faced the prospect of a crash-landing.

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The photographer caught the aircraft at the moment of touch-down. The conditions are treacherous and an inexperienced pilot would have struggled to cope. The ground crew would also have found it difficult to keep this aircraft airworthy. The Luftwaffe, like the Army, found it hard to survive during the winter months. Airbases became snowed in and aircraft engines failed to start in the -40˚C temperature. Partisans made life difficult by attacking isolated Luftwaffe units and their lines of communication. The important Luftwaffe base at Yukhnov became the scene of bitter battles and led to the creation of Luftwaffe-Gruppe Meindl for perimeter defence.

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The Luftwaffe’s dive-bombers or Stukas included the famous Ju 87. With its wailing siren it epitomised Hitler’s Blitzkrieg. Although acting as flying artillery, the Stuka also became a very effective terror weapon, but without sufficient fighter escort it was vulnerable to Russian fighters.

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13 Smashed on the Ground

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N THE FIRST DAY of the invasion, the Luftwaffe claimed 1,472 Russian aircraft, most of

which were caught on the ground. When the German attack commenced the Polikarpov I-16 formed the mainstay of the Red Air Force’s fighter squadrons. In the hands of an experienced pilot it was manoeuvrable and a worthy opponent, but the Red Air Force had few such pilots to spare.

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German troops inspecting a crashed Polikarpov I-16. This short, stubby fighter was the first production monoplane in the world to have retractable undercarriage and was the first Russian fighter to protect the pilot with armoured plating. However, it suffered from inadequate longitudinal stability, which made it impossible to fly ‘hands off’. Wheels-up landings like this were not uncommon. The hard undercarriage had to be hand cranked forty-four times to retract and when locked down caused the aircraft to bounce alarmingly on rough ground. This resulted in pilots nicknaming it the ‘Donkey’. In an emergency it was safer to land wheels-up than risk flipping over. There were also two-seat training variants of this aircraft.

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A trophy of war. Luftwaffe ground personnel display their prize. In the early days of the war the Germans swiftly overran the Red Air Force’s forward airbases in eastern Poland, Byelorussia and Ukraine. Note the Luftwaffe pennant behind the man on the left. The vehicle to the right is a mobile workshop or field kitchen. Partisan attacks on German airfields would become so regular that the Luftwaffe was forced to form its own ground forces. Initially these were of regimental strength but quickly expanded to whole divisions.

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More debris, this time the remains of a Russian bomber. It may be the tail section of an SB-2 light bomber, but the damage is such that there is little to go on. The Germans sometimes liked to cut out the Red Star as a souvenir. During the winter aircraft remains, particularly the wings, were used to create windbreaks or to enhance accommodation.

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Below: The MiG-3 fighter, successor to the earlier under-armed MiG-1, had only just entered service in 1941. It was the most prolific of Russian fighters at the outbreak of war, by which time 1,309 had been built. It was, however, not as good as the Lavochkin and Yakovlev designs. While at high altitude it made a good tactical reconnaissance aircraft, at low to medium altitude it was found to be no match for the Bf 109. This example outside Smolensk in 1942 made a belly-up landing and is identifiable by the cockpit canopy. The pilot had to endure an open canopy on the MiG-1. The Luftwaffe pilot examining the wreckage may have been the one who brought the aircraft down.

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Above: Another wrecked MiG-3. Between June and December 1941 the Red Air Force lost 21,200 aircraft. These provided numerous photo opportunities for the Germans. Amazingly, though, during the winter of 1941 the Red Air Force still manage to fly nearly five times the number of sorties as the Luftwaffe.

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Above: Caught on the ground and in the open, this fighter never stood a chance. This was the fate of many of the Red Air Force’s aircraft in the opening days of Operation Barbarossa. Opposite: German pilots examine their handiwork on a Russian airfield outside Minsk in 1942.

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14 Wail of the Dive-Bombers

H

ITLER’S

STUKA DIVE-BOMBERS were in the vanguard of his Blitzkrieg. This terrifying weapon was used to blast a path for the panzers. Any points of resistance were quickly plastered in bombs. Stuka units were in high demand on the Eastern Front and found themselves constantly being redeployed from one area to another. A prime example of this was General Richthofen’s 8th Air Corps and later his 4th Air Fleet, which were involved in every major operation. The sortie rates were such that this inevitably took a toll on the increasingly exhausted aircrews.

A Ju 87 dive-bomber of the 51st Sturzkampgeschwader in the Stalingrad area in the summer of 1942 being prepared for action. Ground crew wore either white cotton drill uniforms or black overalls with either bluegrey or black side caps. While the white uniform was cooler it was difficult to keep clean. The man in the centre is wearing a short Fliegerbluse and the Fliegermütze. The flying blouse was only supposed to be worn by flying personnel, but became popular throughout the Luftwaffe. 170 • L I F E

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Happy days. Captain Johann Zemsky poses with his gunner for photographer Otto Vieth. Both are wearing lightweight flying overalls and the gunner has attached his flying helmet to his belt. The Ju 87 crew sat beneath a sliding canopy protected by considerable armour. The aircraft could carry four 50kg (110lb) bombs or two 250kg (550lb) bombs. The bomb cradles ensured that once the bombs were released during a dive they would swing clear of the propeller to avoid accidents. A shot similar to this was used on the cover of Der Adler. WA I L

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Above: Another picture of the same aircraft, providing a good view of the Ju 87’s distinctive inverted gull wing. This shape permitted the fixed undercarriage to be kept short, which reduced drag when in flight. The aircraft featured an automatic dive control that pulled it out of a dive at a pre-set altitude; this enabled the pilot to concentrate on delivering his payload. A row of two bombs have been lined up to the right, ready for loading. Opposite: The engine and air intake have been exposed on this aircraft to allow for maintenance. The excellent teamwork that existed between the pilots and ground crew contributed greatly to the Luftwaffe’s success in the air. During the summer, ground crew quite often stripped down to their underwear or swimming trunks as it was the coolest way to work. During the winter aircrew could eat, sleep and fly in their warm, fur-lined, flying clothing; in contrast the ground crew struggled to find adequate protection from the elements and were forced to modify their existing uniforms. Eventually the Luftwaffe issued winter clothing that included various kinds of underclothing, fur waistcoats and sheepskin caps. Below: This Stuka unit has tried to hide their aircraft using camouflage netting, which suggests they were not immune to the attentions of the Red Air Force. It took the Russians over a year to recover, but when they did they began to build up a quite formidable ground-attack force that increasingly hampered the Germans’ freedom of movement.

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A lone bombed-up Stuka taxis, ready to join the rest of its squadron on a mission. The dry parched soil inevitably coated everything in dust, including the aircraft’s air intake. Without adequate fighter cover the Stuka was very vulnerable, but during the early part of the air war over Russia this mattered little as most of the Red Air Force had been driven from the skies. In 1940 the Stuka was mauled by the fighters of the RAF, but the Luftwaffe had no immediate replacement available, so it stayed in service. Over 5,700 Ju 87s were built, ironically most of them produced after the Battle of Britain.

