A series of documentary photographs for the Victory Day in WWII 1941-1945. Rare photos and unique shots from the Second World War. Black and white photographs of military equipment and combatants. Photos from the places of events, the memory of the defenders of the Motherland - your feat is not forgotten. We look at the online documentary photo of WWII 1941-1945.

Commander of the 3rd battalion of the motorized regiment "Der Fuehrer" of the SS "Das Reich" division, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Vincenz Kaiser (right) with officers on the Kursk Bulge.

The commander of the 5th SS Panzer Division "Viking" Standartenführer Johannes-Rudolf Mühlenkamp with a fox terrier in the Kovel area.

Commander of the Chkalov Red Banner Partisan Detachment S.D. Penkin.

The commander of the submarine K-3 Lieutenant-Commander K.I. Malafeev at the periscope.

The commander of the rifle battalion Romanenko tells about the combat affairs of the young scout - Viti Zhaivoronka.

The commander of the tank Pz.kpfw VI "Tiger" No. 323 of the 3rd company of the 503rd battalion of heavy tanks NCO Futermeister shows the trail of a Soviet shell on the armor of his tank.

The tank commander, Lieutenant B.V. Smelov shows a hole in the turret of a German Tiger tank, hit by Smelov's crew, to Lieutenant Likhnyakevich (who knocked out 2 Nazi tanks in the last battle).

The commander of the Finnish 34th squadron (Lentolaivue-34) Major Eino Luukkanen at the Utti airfield at the Messerschmitt Bf.109G-2 fighter.

The squadron commander of the 728th IAP, I.A. Ivanenkov (right), listens to the report of the I-16 fighter aircraft pilot Denisov on the execution of a combat mission. Kalinin Front, January 1943.

The commander of a squadron of Soviet American-made bombers A-20 "Boston" Major Orlov sets a combat mission to the flight personnel. North Caucasus.

The commanders of the 29th tank brigade of the Red Army at the BA-20 armored car in Brest-Litovsk.

The command post of the 178th artillery regiment (45th rifle division) of Major Rostovtsev in the basement of the calibration shop of the Krasny Oktyabr plant.

Komsomol ticket of the deceased Red Army soldier Kazakh Nurmakhanov under number 20405684 with the entry on the pages "I will die but not a step back." 3rd Belorussian Front.

Correspondents of Krasnaya Zvezda, Zakhar Khatsrevin and Boris Lapin, question the German defector. Both correspondents died while trying to break out of the Kiev cauldron on September 19, 1941.

Red Army signalman Mikhail Usachev leaves his autograph on the wall of the Reichstag.

The Red Army men capture a German Pz.Kpfw tank knocked out on the battlefield near Mozdok. IV Ausf F-2. The tank does not have a machine gun.

Red Army soldiers in position with a captured German MG-34 machine gun. Machine gunner V. Kuzbaev is on the right.

The Red Army men are examining the captured German trench on the Panther line. The corpses of German soldiers are visible at the bottom and breastwork of the trench.

The Red Army soldiers surrender to the soldiers of the 9th Motorized Infantry Company of the 2nd SS Division "Reich" on a village street.

Red Army soldiers at the grave of a friend. 1941 year.

Levi Chase is one of three pilots to have won aerial victories over planes from the three Axis countries - Germany, Japan and Italy. During the war, Chase shot down 12 enemy aircraft.

The light cruiser Santa Fe is approaching the damaged aircraft carrier Franklin.

German soldiers inspect the damaged Soviet T-34 tank.

German soldiers inspect the Ar-2 Soviet dive bomber shot down near Demyansk. A very rare car (only about 200 produced).

German soldiers at the remains of a Soviet tank KV-2 destroyed by detonation of ammunition.

German tanks Pz.Kpfw. VI "Tiger" of the 505th heavy tank battalion near the town of Velikiye Luki.

German Admiral Karl Dönitz (center). Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the German Armed Forces from April 30 to May 23, 1945.

German ace Heinz Bär (Heinz (Oskar-Heinrich) "Pritzl" Bär) examines the American B-17 bomber he shot down.

