Bundesarchive Photos 1933 - 1945..+ all fields of WWII

[Sniper1946]

Temporary bridges: Where bridges were missing, were built with our own technology transitions via the Russian rivers.

Crossing: Entire army units crossed the floating bridge to the other side.

Corpses along the way: The soldiers got used to the sight of the dead.

A place in ruins: At the slightest resistance was anything obstructing shot or bombed out of their way.

Cemetery: fallen Wehrmacht soldiers are buried here, taken in 1942 somewhere in Russia.

Cadaver: In war, were also killed hundreds of thousands of horses - in the dead animals are often fed starving civilians.

Collapsed: A wooden bridge was under the weight of a tank collapsed.

Spoils of War: One of destroyed tanks on the roadside.

Destroyed wooden hut: Countless residents lost their homes after their houses were razed to the Erdboben.

[Sniper1946]

Stuck: On the Road to Stalingrad, the vehicles are the force versackt in the mud.

War victims: The corpses that lined the way traumatized, many soldiers.

First snow: The harbinger of the bitter cold winter of 1942 in Russia. Later, the soldiers called him "General Winter".

Before the Camera: 1500 km to fight the legendary sixth Army by Russia's brutal, bloody in 1943 until it went under Stalingrad. The father of Klaus Taubert was until the winter of 1942 while with his camera and documented what was happening around him - here was a comrade Willi Taubert photograph itself.

Frozen over: At first it seemed as if one could come to terms with the cold.

Bitter Cold: The longer was the soldiers besieged Stalingrad, the icy weather. Rapid progress was often only possible with a sled.

Sunk: Up to my neck are bagged these horses in the snow and have to be shoveled.

[Sniper1946]

Lunch in the field: a requisitioned German soldiers eating chicken somewhere in the Soviet Union in summer 1941. Under the code name "Operation Barbarossa", the Wehrmacht had its advance into the Soviet Union on 22 Started in June 1941. While the German conquerors squeezing all regions, trains sent as food in the home and Wehrmacht soldiers swarmed into letters of eating binges, starved millions of Russian prisoners of war and civilians.

Prisoners of War in the Ukraine: Guarded by German tanks wait Soviet prisoners of war in late November 1942 on its removal. The Commissar Order had been suspended at this time, because the shooting of captive political officers had proved counterproductive: instead to cripple the morale of the Soviets, fought doggedly particularly those now. Even so, only half survived Soviet prisoners of war, the German camp. By May 1942, two million soldiers have died - in part because the Germans deliberately malnourished and starving, or they could spend the night in freezing cold outside.

Survival: A Russian civilian cuts out of a dead horse meat. After the invasion of the Wehrmacht to the Soviet Union in June 1941 the three million Wehrmacht soldiers to Hitler's will of agricultural experts should be completely "out of the country" to be fed. The starvation of millions of Russians had planned it. The photo was taken in February 1942, the place is unknown. signature in the Federal

Body transport: Leningrad residents make in winter 1942/1943, during the German encirclement of Leningrad with primitive means dead relatives to the nearest graveyard. Many other victims of the siege were simply lie where they died. The ground was so frozen that he had to be blown up for the excavation of mass graves with dynamite.

Water shortage: the desperate winter of 1942-43 in the Leningrad draw water from a ditch. Shortly after the investment of the city in autumn 1941 the supply had collapsed. Hitler had ordered several times, then Leningrad, and not to take if the city would give the armed forces. He would prefer to let the population starve to feed as they need.

Help on the ice: Soviet supply transports over the frozen Lake Ladoga to January 1943 were the only treatment option for the trapped Leningrad.

Search in the Snow: 1941 women get during the blockade of Leningrad on Nothydranten water on the Nevsky Prospekt from the department store Gostiny Dvor. In the besieged city, the food supplies had become scarce quickly, destroying much of the water lines by the German bombardment. Around one million inhabitants did not survive the two and a half year siege of the city.