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Inset: An impressive sight. A squadron takes to the air. By 1943 the Ju 87s on the Eastern Front were being severely savaged by the Red Air Force during daylight missions. The key models were the B, D and G. On some of the later variants, which included a night-assault version, the dive brakes were omitted and they were only intended for level ground attack and not dive-bombing. The ground crew would always count them all out and count them back in as they returned.

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Time for serious maintenance. The ground crew working on these two Ju 87s are wearing either the standard black overalls and matching side cap, or the blue-grey flying blouse and side cap. Stood on the wing is Otto Vieth, camera at the ready. Once the Luftwaffe was deep inside the Soviet Union it became increasingly difficult to maintain the resupply chain and obtain adequate spares. This meant that ground crews had to become adept at cannibalising ‘lame ducks’ to keep at least part of their squadron airworthy. Constant redeployment to different sectors of the front also put a great strain on the Luftwaffe until it eventually reached breaking point.

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German bombers warming up their engines in 1941. The Luftwaffe’s reliance on tactical bombers rather than developing a strategic bomber force proved to be a major shortcoming on the Eastern Front. Most of Russia’s weapons factories were withdrawn east of the Urals and out of the reach of the Luftwaffe. German bombers supported their ground forces, attacked Russian troop movements and railways, but could not reach Stalin’s vital factories. This failure contributed to Hitler’s defeat on the Eastern Front.

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15 The Welcome Auntie

T

HE LUFTWAFFE’S TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT fleet proved instrumental time and time again on the Eastern Front. Key among its inventory was the Ju 52/3m. Colonel Fritz Morzik, the Luftwaffe’s Chief of Air Transport, between 20 February and 19 May 1942 had to keep six entire German divisions resupplied by air while they were trapped at Demyansk, southeast of Lake Ilmen. The success of this operation set a dangerous precedent because it convinced Hitler – wrongly as it turned out – that the Luftwaffe could keep the 6th Army resupplied at Stalingrad later that year.

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Opposite: The Ju 52 was protected by a single open dorsal and a single retractable ventral-position machine gun. The pilot is testing a long-lensed camera from the exposed top gun position. This aircraft was so popular that some 4,850 were built and it was initially also used as a crude bomber. In transport mode it could carry eighteen troops, twelve casualty litters or mixed freight. Because it was always such a welcome sight, the troops nicknamed it ‘Auntie’.

Above: The business end of the three-engine Ju 52/3m transport aircraft. This aircraft was initially designed for civilian use, but became the vital workhorse of the German armed forces. Its poor armament and slow speed meant it was very vulnerable and even before the invasion of Russia large numbers of this type of aircraft had been lost during Hitler’s airborne assault on Crete. Behind it is a Bf 110 escort fighter, this type of aircraft proved incapable of effective combat against single-engine fighters and was relegated to fighter-bomber and reconnaissance roles. T H E W E L C O M E A U N T I E • 181

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A bowser truck refuels a thirsty Ju 52. The aircraft’s range using auxiliary tanks was 1,300km (800 miles). Its top speed was 275km/h (171mph) but the economical cruising speed was only 210km/h (130mph). Like the Ju 87 units, the Ju 52 crews found the tempo of operations increasingly punishing.

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This photo of Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor long-range reconnaissance aircraft was taken during Hitler’s visit to Ukraine in 1941. Although this was the Luftwaffe’s premier maritime patrol aircraft during the Battle of the Atlantic, it was also used on the Eastern Front for long-range transport duties. This included taking part in the ill-fated Stalingrad airlift. The impressive-looking Condor suffered structural problems throughout its service career, which were never completely resolved; as a result many planes broke their backs during landing. Opposite inset above: Hitler during his Ukraine visit besieged by cameramen making the most of the propaganda opportunity. He visited twice: once during the summer and again in the winter. Many Ukrainians hoped he would offer them independence but it did not happen – Ukrainian volunteers were simply subsumed into the German armed forces. Such visits to the Eastern Front became hazardous and caused his hosts major security headaches. Opposite inset below: German generals conferring by a Ju 52 during Hitler’s visit. They ensured he was only briefed with good news, which at this stage was easy. During the winter of 1941/42 the Wehrmacht would falter before Moscow and Leningrad, which meant Stalin no longer had to consider suing for peace.

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An enormous six-engine Messerschmitt Me 323 Gigant or Giant heavy general-purpose transport comes into land on a Russian airfield in 1943. Production deliveries began the previous August and two Ju 52/3m groups were re-equipped with these large planes. This aircraft started life as the Me 321 heavy transport glider. In October 1941 Helmut Ritgen with 6th Panzer Division recalled, ‘The supplies necessary for continuing the advance towards Moscow were brought up not only by road but also by “Giant” gliders.’ After the glider was used with mixed results it was decided a powered version was needed. From November 1942 the Me 323 was used to help Hitler’s rapid build-up in Tunisia. Initially operating alongside the Ju 52 with a fighter escort, it went unscathed. However, the Me 323 could only manage a maximum speed of 240km/h (150mph) and soon became a sitting duck for Allied fighters over the Mediterranean. In two separate air battles the RAF shot down thirty-five Me 323s. Redeployed to the Eastern Front, it operated behind the front lines delivering supplies.

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An Me 323 being refuelled somewhere in Russia. As well as supplies, this aircraft was capable of carrying vehicles, 120 infantry or sixty stretcher patients. Operated by the 1st and 2nd Squadrons, 5th Transport Group, from bases at Warsaw in Poland, Lecskemet in Hungary and Focsani in Romania, they flew several thousand sorties for the Crimea airlift. By the time production came to an end in April 1944 almost 200 had been built. At around that point it was withdrawn from operational service. A group of Condors are just visible in the background on the right.

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16 Air Defence Duties

A

GERMANS INITIALLY enjoyed air superiority over Russia, both the Army and Luftwaffe were generously equipped with anti-aircraft guns. These were either towed or self-propelled. The most famous was the ‘88’ – the 88mm Flak 18/36/37 anti-aircraft gun. This was dual role so could also be employed as an anti-tank gun and could be fired while still mounted on its wheels. LTHOUGH THE

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A dramatic moment recorded forever. This and the following photo were taken by Otto Vieth. In light of the flames and smoke rising from the nearby farm buildings it would appear that this flak unit has been firing in a ground-support role. Their vehicle is a 10-ton Sd Kfz 6/2 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, armed with a 37mm Flak 36. This required seven crew and was issued to Luftwaffe flak units on all fronts. The tank on the right is a Panzer III. Both vehicles are finished in a very dusty panzer grey and have aerial recognition panels.

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The superstructure and sides on semi-track flak guns were designed to allow the weapon to have allround traverse. Almost 340 Sd Kfz 6/2s were produced by 1943, followed by a further 340 Sd Kfz 7/1s and 7/2s. The Germans also made use of fully tracked flak guns mounted on tank chassis. A third shot in this sequence appeared on the front of Der Adler in October 1942.

