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 up positions east of the Volkhov River. At the end of 1941, the division was relieved by the Spanish Blue Division and advanced west of the Volkhov River. Meanwhile, the reinforced 424th Infantry Regiment, which had been detached from the division for several months, advanced to Lake Ilmen and participated in the capture of the cities of Novgorod, Sinyavino, Shlisselburg, and Lipki.
In June 1941, at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa—the German invasion of the Soviet Union—soldiers of the Wehrmacht’s 126th Infantry Division marched eastward from Lithuania. This photograph, captured by photographer Günter Buss
, shows these men in the early stages of one of the largest and most devastating military operations of the Second World War.
The division advanced from the Memel region and fought its way along the Baltic coast to Lake Ladoga . Its strategic objective was to capture important Soviet positions east of the Volkhov River —a region particularly difficult to cross due to swamps, forests, and heavy Soviet resistance.
Towards the end of 1941, the 126th Infantry Division was relieved in this region by the infamous Spanish Blue Division (División Azul). This division assumed the defense of the front lines, while the German division took up new positions west of the Volkhov River. At the same time, the reinforced 424th Infantry Regiment , a temporarily separated unit of the division, was deployed towards Lake Ilmen.
This regiment played a central role in the capture of several strategically important cities, including Novgorod , Sinyavino , Shlisselburg, and Lipki —places that would become focal points of heavy fighting in the coming months.
The story of the 126th Infantry Division is a prime example of the Wehrmacht’s rapid, yet costly, advance on Soviet soil in the summer of 1941. The soldiers photographed in these early days of the campaign could hardly have imagined that the advance would soon culminate in grueling trench warfare and a deadly winter offensive. This photograph is thus not only a historical document, but a silent testimony to the beginning of one of the most brutal periods of the Second World War.