A German paratrooper looks at a pile of captured weapons captured in the city of Corinth, Greece. In the foreground and to the right of the paratrooper, captured Greek officers.

A German paratrooper (Fallschirmjäger) poses with a captured British machine gun Bren.

German fighter Messerschmitt Bf 109G-10 from 6.JG51 at the Raab airfield in Hungary. This plane was flown by Lieutenant Kühlein.

German battleship Tirpitz under attack by British aircraft. Operation Wolfram on April 3, 1943. A direct hit to the tower is clearly visible.

German Oberfeldwebel is preparing to blow up a section of the railway in the Grodno region. At the moment of the photo, the Oberfeldwebel inserts a fuse into a stick of dynamite. July 16 - 17, 1944

German field repair station for uniforms. From the album of a private (since 1942 - corporal) of the 229th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Light Infantry Division.

German crew inside the assault gun.

German prisoners of war are led through the Majdanek concentration camp. The remains of the prisoners of the death camp lie on the ground in front of the prisoners, and the crematorium ovens are also visible. Outskirts of the Polish city of Lublin.

German General Anton Dostler, sentenced to death on charges of executing 15 surrendered American saboteurs, is tied to a post before being shot.

In the report of the 7th branch of the Political Department of the 61st Army of the 1st Belorussian Front on May 11, 1945 "On the work of the American army and military authorities among the German population" it was reported:
"American soldiers and officers are prohibited from communicating with the local population. This ban, however, is being violated. Recently, there have been up to 100 cases of rape, although rape results in execution."

At the end of April 1945, Hans Endretsky, released from prison by the Western allies, reported on the situation in the German zone occupied by American troops:
"Most of the occupation troops in the Erlangen area to Bamberg and in Bamberg itself were Negro units. These Negro units were located mainly in places where there was great resistance. I was told about such atrocities of these Negroes, such as robbing apartments, taking away jewelry , ravages of living quarters and attacks on children.
In Bamberg, in front of the school building where these Negroes were quartered, there were three shot Negroes who had been shot by a military police patrol some time ago for having attacked children. But also white American troops did similar atrocities ... "

Australian war correspondent Osmar White, who from 1944-1945. was in Europe in the ranks of the 3rd American Army under the command of George Paton wrote:
“After the hostilities moved to German soil, many rapes were committed by the soldiers of the front-line units and those who followed them directly.
Their number depended on the attitude of senior officers to this. In some cases, the identity of the perpetrators was identified, they were brought to justice and punished.
The lawyers kept secretive, but admitted that for cruel and perverse sexual acts with German women, some soldiers were shot (especially in cases where they were blacks). However, I knew that many women were also raped by white Americans. No actions were taken against the criminals.
On one sector of the front, a fairly well-deserved commander wittily remarked: "Copulation without conversation is not fraternization with the enemy!"
Another officer somehow dryly remarked about the order not to "fraternize": "This is definitely the first time in history that a serious effort has been made to deprive soldiers of the right to women in a defeated country."
An intelligent middle-aged Austrian woman from Bad Homburg said: “Of course, the soldiers take women ... After the occupation of this city, for many nights, soldiers woke us up, knocking on doors and demanding Fraulen. Sometimes they broke into the house by force. Sometimes the women managed to hide or run away. "

The "no-fraternisation rule", proclaimed immediately after the Americans entered German territory, never worked. It was absurdly artificial, and it was simply impossible to put it into operation. It was originally intended to prevent British and American soldiers from cohabitating with German women.
But as soon as the fighting ended and the troops were deployed to their places of permanent deployment, a significant number of officers and soldiers, especially from the military administration, began to tie relationships of all categories with German women - from going to prostitutes to normal romances ...
After several miserable and senseless military trials of the scapegoats, the "ban on fraternization" has become an empty phrase.
As far as I know, the soldiers from the American division that liberated Buchenwald in April were sleeping with the Germans by the end of May. They bragged about it themselves.
When the camp was cleared and turned into a center for displaced persons, the rows of barracks where hundreds of East Europeans died of hunger and disease were furnished with looted Weimar furniture and turned into a brothel. He thrived and supplied the camp with countless canned goods and cigarettes. "
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In 1946 in the United States, Austin Epp's pamphlet "The Rape of the Women of Conquered Europe" cites several reports from the American and British press:
"John Dos Passos, in Life magazine, January 7, 1946, quotes a" red-cheeked major "as saying that" lust, whiskey and robbery are a soldier's reward. "
One soldier wrote in Time magazine on November 12, 1945: "Many normal American families would be horrified if they knew with what complete insensitivity to everything human our guys behaved here ..."
Edward Wise wrote in his diary: "We moved to Oberhunden. Colored guys arranged the devil here. They set fire to houses, cut all Germans in a row with razors and raped."