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Above: Air defence duties. While the man on the left gets a haircut, the Luftwaffe crew of a quad 20mm Flakvierling 38 look on and enjoy the sunshine. This was the standard German light flak gun of the Second World War. For transport it was fitted with two road wheels. The Flak 38 was an improvement on the earlier 20mm Flak 30 used by the German Condor Legion in Spain. Initially it started as a single gun, but the quad could put 1,680 shells into the air per minute. This example is finished in panzer grey, though the gun shield – deliberately or not – has a dusty camouflage. Opposite: The crew are in a mixture of Luftwaffe tropical uniform, comprising cotton or canvas trousers, vests and shirts plus field caps. The man cooking a pancake is wearing some sort of non-regulation wooden-soled slippers or clogs. On the quad, magazines for two guns could be reloaded while the other two continued to fire. The Flak 38 was also mounted on the Sd Kfz 7, an example of which can be seen deployed in the background on the left. Another variant carried a single 37mm flak gun.

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Men of the 14th Panzer Division with a Russian Model 1939 37mm anti-aircraft gun, which drew on a Bofors design. It looks to be intact and there is no evidence that it has even been fired. By the time the war ended Russia had produced 20,000 of these guns.

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Main image: The crews of two semi-track self-propelled flak guns stop to watch a blazing Russian farmhouse and outbuildings. It may be that the convoy received incoming fire and so shot back. None of the crews are wearing helmets, giving the scene a rather relaxed air. Opposite inset: Another photo of the same unit showing the nearest vehicle to be a 5.5-ton Sd Kfz 10/4 carrying the 20mm Flak 30. The four box-like stowage bins on the folding sides of the superstructure were for ammunition. The single-axle trailer was also an ammunition carrier. This was the earliest self-propelled mounting for flak troops. Later versions were fitted with an armoured cab. The Sd Kfz 10/4 was used by both Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht flak units. As on the Sd Kfz 6/2, the folding sides were designed to give the gun an all-round traverse.

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After the battle. The 8-ton Sd Kfz 7 on the right appears to have received a direct hit in the rear and caught fire. This vehicle could carry a mixed load of eighty 88mm rounds. In the centre is an 88mm Flak 36/37 antiaircraft gun in static firing mode. The two-wheeled trailer on the left is part of the gun’s limber. Beyond it is a Russian howitzer and an S-65 tracked artillery tractor. The soldier bending over is picking up a Russian-made stick grenade.

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Part Three

Behind the Lines

AUTHOR

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17 Troublesome Axis Allies

T

HE ITALIANS,

HUNGARIANS, ROMANIANS and Spanish all provided troops to support Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union. Initially Romanian leader General Ion Antonescu provided two whole armies totalling around 150,000 men. Later with reinforcements this force was doubled in strength. Italy and Hungary also provided entire armies, which proved no match for the Russians.

This German despatch rider may be asking these Romanian soldiers for directions. Their helmets are the uniquely shaped Dutch-pattern Model 1928 with the stamped badge bearing the Romanian coat of arms on the front. This was manufactured under licence. The man on the left is wearing the standard Romanian Army khaki tunic, while the one on the right has the unlined greatcoat. Their standard infantry weapon was the Mauser Model 1924 Zbroiovka Brno service rifle. 202 • L I F E

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General Antonescu bestows German soldiers with awards for bravery. A PK-reporter on the left records the moment. Romanian troops were involved in fighting in Ukraine, the Crimea and the Caucasus. By the autumn of 1941 they had reached the Black Sea and the Crimea, having taken part in the two-month siege of Odessa. By that stage the Romanians had suffered 130,000 casualties and the survivors struggled through the bitter winter of 1941/42. During the summer of 1942 they were involved in the attack on Sevastopol. That winter the collapse of the ill-equipped Romanian 3rd and 4th armies on the Don ensured Hitler’s defeat at Stalingrad.

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Italian soldiers in Ukraine in their distinctive dark-grey/green uniforms. The man on the right is probably an officer as they traditionally had lighter uniforms. The standard tunic had four patchpockets and normally had a cloth belt fastened with two buttons. Italian troops were inadequately dressed for the bitter winter campaigns fought in Albania, Greece and Russia. The Italian Army greatcoat was cheaply made and was not double breasted. In July 1941 Mussolini provided Hitler with an expeditionary force for the Eastern Front numbering 62,000 men. By the following summer this had expanded to over a quarter of a million men.

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In return for Hitler’s help during the Spanish Civil War, General Franco agreed to send a Spanish volunteer division of 18,000 men to fight against the Soviet Union. On 25 July 1942 the Spanish ‘Blue’ (Azul) Division became the 250th Infantry Division. The officer second from the left is General Agustín Muñoz Grandes, commander of the Blue Division from 1941 to 1942. Although he is wearing a German tunic he has retained his Spanish Army khaki-green breeches and brown leather boots. On his right sleeve and on the right side of his helmet the shield badge is in Spanish national colours. He was awarded the Knight’s Cross in March 1942. The Spaniard on the far left is wearing the Carlist red beret adopted by Spain’s Falangist party. When the division first arrived in Germany at the training camp at Grafenwöhr, German instructors were vexed by their lack of enthusiasm for German uniforms or discipline. After fighting with distinction and suffering 12,776 casualties, the division was withdrawn in October 1943 to be replaced by the smaller Spanish ‘Blue’ Legion.

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Happy-looking Dutch RAD (Reichsarbeitsdienst – Reich Labour Service) ‘volunteers’ on the way to the front. Their arm shields say ‘Nederland’. The RAD started life as a Nazi paramilitary workforce and became an auxiliary organisation supporting the Wehrmacht at the front. These men would have anticipated that they would be transporting ammunition and food as well as repairing roads or building airfields. Eventually most Dutch recruits were assigned to SS divisions such as the 23rd SS Division Nederland and 34th SS Division Landstorm Nederland.

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Members of the 11th SS Freiwilligen (Volunteer) Panzergrenadier Division Nordland displaying a captured painting of fearsome-looking Cossacks. This unit came into being in 1943 and was formed using Danes and 210 • L I F E

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Norwegians; however it had to be filled out with ethnic Germans and Hungarians. Their first commander was SS-Brigadeführer Fritz von Scholz. T R O U B L E S O M E A X I S A L L I E S • 211

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Above: Nordland officers paying their respects to the fallen. They are all wearing the Waffen-SS ‘crusher cap’ – so called because it was malleable, allowing the wearing of headphones over it. The symbol behind them is their divisional insignia. The division first deployed to Croatia in September 1943 and was then sent to the northern sector of the Eastern Front, fighting in the Leningrad area. Opposite: Another young soldier from Nordland posing in the winter of 1943/44 somewhere in the Leningrad region. A military field kitchen is parked at the end of the alley. Between April and August 1944 the Nordland division fought as part of Steiner’s 3rd Germanische (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps around Narva on the Baltic coast before falling back into Kurland and then being evacuated to Danzig.