[Sniper1946]

Brothers in spirit : Hermann Goering and Herbert Backe, State Secretary in June 1941 on a ride in the area of Goring's headquarters "Jägerhof" at Rastenburg in East Prussia. Backe worked out during a brutal hunger plan that his assessment would hinraffen sure to "tens of millions" Russians, the Soviet Union in 1941, Goering announced martial, "the largest extinction since the Thirty Years 'War' on.

Herbert Backe: The Secretary, Ministry of Food in uniform as SS chief group leader at his desk, taken on 2 June 1942. The agronomist was regarded as the architect of hunger plan for the Soviet Union, known internally as "jaw-plan". The death of millions of civilians and the death of large cities and was planned deliberately. 1944 ascended to the Food Minister, Herbert Backe took on 6 April 1947 in his prison cell in Nuremberg life. signature in the Federal Archives: Picture 183-J02034

Contested : German tanks and infantry in December 1941 fire at a farmhouse in Volokolamsk, some 130 kilometers northwest of Moscow. From the beginning, Hitler had planned to campaign against the Soviet Union as a war of extermination.

Homeless : Russian women cook and wash for a German attack in 1941 at Leningrad between ruins and chimneys.

Stunned: A Ukrainian peasant woman stands in front of her burning house. The photo was taken in September 1941, several weeks after the attack on the Wehrmacht, the Soviet Union.

Mass murder by starvation: Women in July 1941 after looking at the ruins of the Belarusian city of Grodno on the Niemen usable. In no other country ravaged army, police and SS so mercilessly against the civilian population, they murdered more than two million Belarusians. According to the will of the German agricultural experts Eugen von Engelhardt, even should all the inhabitants of the Belarus cities starve and die, half of the total rural population.

War against civilians : A burning village near the Ukrainian city of Berdichev, taken in July 1941. Weeks before the start of "Operation Barbarossa", German agricultural experts drew up a detailed plan, which regions should starve now systematically at the expense of food for the Germans. The German administration in the conquered territories was often burn agriculturally unproductive farms and villages under the pretext of fighting partisans.

[Sniper1946]

About the bug: On the morning of 22 German units in June 1941 set by boats over the border river north of Brest. In the background rises after heavy shelling of the nearby settlements of smoke - "Operation Barbarossa", the invasion of the Soviet Union has begun.

Armored advance: The attack of German troops is rapidly gaining pace. In early July 1941, is convinced the leadership of the Wehrmacht to conquer the Soviet Union until the beginning of winter.

Air Support: A Season German dive bombers in the area south of Kiev, Belaya Tserkov during the push of a tank corps in Ukraine. 4000 bomber, fighter, reconnaissance and transport aircraft supported the German ground troops. Further 980 machines were Finland, Romania and Hungary.

Arson: Where pervades the armed forces, it leaves behind scorched earth. The propaganda claimed that the Soviets themselves had put their villages on fire, so that the belongings of the residents does not fall to the Germans.

At the forefront: The photographers of the propaganda units are at the forefront campaign to the East - and with them the Germans on the home front who get these shots shortly afterwards to see in the newsreels.

Warm welcome: ". Uplifting meeting with the Ukrainian people will be greeted with great warmth of our victorious troops as liberators from the yoke of Jewish-Bolshevik", the Wehrmacht propaganda declares that inclusion of 30 June 1941. In complete disregard of the intentions and goals of the incoming German troops in many places they are welcomed by the population as "liberators".

[Sniper1946]

Acclaimed Soldiers: Arrival in Tallinn, recorded on 2 September 1941. Many young Estonians participate in the following years the advance of the Wehrmacht and also participate in killing actions. The Jewish population of Estonia is murdered while almost completely.

Friendly reception: In Riga, the German soldiers hailed as liberators in 1941 - and the joy is probably genuine. After the experience of the Stalinist terror, forced collectivization and "cleansing" the aggressor of many Latvians are regarded as allies. The German propaganda succeeds to exploit this fact sent.

Invasion of the Ukraine: "As a result of a propaganda company announced Speaker of the Ukrainian population, the military reports in their native language," it says on the back of this photo of 21 July 1941, one month after the start of "Operation Barbarossa".