An army sergeant wrote: “Both our army and the British army ... have contributed to the plunder and rape ... Although these crimes are not typical of our troops, their percentage is high enough to give our army a sinister reputation, so we can also be considered an army of rapists. "

The daily ration of the Germans, established by the Western occupation authorities, was lower than the American breakfast. Therefore, the entry describing military prostitution looks not accidental:
"On December 5, 1945, Christian Century reported:" The US military police chief, Lt. Col. Gerald F. Bean, said that rape is not a problem for the military police because little food, a bar of chocolate, or a bar of soap makes rape redundant. Think about it if you want to understand the situation in Germany. "
According to Time magazine on September 17, 1945, the government supplied soldiers with approximately 50 million condoms a month, with pictorial illustrations of their use. In fact, the soldiers were told: "Teach these Germans a lesson - and have a nice time!"
The author of one of the articles in the "New York World Telegram" on January 21, 1945 stated: "Americans look at German women as at prey, like cameras and Lugers."
Dr. G. Stewart, in a medical report submitted to General Eisenhower, reported that in the first six months of the American occupation, the rate of sexually transmitted diseases increased twenty times compared to the level that was previously in Germany. "
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"Paradise life" in the western zone of occupation turned out to be such that even refugees, frightened by propaganda about Russian atrocities, gradually returned to the areas occupied by Soviet troops.
So, in the report of I. Serov to L. Beria of June 4, 1945 about the work carried out in May to provide the population of Berlin, it was said:
“Through a survey of returning Berliners, it has been established that the Germans living on the territory of the Allies are subjected to cruel treatment by the British and American troops, in connection with which they are returning to our territory.
In addition, the German population, living on the territory of the Allies, is already experiencing hunger for food supplies. Within a month from the moment the Soviet troops occupied Berlin, about 800 thousand people returned to the city, who fled with the retreating German units, as a result of which the number of its inhabitants increased to 3 million 100 thousand people, from our side the supply of bread to the population is carried out regularly, according to the established norms, and there were no interruptions during this time. "

The first burgomaster of Bonnak (Lichtenberg district) said, commenting on the food norms introduced by the Russian command for the inhabitants of Berlin:
"Everyone says that such high standards amazed us. Especially high standards for bread. Everyone understands that we cannot apply for such food, which was established by the Russian command, therefore, with the arrival of the Red Army, we waited for starvation and sending the survivors to Siberia. After all, this is truly magnanimity, when we are actually convinced that the norms established now are higher than even under Hitler ...
The population is afraid of only one thing - whether these areas will be transferred to the Americans and British. It will be extremely unpleasant. There is no need to expect good supplies from the Americans and the British. "