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Huge numbers of Russians served with the Wehrmacht, including these smart Kuban Cossacks. They are in traditional national dress with fur cap (Kubanska – the smaller Kuban style) and coat (cherkeska) with the characteristic sewn-on cartridge pouches (gaziri) on the chest. The weapon on their waists is the long Cossack dagger (kinzhal). The Caucasian sabre (shashka) was also carried, though rarely drawn. They have German insignia on both the cap and coat. Caucasian, Don, Kuban, Siberian and Terek Cossacks all provided security auxiliaries for the Germans. An entire Cossack cavalry corps was formed in 1943 under German General Helmuth von Pannwitz aided by General Peter Krasnov and hard-drinking Kuban exile Andrei Shkuro. However, this force did not get to fight the Red Army and instead was sent on anti-partisan duties in Yugoslavia. At the end of the war the British handed all of them, including Pannwitz, over to Stalin.

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Military cemeteries are always very sobering but this one is particularly poignant. It belonged to General Italo Gariboldi’s Italian 8th Army in Russia. The sea of helmets are the Model 1933 pattern, which was the standard combat helmet of the Italian Army in the Second World War. During the Battle of Stalingrad, August 1942–February 1943, the Italians lost 20,000 dead and 64,000 captured. The Red Army attacked Gariboldi on 16 December 1942 and within days 15,000 of his men had surrendered and the 8th Army’s three corps quickly collapsed under the pressure.

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The graves of Natall Salvatore and Capitano Rossi Renato. They had no business being in Russia other than to repay a debt for Hitler’s assistance in Greece and Libya. The woefully equipped Italian forces sent to the Eastern Front completely lacked anti-tank guns and tanks. From the weathering on the crosses and helmets 218 • L I F E

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they have been there for some time. By the summer of 1943 all the survivors had been withdrawn home, just in time for Mussolini to be ousted from power and Italy divided in two.

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18 Prisoners of War

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Red Army at the hands of Operation Barbarossa was of catastrophic proportions. The Russians lost 1.5 million dead and 2.5 million captured, along with 17,000 tanks and 7,500 aircraft. It was hard to imagine that the Red Army would be able to carry on fighting the following year, but it did – thanks to the Soviet Union’s massive manpower reserves. Even then, as a result of Stalin’s insistence on mounting large-scale counterattacks, the still-recovering Red Army lost yet more troops. HE DEFEAT OF THE

A common sight in the summer of 1941. Russian prisoners march off to an uncertain fate. They are wearing the standard Red Army summer field uniform, made up of the rubaha, breeches and full-length boots. Some have retained their pilotka. These men seem to be largely Slavs, whereas the Germans also encountered large numbers of Central Asian recruits, many of whom could not speak Russian. 220 • L I F E

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Above inset: Dirty and unshaven Russian prisoners of war: most of them are wearing the standardissue double-breasted greatcoat, which was made from stiff, coarse, greyish-brown cloth. It fastened at the front on the right side using hooks and eyelets and could be used as a blanket. This greatcoat was not particularly warm, though. It is a misconception that all Russians were adequately equipped to face the winter and that only the Germans and their Axis allies froze. What the Russians did have was the telogreika, which the Germans did not. This was a quilted khaki jacket and matching trousers padded with cotton-wool, sewn in wide vertical strips. In contrast to the Russian greatcoat, this was very warm – especially when worn with valenki or felt boots. They were also issued with the polaschubuk, sheepskin coat, and the ushanka hat.

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Another column of Russian prisoners, seemingly unescorted. All of their personal equipment has been removed, including their water bottles. Few of them have any headgear to protect them from the baking sun. Members of a German field kitchen unit watch on with interest – there would have been no question of sharing their rations with the prisoners. The civilian population was not permitted to supply them with food either.

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These Russian casualties, including a young girl, in Ukraine in 1941 are at least getting a ride to a field dressing station or a holding pen. In early August 1941 103,000 Russian soldiers were captured at Uman, and at the end of September 1941 a further 665,000 were taken at Kiev. They faced starvation, disease such as typhus and the firing squad.

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The Red Army was far from always uniform in its appearance, as this mish-mash of clothing and different colours shows. The man striding purposefully along the road is a political commissar (kommissar or politruk). His furazhka peak cap, which was worn by commissars, officers and NCOs, would have marked him out as a person of interest to his captors. His greatcoat is also notably lighter in colour than the others. German intelligence officers would have pounced on him and he might be intending to cooperate.

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Above: The vast numbers of Russian prisoners taken by the Wehrmacht caused major logistical headaches. Transporting them and feeding them was a challenge. This temporary holding pen offers no shelter and it is doubtful they had any food or water for some considerable time. In Ukraine during the autumn of 1941 up to 2,500 prisoners died each day in the camps. One way out was to become an auxiliary volunteer or Hilfswillige. Known as ‘Hiwis’, these men served as cooks, drivers, medical orderlies and general dogsbodies in support of the Wehrmacht. Initially they wore their old uniforms but these were slowly replaced by basic German uniforms. A second category, known as Eastern Troops or Osttruppen, consisted of volunteers who were integrated into German units at battalion strength. They were typically employed for static security duties. Opposite: This Russian officer has deliberately avoided the gaze of his captor’s camera. If by some miracle he and his men escaped, far from being hailed heroes they were likely to face a firing squad, assigned to a penal battalion or sent to the Gulag. Commissars were instructed to treat men who had surrendered as little more than traitors to the Motherland. As the war progressed, Russian security units prowled the battlefield, intent on shooting deserters.

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19 The Partisan War

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that he would face widespread resistance behind the lines, so made no large-scale provision for protecting his extended and vulnerable lines of communication in the occupied territories. Once the partisan war began to escalate he placed Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in charge of maintaining order. The SS ruthlessly carried out major policing operations that resulted in the most appalling war crimes. ITLER DID NOT ANTICIPATE

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Above: German officers examine a scythe belonging to local Ukrainian farmers. They are all fighting-age males, which means that when not farming they might be partisans – otherwise they are potential recruits for the ad hoc German auxiliary security forces. In Ukraine, which was the Soviet Union’s breadbasket, many welcomed the German invaders. Nonetheless, Hitler’s refusal to harness the full potential of anti-Soviet feeling was to have a seriously detrimental effect on his war effort in the east. Instead he created a German civil administration known as the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and handed the Transnistria region and Odessa over to the Romanians. Byelorussia came under the Reichskommissariat Ostland, which incorporated the Baltic states. Vast swathes of territory came under military rule run by the German Army Groups.

Opposite: East meets West. These Jewish Russian peasants had little to rejoice about under German occupation. They would soon become victims of Himmler’s murderous Einsatzgruppen (Action Squads) as well as the SS-Totenkopfverbände (Death’s Head Units) who ran the concentration camps in Poland and Russia. In the Minsk ghetto alone 90,000 Jews would perish. When Himmler visited Minsk to witness the mass murder, his accompanying photographers were ordered not to take any photographs of the executions. Instead he was photographed benevolently confronting a Russian boy in what was clearly a staged scene. In Byelorussia the Germans were assisted by the quislings Ivan Ermachenko and Radaslau Astrouski. The Einsatzgruppen also became involved in the brutal war against the partisans. Neither side showed any mercy. T H E P A R T I S A N W A R • 231

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Above: All aboard. German military personnel riding cattle trucks through Magdeburg’s main train station in 1943. The railways through Germany and Poland provided a vital supply line to the Eastern Front, bringing in reinforcements and supplies, and evacuating casualties. However, the junction in Warsaw proved to be a troublesome choke point. In the winter of 1941/42 the actions of Polish partisans helped hold up vital cold-weather clothing intended for German troops in Russia. As the war progressed, Germany’s stations and goods yards and those in the occupied territories were regularly targeted by Allied bombers.