Joy over the occupiers . "This is Ukrainians happy that the rule of the Bolsheviks is to end it now serves voluntarily in the German army", a war reporter writes the lyrics to this recording of 15 July 1942. In fact, many close collaborators of the occupying Germans, even some of the SS

Deportation of "Eastern workers": Just before the trip to the "Reich" plays a "student assistant chapel." Hiwi consent to the helpful residents were named in the Baltics, who collaborated with the Wehrmacht.

Slaughter: You can also live in the east of Riley, is the image of German soldiers with the plump sausages say in the arm. Recorded on 30 October 1941 in Ukraine.

Bread and Circuses: An absurd normality outside of the trench. Place and date of recording from the archives of the Wehrmacht propaganda are unknown.

[Sniper1946]

Friendly hosts: "These men need an anti-aircraft battery in the Don bend around their festive roast not worry," the German propaganda recorded for this and similar subjects. The Army uses when the residents of the country and takes into account the fact that millions are starving.

Adventure Travel: The war in the east is a bit like a vacation on the farm, including bathtubs on the terrace. The photos of the propaganda units knowingly convey this idea.

Soldatenfreizeitheim: Only the boat to the head of the therapist reveals that they are members of the armed forces. Instead of images of the war was the home front to see such motives - and could read this: The Karelian pine sauna from the soldiers themselves have built.

Time for gathering mushrooms: An officer at the kitchen counter, while the army stormed inexorably eastward. Propaganda photo of the Eastern Front, started in early autumn 1941.

An army helps himself, ducks, chickens and geese for the German soldiers are simply "fair game". They are stolen from the stables of the civilian population.

Self-Catering: The picture is lying. Soup on the stove in the middle of the field there was only propaganda for the photographers.

[Sniper1946]

Morning toilet in the snow: The Wehrmacht soldier is clean, neat and tidy, no matter where he puts his boots - that was the message of the pictures from the soldier's everyday life, which sent the front of photographers from the beginning of the campaign against the Soviet Union's home.

Staged Gaudi: "31 kills reported in a night shelter in the Mäusevertilgungsspezialist 'Zum Alten Dessauer" This proves that neither its humor, the soldiers have lost their love of country. ", writes the German propaganda that inclusion of 2 December 1942.

Southern front towards the Caucasus: After the Crimea has been conquered, the army closes the "Case Blue" on the plan to reach the Caucasus. The photograph shows an Italian cavalry squadron.

Exoticism of the South East: Wehrmacht soldiers on camels during the war against the Soviet Union.

In warm climes: A shot of the advance of the southern army in the Caucasus. The impression of the holiday mood is the propaganda units such images provided in the home, quite intentional.

Ride the cable car: German soldiers while crossing a river valley in the northern Caucasus.

"Berlin 3450 km ' direction signs with mileage data, which should illustrate how far the army has already advanced to the East - a popular photo of the front rapporteur.

Camaraderie was probably this photo of a war correspondent of the Armed Forces from November 1941 to symbolize. On the back of the image from the archives of the propaganda company reads: "By joining forces ... Unlike it went no further."

Prisoners of war: Would make all Soviet prisoners of war marching column with rows of five, these would range from Wroclaw to Cologne, so be 720 km long, the Reich propaganda ministry announced in late 1941.

Lenin monument in Sevastopol: ". Now it of the air pressure of a dive-bomb has blown down from his pedestal deep drilled in the heavy mass in the concrete floor, and now stretches Lenin's hand like a drowning man for help," said the German propaganda that inclusion of 13 July 1943.

"Danger": "Operation Barbarossa" failed in December 1941, the Wehrmacht as it failed to conquer Moscow. The war against the Soviet Union, they continued nevertheless. The turning point in early 1943 brought the Battle of Stalingrad, which killed on both sides of several hundred thousand people.

[Heinrich]

Moorburg camp

[Heinrich]

admiral scheer battleship


vladdaboom! The 'seehund' expression on their faces says it all