A resident of the city of Hoffmann, in a conversation with neighbors, expressed the following: “From the stories of the Germans arriving in Berlin from the territory occupied by the Allies, it is known that they treat the Germans very badly, beat women with whips. Russians are better, they treat the Germans well and provide food. I wish there were only Russians in Berlin. "
Eda, a German woman who returned to Berlin, spoke about the same, based on her own experience in a circle of neighbors: “It is very difficult for the Germans to live in the territory occupied by the Allies, since the attitude is bad - they often beat with sticks and whips.
Civilians are allowed to walk only at set times. No food is given. Many Germans are trying to enter the territory occupied by the Red Army, but they are not allowed. "
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Chief Corporal Kopiske recalled: "We went to the village of Mecklenburg ... There I saw the first" Tommy "- three guys with a light machine gun, apparently a machine-gun squad.
They sprawled lazily on the hay and did not even show interest in me. The machine gun was on the ground. Everywhere crowds of people walked west, some even in carts, but the British were clearly not bothered.
One was playing a song on a harmonica. It was only the vanguard. Either they simply did not take us into account anymore, or they had some kind of their own, special idea of \u200b\u200b\\ u200b \\ u200bwaging war.
A little further, at a railway crossing in front of the village itself, we were met by a post to collect weapons and watches. I thought I was dreaming: civilized, prosperous Englishmen take watches from German soldiers overgrown with mud!
From there we were sent to the schoolyard in the center of the village. Many German soldiers have already gathered there. The British guarding us rolled chewing gum between our teeth - which was new to us - and boasted to each other about their trophies, throwing up their hands high with a wristwatch. "

From the memoirs of Osmar White: "Victory meant the right to trophies. The winners took away from the enemy everything they liked: drinks, cigars, cameras, binoculars, pistols, hunting rifles, decorative swords and daggers, silver jewelry, dishes, furs.
The military police did not pay attention to this until the predatory liberators (usually soldiers of auxiliary units and transport workers) began to steal expensive cars, antique furniture, radios, tools and other industrial equipment and come up with clever methods of smuggling stolen goods to the coast in order to then to ship it to England.
Only after the end of the fighting, when the robbery turned into an organized criminal racketeering, the military command intervened and established law and order. Before that, the soldiers took what they wanted, and the Germans had a hard time doing it. "

The Second World War (September 1, 1939 - September 2, 1945) - the war of two world military-political coalitions, which became the largest war in the history of mankind. It was attended by 61 states out of 73 that existed at that time (80% of the world's population). The fighting was conducted on the territory of three continents and in the waters of four oceans. This is the only conflict in which nuclear weapons have been used.

Top: 1941. Belarus, German reporter eats a cucumber offered by a peasant woman

1941. Artillerymen of the 2nd battery of the 833rd heavy artillery battalion of the Wehrmacht are preparing to fire a 600-mm self-propelled mortar "Karl" (Karl Gerät 040 Nr.III "Odin") in the Brest region.

1941. Battle of Moscow. Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism or LVZ (638 Infantry Regiment of the Wehrmacht)

1941. Battle of Moscow. German soldiers dressed for the weather during the battle

1941. Battle of Moscow. German soldiers captured Russian prisoners of war in a trench

1941. Waffen-SS

1941. Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili among prisoners of war during the battle for Smolensk