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Below: A German troop train proudly displaying the swastika rumbles over a Russian bridge in 1942. The further east the trains went the more they had to be guarded and armoured to protect them from attack. Large numbers of security divisions had to be deployed to protect the Germans’ vulnerable lines of communication.

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Above: A photographer could not resist this dramatic shot, which shows that the bridge was dropped just as a training was passing over it. The passenger coaches suggest that this was a troop train. During the summer of 1943 and Hitler’s build-up for his offensive at Kursk, Russian partisans did all they could to hamper his preparations. In particular, the lines between Bryansk and Orel and Kharkov and Belgorod were subjected to a series of attacks. Fortunately for the Germans, these had little impact. After the Battle of Kursk partisan activity climaxed with a two-month campaign dubbed the ‘Battle of the Rails’.

Opposite: An all too common sight on the Eastern Front. The death of German soldiers killed behind the lines always resulted in swift and bloody reprisals against the local population. 234 • L I F E

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Opposite: This was the fate of partisans who opposed the German occupation and those who helped them. Women were not spared either. Such hangings became commonplace in Russia’s towns and cities and only served to fuel the population’s hatred of the Germans. In Kharkov, after the Germans first occupied the city in late 1941, a series of bombs killed members of the 68th Infantry Division, including General Georg Braun and his staff. In retaliation the Germans rounded up 200 people, many of them Jews, and hanged them from the city’s public buildings. The bodies were left as a brutal and graphic warning. Shortly afterwards Einsatzgruppe C butchered 20,000 Jews just outside Kharkov.

Below: A German Army chaplain says a few words before a comrade is lowered into the ground. When the security situation behind German lines became a major problem, Hitler’s solution was to form ill-equipped security divisions using middle-aged and reluctant reservists. These divisions were understrength and had limited capabilities. When they proved inadequate they had to be bolstered by reserve divisions and fieldtraining divisions. Non-Russian eastern troops were also employed.

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Settlements found to be supporting the partisans were often burnt to the ground. Most Russian houses had either wooden shingle or thatched roofs, which were easily reduced to ash. By the summer of 1942 the SS were in charge of pacifying the occupied areas, the Army was only responsible for security in the operational areas. This made little difference to the partisans waging their life and death struggle.

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Opposite: A signal for all to see. German troops regularly confiscated the civilian population’s food and burnt what they could not carry. This policy of deliberate depopulation was designed to deny the partisans support and rendered huge areas uninhabited. Below: Cossack militiamen in German service in Ukraine in 1943. They are in a mixture of traditional Cossack uniform and civilian clothing. Their tall fleece caps dating from Tsarist times are called papasha. Don Cossacks wore black ones with a red cloth top patch, while Siberian Cossacks wore white with a yellow top. The man on the right looks resplendent in his cherkeska coat, kinzhal dagger and shashka sabre. In August 1941 an entire Cossack regiment under Major Ivan Kononov defected to the Germans, which was eventually designated the 5th Don Cossack Regiment. Before the end of the year German security divisions were permitted to raise Cossack squadrons or Sotnias. These were roughly 100 strong and commanded by a Cossack lieutenant known as a Sotnik. Such units, along with other locally raised non-Russian troops, were employed in antipartisan duties in the rear areas of the German Army Groups. This meant that Russian citizens found themselves waging what was effectively a civil war.

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Quite why this man is dressed this way is unclear. He is wearing a German Army dog tag as well as military-issue breeches and carrying a Mauser rifle. Yet he has Russian-style foot wraps.

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This Russian peasant does not look too happy having his photograph taken in 1943. He appears to have lost part of his fingers on his left hand, which is also badly bruised. His civilian fur-collared kaftan coat has seen better days. T H E P A R T I S A N W A R • 243

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20 The Medics

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the war the Germans’ facilities for handling casualties were far superior to the Red Army’s. The wounded were immediately moved to field dressing stations, then field hospitals and then city hospitals. Those who needed convalescence were sent home by plane, train or boat. Germany operated a small fleet of hospital ships in the Baltic Sea, the most famous of which was the ill-fated Wilhelm Gustloff. Such treatment was not extended to captured Russian casualties, the majority of whom were simply left to die. T THE START OF

At some point these civilian cars have been pressed into service with this German Army medical unit. Coming up the road behind them is a Kfz 31 Mercedes-Benz ambulance. This consisted of a militarised commercial truck chassis with the standard ambulance bodywork dating from the late 1930s. Similar bodies were also fitted to the Opel Blitz 1.5-ton chassis. 244 • L I F E

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Above: Casualties being unloaded from a Phänomen Granit 25H ambulance onto a Ju 52 transport plane ready for medical evacuation. The sense of relief from the wounded as the Luftwaffe ground crew passed them up into the cargo hold must have been palpable. This type of ambulance, like the Mercedes-built version, was also based on a commercial truck chassis. It was a common Wehrmacht ambulance with accommodation for four stretchers or eight sitting passengers. The Auto Union Horch 108, Mercedes-Benz L1500E, Phänomen Granit 1500A and the Steyr 640 were all also used in this role. Below: German medical units made use of the motorcycle with side car too. Over 35,000 were built by BMW and Zündap and so were a common sight on the Eastern Front, employed in a variety of tasks. This vehicle belonging to the 167th Infantry Division is in dark panzer grey with prominent red cross symbols on the nose of the side car. Under the Geneva Convention vehicles bearing this marking were not to be fired upon.

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Above: It is not clear what has been burnt next to this hospital train from Dusseldorf. However, whatever it was proved to be a source of some amusement for these scantily clad soldiers, who are in a variety of different-coloured shorts. Opposite above: A field ambulance unit enjoys having a group photograph taken. The many horrors they were to witness would soon make it hard to raise such cheerful smiles. As the war continued, nurses such as these risked capture once the Red Army was swiftly rolling through Byelorussia and Ukraine. Behind them their ambulance has been loaded onto a flatbed rail truck. Opposite below: The Luftwaffe’s Ju 52 fleet sported a similar camouflage scheme during the Demyansk and Stalingrad airlifts. This particular aircraft belonged to Adolf Hitler. Note the nurse on the far right. During the winter of 1941/42, in the face of three Russian fighter regiments, Ju 52s successfully evacuated 22,000 casualties from the Demyansk pocket. However, this was at a cost of 265 aircraft. The Luftwaffe lost 490 transport aircraft during the siege of Stalingrad, of which 266 were Ju 52s. Hitler flew over Nuremburg in a Lufthansa Ju 52 Delta 2600 on Party Day in 1934, a scene later depicted in Leni Riefenstahl’s classic Triumph of the Will. T H E M E D I C S • 247

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Above: The red cross was not always respected by either side. Medics examine an ambulance that was riddled with bullet holes during an air attack in Ukraine in 1942. They must have been amazed that the vehicle withstood such punishment and survived. Opposite above and below: Not all German ambulances were motorised. The infantry divisions often had to rely on horse-drawn ambulances to move casualties and medical supplies. These, plus the Panjewagen and horse-drawn artillery, required the services of military vets. They did their best to care for the animals, but as winter set in it was often difficult to stop the men from eating them.

