Rare Images Of The Wehrmacht (German Army) From WW2: Part 4

Toilet at the front

German soldiers having some fun.

15cm Nebelwerfer 41 MRL. The German soldier won't be using it anymore..

1940, France. In the center - Heinz Gunderian, bottom left - "Enigma"

 THE ENIGMA MACHINE

The Enigma machine was an advanced electro-mechanical cipher machine developed in Germany after World War 1. The Enigma machine was used by all branches of the German military as their main device for secure wireless communications until the end of World War 2. Several types of the Enigma machine were developed before and during World War 2, each more complex and harder to code break than its predecessors. The most complex Enigma type was used by the German Navy. In addition to the complexity of the Enigma machine itself, its operating procedures became increasingly complex, as the German military wanted to make Enigma communications harder to code break.

Various intelligence evidence during World War 2 led the German military to make several investigations about the possibility that The Allies can read Enigma messages. The German intelligence and communications experts concluded that Enigma was still secure from allied code breakers. They were wrong.

Source: 2worldwar2

 Enthusiastic German troops in November 1941

Spring 1942. The Eastern Front.

Germans and their allies in Russia. Colonel-General Ewald von Kleist met with the commanders of allied forces. In the center - the chief of the engineering IRGC Colonel Mario Tirelli. On his right an officer of the Hungarian army. District Dnepropetrovsk, August 1941.

The German tries to pull the Mercedes car out of the sand. Artillery Regiment of the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf. Lithuania, June 1941.

Gas for the German tanks. Army Group South.  A tank could take up to 10 cans, which significantly increased its cruising range. July 1941.

50 mm shells for the Panzers. Army Group South. 14 th Panzer Division. July 1941

A General of the Luftwaffe inspects on the construction of anti-aircraft positions. January 1945. He seems to be in a jovial mood.

Ready for the attack

Autumn of 1944. The gloom had set in.

Panzer Division "Hermann Goering" in Italy.

WHAT WAS THE PANZER DIVISION HERMANN GOERING?

The Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1. Hermann Göring (1st Paratroop Panzer Division Hermann Goering - abbreviated Fallschirm-Panzer-Div 1 HG) was an élite German Luftwaffe armoured division. The HG saw action in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and on the Eastern front. The division was the creation of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and increased in size throughout the war from an Abteilung (battalion) to a Panzer corps.

 April 1943. The Das Reich Awards are given to soldiers of SS Panzer Division after the Battle Of Kharkov

 An observer position is camouflaged

An officer of the Wehrmacht has target practice

A wedding in the Wehrmacht at the front

150-mm MLRs Nebelwerfer 42 on the basis of Opel 'Blitz' 'Maultier' (Mule)

German soldiers fooling around

German acoustic radar. Called-Ringtrichterrichtungshoerer it had a range of from 5 to 12km, up to two degrees.

German soldiers on alert as there is firing from the burning house in Russia. One of them tosses a grenade to finish the matter.

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-- German soldiers: Part 1
-- German soldiers: Part 2
-- Rare Images Of The Wehrmacht: Part 3
-- Wehrmacht: Part 5 
-- Wehramcht (German Soldiers): Part 6 
-- Wehrmacht: Part 7

-- Wehrmacht: Part 8 

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Images Of The Wehrmacht (German Army) From WW2: Part 3

German soldiers on alert against allied aircraft at the Atlantic Wall

Filling up a Tiger tank

  

Firing mortar in Russia

Lettow-Vorbeck (right) as guest of General Günther von Kluge at army maneuvers in 1935

SOME NOTES ON LETTOW-VORBECK AND KLUGE

Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (20 March 1870 – 9 March 1964) was a German general, the commander of the German East Africa campaign in World War I. He commanded one of only two German colonial forces of that war which were not defeated. From May 1928 to July 1930 he served as a deputy in the Reichstag. Lettow-Vorbeck "distrusted [Adolf] Hitler and his movement," even though Hitler offered him the ambassadorship to Great Britain in 1935, which he "declined with frigid hauteur." During the 1960s, Charles Miller asked the nephew of a Schutztruppe officer, "I understand that von Lettow told Hitler to go fuck himself." The nephew responded, "That's right, except that I don't think he put it that politely."


After his blunt refusal, he "was kept under continual surveillance" and his home office was searched. The only rehabilitation due to his legendary standing among the populace came in 1938, when at age 68, he was named a General for Special Purposes, but was never recalled into active service.


By the end of World War II, Lettow-Vorbeck was destitute. His two sons, Rüdiger and Arnd had both been killed in action serving the German Army. His house in Bremen had been destroyed by Allied bombs, and he depended for a time on food packages from Meinertzhagen and Smuts. With the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and economic recovery, he enjoyed comfortable circumstances again.

KLUGE

Günther Adolf Ferdinand “Hans” von Kluge (30 October 1882 – 19 August 1944) was a German military leader. He was born in Posen into a Prussian military family. Kluge rose to the rank of Field Marshal in the Wehrmacht.

A leading figure of the German military resistance, Henning von Tresckow, served as his Chief of Staff of Army Group Center. Kluge was somewhat involved in the military resistance. He knew about Tresckow’s plan to shoot Hitler during a visit to Army Group Center, having been informed by his former subordinate, Georg von Boeselager, who was now serving under Tresckow. At the last moment, Kluge aborted Tresckow's plan. Boeselager later speculated that because Himmler had decided not to accompany Hitler, Kluge feared that without eliminating Himmler too, it could lead to a civil war between the SS and the Wehrmacht.

