Kursk – Geschichte im Bild erzählt
Vor der Schlacht um Kursk fand die Schlacht um Stalingrad statt, die größte Konfrontation des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Sie dauerte von August 1942 bis Februar 1943 und vernichtete die deutsche 6. Armee. Am letzten Tag der Schlacht ergaben sich 91.000 deutsche…
25 color photos document the fall of Paris in 1940
On June 14, 1940, Parisians were awakened by a voice with a German accent announcing over the loudspeaker that a curfew would be imposed at 8:00 p.m. that evening because German troops were about to invade and occupy Paris. British…
Eastern Front in color photos, 1942
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theater of war between the European Axis powers and their ally Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and several other Allies, spanning Northern, Southern, and Eastern Europe from June 22, 1941,…
The Eastern Front: Key Battles and Strategies (1941–1944)
For the invasion of Russia, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, the German army assembled some three million men, divided into a total of 105 infantry divisions and 32 Panzer divisions. There were 3,332 tanks, over 7,000 artillery pieces, 60,000 motor vehicles, and…
The German tank destroyer Sd.Kfz.251/9
Description The m.Schütz.Pz.Wg. (Sd.Kfz.251/9) , nicknamed the “Stummel,” was an infantry support vehicle developed by Nazi Germany in 1942 during World War II. The Wehrmacht had learned from its experience on the Eastern Front and, having a surplus of 7.5 cm howitzers…
The bloody battles on the Eastern Front in photographs, 1942-1943
Sometime in the autumn of 1942, Soviet soldiers advance through the rubble of Stalingrad. The fighting on the Eastern Front represented the largest military conflict in history. It was characterized by unprecedented cruelty, total destruction, mass deportations, and enormous loss…
Advance to the East: The 126th Infantry Division in the summer of 1941
Soldiers of the Wehrmacht’s 126th Infantry Division in Lithuania, June 1941. Photographer: Günter Buss. At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the division attacked the Soviet Union from the Memel region and advanced across the Baltic Sea to Lake Ladoga, taking…
Panzer IV on the way to the Eastern Front: A look behind the front lines of 1943
In the summer of 1943, in the midst of World War II, this striking photograph was taken: German Panzerkampfwagen IV tanks loaded onto railway wagons, ready for transport to the Eastern Front. This scene exemplifies the massive military mobilization undertaken…
MUTTER IN HÄLFTEN ZERRISSEN: Der 90-sekündige Haiangriff, der eine Nation traumatisierte – und die Familie, die alles miterlebte
An einem ruhigen Märznachmittag im Jahr 1985 betrat Shirley Ann Durdin, eine 33-jährige Mutter von vier Kindern, die stillen Gewässer der Peake Bay in Südaustralien zu einem Schnorchelausflug. Sie ahnte nicht, dass ihr bald ein sechs Meter langer Weißer Hai…
Litauische Frauen geben deutschen Soldaten Wasser, 1941
Litauische Frauen helfen Wehrmachtssoldaten im Juni 1941 mit Eimern Wasser, während der frühen Phase des Unternehmens Barbarossa, dem deutschen Überfall auf die Sowjetunion. Nachdem Litauen im Juni 1940 infolge des Molotow-Ribbentrop-Pakts von den Sowjets besetzt worden war , begrüßte es den…