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German surgeons take a brief break from their duties at a hospital in Germany. The Wehrmacht became increasingly desperate for replacements once the Allies started to turn the tide of the war. By 1944–45 the Replacement Army under the control of Himmler began to comb hospitals and press-ganged men still recovering from their wounds back into service. 250 • L I F E

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21 Leisure Time on the Ostfront

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Axis allies were not in a state of constant combat. Rest and recreation periods provided amateur cameramen a prime opportunity to catch their comrades going about their everyday chores. Despite their circumstances, most soldiers tried to engender some sense of normality and routine. For officers, recreational pursuits included horse-riding, hunting, fishing and shooting. The rank and file got to enjoy sports and field cinemas as well as musical concerts. Foremost in most soldiers’ minds, getting away from the front meant a decent meal and, with any luck, alcohol. ERMAN TROOPS AND THEIR

Trust is letting a comrade loose on your face with a cut-throat razor. This catering unit have a field kitchen and are camped out in Zeltbahn tents. The troops referred to the former, on the left, as a Gulaschkanone or ‘goulash cannon’ due to the stove’s very prominent chimney, which when stowed horizontally made it look like a primitive artillery piece. These were traditionally horse-drawn using a limber, but could be towed or transported in the back of a truck. Until 1944 in the panzer divisions each company had its own ‘battle-train’, which included a field kitchen in a 6x6 truck; subsequently these were incorporated into the battalion-level supply companies. Such vehicles were marked with a white ‘GI’ – Gefechtstross I or forward battle-train. 252 • L I F E

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Personal hygiene is always a must for a soldier. Stripped to the waist, his skin pale in the brilliant sunshine, this German infantryman takes time to shave. His NCO would have been of the view that he also needed to see the regimental barber as soon as possible. LEISURE TIME

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A sunny day was always a good time to conduct a kit inspection. The task was clearly not enhanced by some inedible-looking field rations, which in this case seems to be dry bread or a cracker.

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Above: Other diversions included music. At the front musicians normally acted as corpsmen or medics. This band has a full selection of brass instruments; there are also a few reed instruments on the left. Keeping everything clean and safe while at the front must have been difficult. Opposite above: Quiet moments behind the lines also meant the opportunity to hand out gallantry awards. Smart-looking soldiers watch as a member of the divisional reconnaissance unit (identifiable by the yellow Waffenfarbe) gets the Iron Cross. Opposite below: Down time for German soldiers also included friendly football matches. This game is so far behind the front that there is little fear of Russian air attack. The spectators are gathered in front of a Kübelwagen. LEISURE TIME

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Above: A German field bakery in action. There are three Sd Anh 105 Feldofen or field ovens in a row. The bakers would be producing Graubrot, a grey rye bread, or Kommissbrot, a dark bread made from rye and wheat flours, which were a military staple. There were four ration scales or Verpflegungssatz for the German armed forces, with Ration I for combat forces and II for occupation forces. Both included 700g (1.5lb) of rye bread. The camouflage made from foliage indicates there was some risk of detection by the enemy and that the bakery was within enemy artillery range.

Opposite above: An orderly carrying lunch to his officer’s quarters in the city of Minsk in 1941. Although they are at war he has tried to not let standards slip. He has found a tray and porcelain crockery rather than resorting to aluminium field utensils. The building is a requisitioned White Russian’s house or a school. Minsk became an administrative hub for the German occupation of Byelorussia. It therefore was home to catering, pay, postal, police and signals units. Quisling Astrouski was president of the German-backed Byelorussian Central Rada (parliament) in Minsk. The city was also headquarters to the collaborationist Byelorussian Home Guard and Byelorussian Polizei. Opposite below: More rudimentary cooking practices were resorted to when the men were really hungry. Cooking a chicken over a burning bundle of reeds was probably not the best way to roast it – especially when holding it over the flames by hand. The soldier in the middle has a sharpened stick which would make a good spit. The photographer may have thought that this was a good comedy moment. The scattered feathers show the bird was prepared in some hurry. 258 • L I F E

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Leave presented the opportunity to marry a sweetheart. This panzer officer, with pink Waffenfarben on his crusher hat and sporting the silver Panzer Assault Badge on his breast, looks delighted with his bride. The pair would face a painful separation when he had to return to the front and his men. Going absent without leave could result in a firing squad.

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Romanian peasant women buying bread at a market in 1942; for them the war on the Eastern Front seemed so far away, but within a year and a half it was knocking on their door. Keeping the Romanian Army adequately resupplied proved to be a major problem for Antonescu. His forces were regularly mauled by the Red Army and had to be withdrawn home to be refitted. In the end the Romanians defected to the Allies, whereas the Hungarians fought to the last in the streets of Budapest alongside the Germans.

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Chow time. Always a welcome event especially during the winter. Smiling German soldiers, mess tins at the ready, queue for a hot meal from a ‘goulash cannon’. Although it was undoubtedly soup, the men still seem delighted to be getting fed. It is very noticeable that they are all still in their summer uniforms, meaning this is the winter of 1941/42.

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These men have the task of serving coffee or soup to the members of their Luftwaffe ground unit. At least eleven mess tins are visible. The urn has been transported from the field kitchen on what looks to be a homemade sledge. Luftwaffe and Army personnel were eventually issued with two-piece reversible winter uniforms. It was not uncommon to see such winter clothing mixed with regular uniform. In this case only two of them are wearing full suits – note the dark lining on their hoods. The Luftwaffe also wore a quilted pattern reversible winter uniform, which was issued to field units. Another cold-weather variant was the 264 • L I F E

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Schneeanzüge worn by both the Luftwaffe and Army. This consisted of a shapeless white jacket with matching trousers. It was an early makeshift solution to compensate for the lack of winter camouflage and was not very warm. None of them are wearing felt and leather over-boots, which were produced as the war progressed to help prevent feet from freezing. Three of them are also carrying the standard-issue metal gasmask container, though the man serving has left his along with his rifle in the snow.