When Stauffenberg attempted to assassinate Hitler on July 20, Kluge was Oberbefehlshaber West ("Supreme Field Commander West") with his headquarters in La Roche-Guyon. The commander of the occupation troops of France, General Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, and his colleague Colonel Cäsar von Hofacker - a cousin of Stauffenberg - came to visit Kluge. Stülpnagel had just ordered the arrest of the SS units in Paris. Kluge had already learned that Hitler had survived the assassination attempt and refused to provide any support. "Ja - wenn das Schwein tot wäre!" ("Well - if the pig were dead!)" he said. He was recalled to Berlin for a meeting with Hitler after the coup failed; thinking that Hitler would punish him as a conspirator, he committed suicide by taking cyanide near Metz. He left Hitler a letter in which he advised Hitler to make peace and “put an end to a hopeless struggle when necessary...” Hitler reportedly handed the letter to Alfred Jodl and commented that “There are strong reasons to suspect that had not Kluge committed suicide he would have been arrested anyway."

The Wehrmacht used dogs to carry messages

And pigeons....

German signalers laying a cable

This man is very confident in Russia. 1944. Surprising.

This boy looks subdued in France. 1944

On the outskirts of Leningrad

Leningrad again

Transportation on the Russian snow. January 1942

A Romanian soldier in Southern Russia.Summer 1942

Tense and waiting for the order to attack. In Nevel, Russia. December 1942

Sdkfz 247, the company Daimler-Benz released a total of 58 units between July 1941 to January 1942 

The Sd.Kfz. 247 was an armored command car used by Germany during World War II. Ten units of the six-wheeled model were made before the war(Ausf. A) and 58 were built during the war ( four-wheeled model, the Ausf. B). The proper name was schwerer geländegängiger gepanzerter Personenkraftwagen (Heavy Wheeled Armored Personnel Carrier).



RELATED....

 CLICK HERE TO SEE MANY MORE IMAGES OF "WEHRMACHT"

-- German soldiers: Part 1
-- German soldiers: Part 2
-- Wehrmacht: Part 4
-- Wehrmacht: Part 5 
-- Wehrmacht: Part 6 
-- Wehrmacht: Part 7
-- Wehrmacht: Part 8 

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Battle Of Rostov: WW2

There were three Battle Of Rostov during the Second World War. In 1941 the Germans wrested it but within a few days the Russians took it back. In 1942 the Germans finally captured it. In 1943 the Russians finally drove away the Germans.

The fighting was fierce and intense. See the video below.

Rostov-on-Don lies at the mouth of the Don River where it flows into the Sea of Azov, a part of the Black Sea. It was strategically placed and an important target for the Germans as the gateway to the Caucuses and the oil wealth that lay there.

BATTLE OF ROSTOV (1941-42) GERMANS, RUSSIANS AND GERMANS AGAIN
Rostov was a target of Barbarosa (1941). After taking Kiev (July 1941), the Germans drove deep into the Ukraine, approaching Rostov. The Germans reach the city (November 20-22, 1941). The Soviets, however, aunch a counter attack and retake the city (November 27). The massive Soviet Winter offensive before Moscow forces the Wehrmacht to retreat west. The Germans are badly damaged by the Soviet Winter offensive. They are only able to launch their Summer offensive in one sector of the front and Hitler chooses the south. Rostov becomes a target again. The Germans cut the railroad at Voronezh near the Don River (July 6). This cuts off Rostov from the rest of the Soviet Union July 9). After reaching the Don, the German offensive divides. The 6th Army, the most powerful force heads east toward Stalingrad. The smaller force moves toward Rostov and Caucasus oilfields. The Germans seized Boguchar and Millerovo in the Donetz (July 16, 1942). Panzers move to cut off Rostov from the east in a classic Blitzkrieg advance. The Germans take Rostov (July 23).

KILLINGS BY GERMANS IN ROSTOV

About 20,000 Jews lived in Rostow. Few fled as the Germans advanced. They were urbanized, unprepared for life hiding in the country. Many did not fear the Germans, having studied in German universities. The Germans rounded up the Jews and marched the men to a ravine just outside the city--Zmiyovskaya Balka, or the ravine of the snakes (August 11, 1942). There the killing squads shot them. The women, children and elderly followed. The Nazi killing squads gassed them in trucks and dumped their bodies in the same ravine. Communists functinaries and Red Army soldiers along with their families were also killed and buried there along with their families. The death toll came to 27,000 people. Most of Rostov's Jews who survived the War were serving with the Red Army.

1943: GERMANS LOSE ROSTOV

With defeat looming at Stalingrad, German commanders in Caucasus begin withdrawing northward through Rostov (January 2, 1943). The last elements of the 6th Army surrender at Stalingrad (February 2, 1943). Red Army spearheads drive toward Rostov, Kharkov, and Kursk. The Soviets retake Rostov (February 14).

Source: Histdo.com

The Germans settling down in Rostov in July 1942. Russian boys carry their luggage. For food perhaps

A Soviet ace pilot captured by the Germans

The Russians attack to recapture Rostov

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