Riding an unprotected vehicle in the Russian winter, in this case a motorcycle sidecar, required protective clothing. This  motorcyclist  wears a fur-lined guard’s coat, thick mittens, the fur-lined cap of his reversible winter suit, undoubtedly worn under the coat, and a gas mask to protect his face.

The air filter canister was removed from the gas mask 38. For cold weather, special additional eyepiece lenses were issued to prevent fogging by creating an air space between the two lenses.

The German military was the biggest motorcyclist during World War II (1939–45). On June 22, 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union with three million soldiers.

In subsequent campaigns, military motorcyclists served in a variety of roles, including chauffeurs for officers, deliverers of dispatches and even hot meals, reconnaissance patrols, spearhead vehicles that bore the brunt of the battle, and sometimes as specially equipped tank destroyers.

As with all motorcyclists, there was a certain kinship among these soldiers, who called themselves “Kradmelder” (motorcycle dispatchers). They rode unprotected, without the armor of tanks, without the safety of hundreds of foot soldiers at their side. They were moving targets, so to speak, sniper magnets, and then there were minefields, artillery fire, and low-flying aircraft to contend with.

The other enemy was the Russian weather. In the fall, the roads turned into almost impassable swamps, and the fields the motorcycles drove across turned into “a meter-deep mud lake.”

In winter, temperatures dropped to -40 degrees Celsius, freezing engine oil and unprotected soldiers. Some German motorcyclists benefited from special heating systems attached to their motorcycles, including foot and hand warmers. At the end of the war, however, many, if not most, of the motorcycles and their riders never returned home.