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22 Enduring Russia’s Winter

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the war on the Eastern Front. The fighting encompassed three bitter winters during which both sides had to endure the most awful conditions. For the Germans and their allies, the first was the worst because they were so illprepared for the plummeting temperatures. German soldiers were left to freeze to death in their foxholes. Russian officers outside Moscow witnessed captured Germans in their summer uniforms and lightweight greatcoats freezing on the roadside. By the time of the Red Army’s counteroffensive at Moscow in December 1941 the German Army had over 100,000 cases of frostbite. It was a terrible waste of manpower that could have been prevented. Armaments Minister Albert Speer later recalled: ‘The first inkling that something was wrong was when Goebbels made a big “action” in the whole of Germany to collect furs and winter clothes for the German troops.’ HE FOLLOWING IMAGES EPITOMISE

The gunner of a Panzer III enjoys the warming sunshine as it bathes the side of his tank. The commander’s greatcoat would have done little to keep out the bitter cold. Army Memorandum No. 1128 of 18 November 1941 introduced a whitewash paint to help camouflage vehicles in snowy conditions in Russia. Like the other colours later introduced, this came as a paste, but on the whole the crews could not be bothered to dilute it properly as they had better things to do – such as keeping warm. As a result, the finish was quite often crude with the paint simply thrown onto the vehicle and spread with brooms. This patchy affect was often better than complete white as it broke up the outline of the vehicle. The crew of this panzer have hastily splattered their tank in whitewash, giving it a messy and completely haphazard finish. The two tanks in front are Panzer IIs and then another Panzer III. 266 • L I F E

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Frozen Panzergrenadiers hitch a lift with their supporting Panzer IIIs. The light dusting of snow would get much deeper as winter developed. The chilly mist has greatly reduced visibility as nothing can be seen beyond the second tank. Hitler attacked the Soviet Union with seventeen panzer divisions, of which eleven were equipped with the Panzer III, which amounted to almost 1,000 tanks. Many of these were lost on the road to Moscow.

It would have been a challenge to free this snowbound Panzer III. Its road wheels are clogged with snow and ice, as is the turret. The commander’s cupola hatches are open, suggesting the tank has been abandoned. If the crew were inside overnight they would have faced plummeting temperatures. On the Eastern Front the panzers were fitted with wider winter track shoes (known as Ost tracks and in a number of different sizes) which offered better traction. The burning building would no longer offer shelter to either side. E N D U R I N G R U S S I A ’ S W I N T E R • 267

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Nowhere to hide. This photo was taken from a semi-track signals vehicle while on the move. The object of interest is a knocked-out KV-1 heavy tank. It looks to have been hit side-on as the turret is rotated.

An abandoned monster from the battles of the summer of 1941 still partially blocks the road in Kharkov. At the outbreak of war, the Red Army had three battalions of the enormous T-35 heavy tank. Some of them were assigned to the 67th and 68th Tank Regiments but, weighting 50 tons, most of them broke down and were quickly abandoned. This one has had its main turret blown clean off. This was either the result of a direct hit or its ammunition cooking off. The photo was taken by a member of the 75th Artillery Regiment, part of the 3rd Panzer Division.

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Above: This staff car has seen a lot of use as its panzer grey is barely visible beneath all the dried-on mud. The village ahead would have made a welcome billet for German troops. There looks to be a number of vehicles dotted along the horizon. Opposite: Snug in his sheepskin coat, an Army officer poses in front of his Sd Kfz 1 Mercedes-Benz 170VK light car. The low ground clearance on this vehicle made it very unsuitable for cross-country use. Whoever applied the whitewash had little enthusiasm for the job, having got it all over the windows. Although it was really a medium car in Wehrmacht classification terms due to the engine size, this was used to supplement the Kübelwagen in the Kfz 2, 2/40 and 3 roles. 270 • L I F E

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Above: Two German soldiers try to retrieve their Russian-built ZIS truck carrying a Panjewagen. The vehicle has been given a cursory coat of whitewash, while the one further up the road has not. Some of the most common Red Army trucks were the ZIS-5 and GAZ-AA, which meant early in the war it was relatively easy for the Germans to source spares. The piled snow indicates the truck was stuck in a snowdrift and had to be dug out. Opposite above: Mobile firepower. The Marder II self-propelled anti-tank gun, which used the Panzer II chassis, was issued to Panzerjäger detachments from July 1942. A new superstructure was added to house the fighting compartment and a 75mm PaK40 anti-tank gun. Some 576 of these were built from June 1942 to June 1943, after which Panzer II production was given over to the Wespe 105mm light howitzer self-propelled gun. An additional seventy-five Marders were converted from existing Panzer IIs between July 1943 and March 1944. This example has had whitewash poured over or thrown at it. Either way, the crew have made a terrible mess. A tarpaulin has been spread over the top of the fighting compartment to keep the snow out. Opposite below: A macabre scene that would catch any photographer’s eye. Bizarrely, these frozen horses have been used as impromptu telegraph poles by German signallers. It is surprising that a field kitchen unit has not taken them for their goulash cannon. The ice-brick wall would have intended as a windbreak in a futile effort to keep the snow off the road. 272 • L I F E

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When the roads became impassable it was vital that the railways were kept open. This meant keeping the lines clear and guarding the goods yards. The brown uniform of the guard by the locomotive suggests he is Hungarian or Romanian. Being on patrol in such weather would have been an unenviable task.

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Alsatian dogs were employed to deter deserters, looters and partisans from interfering with the trains. The animals have muzzles, indicating they have been trained to bite. The handlers lack the distinctive metal gorget worn by German military police, so are not members of the Bahnhofswache or railway police or Zughwache, troops assigned to police military trains. Therefore, they are likely to be from a local security or infantry division. Opposite inset: Another way to patrol the trains was to use skis. Again these men are unlikely to be Feldgendarmerie: ski troops tended to belong to the German mountain divisions. The latter were deployed in Ukraine, the Crimea and the Caucasus.

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The photographer of this winter scene has managed to catch his silhouette in the sunshine. At first glance these façades look like tiny shops, but are actually ornate advertising hoardings. The yellow road sign proclaims 153km (95 miles) to Orel, which was liberated by the Red Army on 5 August 1943.

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Two Russian civilians are snapped here passing an Opel Blitz Kfz 305 signals truck and a light staff car. The signallers have whitewashed the truck body, but not the cab, which is dusted in snow.

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Above: Having jacked their Kfz 1 off the ground, these men are in the process of changing a wheel. The man on the right is in a waterproof coat, hat and gloves, while the mechanic is just in overalls. The vehicle and the neighbouring trucks have all been given a cursory coat of whitewash over their panzer grey. The truck on the left has straw packed over the bonnet to try and prevent the engine from freezing. Opposite inset: To prevent misfires a private from a heavy weapons section rods out his mortar.

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Above: The sun might be out but the swirling snow shows there is a bitter wind. Carrying an MG34 machine gun over his shoulder, this man trudges up a path to relieve comrades in a forward position in northern Russia in 1942. Opposite: This German mountain officer in his winter clothing looks well equipped and warm. An MP40 submachine gun is slung over his back. The 1st and 4th Mountain Divisions were involved in the invasion of the Caucasus in 1942, tasked with capturing the western passes. German mountaineers from both divisions climbed to the top of Mount Elbrus, the highest of the mountains, and hoisted the Nazi flag. The Romanian 2nd and 3rd Mountain Divisions also fought alongside the Germans in this campaign. 284 • L I F E

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This man’s expression says it all. He was an army doctor serving with the 24th Infantry Division in the Leningrad area in December 1942. Through the long winter months, he has grown a moustache and partial beard, which cut down on shaving. His head is protected against the elements by a ushanka-style flap hat. His Model 1940 woollen field greatcoat would not have kept out the freezing temperatures. The following year the war turned decisively against Hitler. After three and a half years of bitter fighting on the Eastern Front, in the winter of 1944/45 the Red Army took Budapest and Warsaw and that spring reached Berlin, heralding the final defeat of Nazi Germany.

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Sources and Further Reading Abbott, Peter & Pinak, Eugene. Ukrainian Armies 1914–55. Oxford: Osprey, 2004. Abbott, Peter & Thomas, Nigel. Germany’s Eastern Front Allies 1941–45. London: Osprey, 1982. Bean, Tim & Fowler, Will. Russian Tanks of World War II: Stalin’s Armoured Might. Hersham: Ian Allan, 2002. Binns, Stewart & Wood, Adrian. The Second World War in Colour. London: Pavilion Books, 1999. Brookes, Andrew. Air War over Russia. Hersham: Ian Allan, 2003. Chamberlain, Peter & Doyle, Hilary. Encyclopaedia of German Tanks of World War Two: The Complete Illustrated Directory of German Battle Tanks, Armoured Cars, SelfPropelled Guns and Semi-Tracked Vehicles, 1939–1945. Wigston: Silverdale Books, 2004. Chant, Chris. Aircraft of World War II: 300 of the World’s Greatest Aircraft 1939–1945. London: Amber Books, 2016. Church, John. Military Vehicles of World War II. Poole: Blandford Press, 1982. Cooper, Matthew. The Phantom War: The German Struggle against Soviet Partisans 1941– 1944. London: Macdonald and Jane’s, 1979. Cormack, A.J.R. (ed.). Famous Rifles and Machine Guns. Windsor: Profile Publications, 1977. Einsiedel, Heinrich Graf von. The Onslaught: The German Drive to Stalingrad. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1984. Ellis, Chris. Military Transport of World War II. London: Blandford Press, 1975. Forty, George & Livesey, Jack. The Complete Guide to Tanks and Armoured Fighting Vehicles. London: Hermes House, 2006. Groushko, M.A. Cossack: Warrior Riders of the Steppes. London: Cassell, 1992. Guardia, Mike. Air War on the Eastern Front. Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2020. Haupt, Werner. Army Group Center: The Wehrmacht in Russia 1941–1945. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1997. Hogg, Ian. Twentieth-Century Artillery. Hoo: Grange Books, 2005. Jackson, Robert. Aircraft of World War II: Development, Weaponry, Specifications. Enderby: Silverdale Books, 2005. Jukes, Geoffrey. The Eastern Front 1941–1945. Oxford: Osprey, 2002. Jurado, Carlos Caballero. Foreign Volunteers of the Wehrmacht 1941–45. London: Osprey, 1983. Kershaw, Robert. War without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941–42. Hersham: Ian Allan, 2008. SOURCES

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Kirchubel, Robert. Operation Barbarossa 1941 (3): Army Group Center. Oxford: Osprey, 2007. Lucas, James. War on the Eastern Front 1941–1945: The German Soldier in Russia. London: Macdonald and Jane’s, 1979. Mackintosh, Malcolm. Juggernaut: A History of the Soviet Armed Forces. London: Secker & Warburg, 1967. Merridale, Catherine. Ivan’s War: The Red Army 1939–1945. London: Faber and Faber, 2005. Mollo, Andrew. The Armed Forces of World War II: Uniforms, Insignia and Organization. London: Black Cat, 1987. Mollo, Andrew & Smith, Digby. World Army Uniforms since 1939. Dorset: Blandford Press, 1986. Mondey, David. The Hamlyn Guide to Axis Aircraft of World War II. London: Bounty Books, 2009. Quarrie, Bruce. Weapons of the Waffen-SS: From Small Arms to Tanks. Cambridge: Patrick Stephens, 1988. Regenberg, Werner. Captured Tanks in German Service: Small Tanks and Armored Tractors. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1998. Ritgen, Colonel Helmut. The 6th Panzer Division 1937–45. Oxford: Osprey, 1982. Rutherford, Ward. Hitler’s Propaganda Machine. London: Bison Books, 1978. Sajer, Guy. The Forgotten Soldier: War on the Russian Front – A True Story. London: Cassell, 1999. Scurr, John. Germany’s Spanish Volunteers 1941–45: The Blue Division in Russia. London: Osprey, 1980. Slepyan, Kenneth. Stalin’s Guerrillas: Soviet Partisan in World War II. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006. Suermondt, Jan. Illustrated Guide to Combat Weapons. Hoo: Grange Books, 2004. Thomas, Nigel & Abbott, Peter. Partisan Warfare 1941–45. London: Osprey, 1983. Vanderveen, Bart. Historic Military Vehicles Directory. London: After the Battle, 1989. Vanderveen, Bart. The Observer’s Fighting Vehicles Directory: World War II. London: Frederick Warne, 1969. White, B.T. German Tanks and Armoured Vehicles 1914–1945. Shepperton: Ian Allan, 1968. White, B.T. Tanks and Other AFVs of the Blitzkrieg Era 1939–41. London: Blandford Press, 1972. Williamson, Gordon. German Military Police Units 1939–45. Oxford: Osprey, 1989. Winchester, Charles. Ostfront: Hitler’s War on Russia 1941–45. Oxford: Osprey, 1998. Windrow, Martin. The Panzer Divisions (revised edition). London: Osprey, 1985.

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ANTHONY TUCKER-JONES, a former intelligence officer, is an author and commentator who specialises in military history, with over 50 books to his name. His work has also been published in an array of magazines and online. He regularly appears on television and radio programmes commenting on current and historical military matters. His books include Kursk 1943, Slaughter on the Eastern Front, Stalin’s Armour and Stalin’s Revenge.

This stunning collection of more than 250 original colour photographs takes the reader on a visual journey through the landscape of war along the Eastern Front. Accompanied by text by renowned author and commentator Anthony Tucker-Jones, these images offer a rare and often surprising insight into the realities of

This incredible visual record of life and death along the Eastern Front features images from Ian Spring’s PIXPAST Archive, a collection of more than 32,000 original colour photographs taken between 1936 and 1946.

the Second World War and the people caught up in it. Collated into three parts and organised thematically, the book begins with images of the ground war, including Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union and the tanks, vehicles, weaponry and infantry on both sides. Moving into the war in the skies, the images depict aircraft in flight and on the ground, the bombers, fighters, Luftwaffe personnel and the destruction wrought from battle. And finally, the images take us behind the lines to the prisoners of war, partisans and medics, the daily lives and leisure activities of soldiers and civilians along the front and the impact of the harsh Russian winter.

Developing a fascination with historical imagery from a young age, Dublin-born IAN SPRING began collecting colour photo slides of the war from all over the world. Determined to preserve these moments from the past for future generations, he created the PIXPAST Archive. Thought to be the world’s largest collection of Second World War colour photography, the archive has supported historical research and contributed to more than 50 publications.

This is the Second World War as it has never been seen before.

Greenhill Books c/o Pen & Sword Books Limited 47 Church Street Barnsley, S. Yorkshire S70 2AS, England [email protected] www.greenhillbooks.com Printed in India ISBN 978-1-78438-723-5

9 781784 387235 Cover design: Jem Butcher Design

trim size 246x171mm 21.5mm spine - Turn Round 5mm - Flaps 100mm - 5mm Bleed all round

www.greenhillbooks.com

£25 $40 ISBN: 978-1-78438-723-5