1941. Leningrad, Colonel General Erich Göpner and Major General Franz Landgraf

1941. Minsk, German soldiers in the occupied city

1941. Murmansk, Mountain Riflemen made a stopover

1941. German artillerymen inspect the remains of the Voroshilovets heavy artillery tractor

1941. German prisoners of war guarded by Russian soldiers

1941. German soldiers in position. Behind them in the ditch are Russian prisoners of war

1941. Odessa, Romanian soldiers inspect the seized property of the Soviet army

1941. Novgorod, awarding of German soldiers

1941. Russian soldiers examine trophies taken from the Germans and find potatoes in a gas mask case

1941. Soldiers of the Red Army are studying trophies of war

1941. The Sonderkraftfahrzeug 10 tractor and soldiers of the SS Reich division drive through the village

1941. Ukraine, SS Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler talks to the peasants

1941. Ukraine, a column of Russian prisoners of war including women

1941. Ukraine, Soviet prisoner of war before execution on charges of being an agent of the GPU

1941 Two Russian prisoners of war talk to German soldiers from the Waffen-SS

1941. Moscow, German in the vicinity of the city

1941.German traffic controllers

1941 Ukraine, a German soldier accepts an offered glass of milk

1942. Two German sentries on the Eastern Front

1942. Leningrad region, a column of German prisoners of war in a besieged city

1942. Leningrad region, German troops at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city

1942. Leningrad Oblast, one of the first Pz.Kpfw. VI Tiger

1942. German troops cross the Don

1942. German soldiers clean the road after a snowfall

1942. Pechory, German officers are photographed with clergy

1942. Russia, corporal checks the documents of peasant women

1942. Russia, a German gives a cigarette to a Russian prisoner of war

1942. Russia, German soldiers leave the burning village

1942. Stalingrad, the remains of the German He-111 bomber among the city ruins

1942. Terek Cossacks from self-defense units.

1942. Non-commissioned officer Helmut Kolke of the 561st brigade of the Wehrmacht with a crew in his self-propelled gun "Marder II", the next day he received the German cross in gold and the Honorary buckle

1942 Leningrad region

1942 Leningrad region, Volkhov front, a German gives a piece of bread to a child

1942 Stalingrad, German soldier cleans K98 Mauser between battles

1943. Belgorod region, German soldiers talk to women and children

1943. Belgorod region, Russian prisoners of war

1943. A peasant woman tells the Soviet intelligence officers about the location of enemy units. North of the city of Oryol

1943. German soldiers have just caught a Soviet soldier

1943. Russia, two German prisoners of war

1943. Russian Cossacks in the Wehrmacht during the blessing (priests in the foreground)

1943. Sappers defuse German anti-tank mines

1943. Snipers of Senior Lieutenant F.D. Lunin fire salvo at enemy aircraft

1943. Stalingrad, a column of German prisoners of war at the edge of the city

1943. Stalingrad, column of German, Romanian and Italian prisoners of war

1943. Stalingrad, German prisoners of war pass by a woman with empty buckets. There will be no luck.

1943. Stalingrad, captured German officers

1943. Ukraine, Znamenka, a Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger driver examines a tank stuck in the mud on the river bank from the hatch of a car

1943 Stalingrad, city center on the day of the surrender of the German troops

1944. Commander of the 4th Aviation Command, Colonel-General of the Luftwaffe Otto Desloch and Commander II./StG2 Major Dr. Mahsimilian Otte (shortly before his death)

1944. Crimea, capture of German soldiers by Soviet sailors

1944. Leningrad region, a column of German troops

1944. Leningrad region, German prisoners of war

1944. Moscow. The passage of 57,000 German prisoners of war on the streets of the capital.

1944. Lunch of captured German officers in the Krasnogorsk special camp No. 27

1944. Romania. German units evacuated from Crimea

1945. Poland, a column of German prisoners of war crosses the bridge over the Oder towards Ukraine

Without date. Two Soviet partisans inspect the captured German MG-34 machine gun

Without date. German soldiers are cleaning personal weapons. One of the soldiers has a captured Soviet submachine gun PPSh

Without date. German court-martial

Without date. The Germans take away livestock from the population.

Without date. A non-commissioned officer of the Luftwaffe poses with a bottle sitting on the head of a bust of I.V. Stalin

“Two days later, a Komsomol meeting of the battalion was assembled, the battalion commander spoke and told Sadovy's version, adding that he believed him, and therefore Bronstein was not worthy of being a Komsomol organizer, and his suitability to be an assistant platoon commander should be considered.
I was shocked and did not know how to justify myself. My attempts to explain myself were suppressed by the presiding political officer, Senior Lieutenant Vasilenko.
It darkened in my eyes, and some "bunnies" jumped into them. Blood hit my head, and I, not realizing anything, jumped into the dugout where our platoon was located, grabbed the trophy machine gun and rushed outside.
Seeing the battalion commander, I went to him, giving a turn up. He looked around and, seeing me, rushed to run through the bushes, and a holster with a pistol dangled from his side, which he had forgotten about.
Having given another turn upward for an ostractivity, I calmed down and, realizing that I had done a stupid thing, went to my company to the foreman. There he handed over the machine gun, and the foreman gave a glass of vodka.
In the morning an outfit came for me and took me to the regimental guardhouse. And three days later I was summoned to a meeting of the regiment's Komsomol bureau, where I was expelled from the Komsomol, and by order of the regiment commander I was deprived of my driver's license and went to the rifle unit. The rank of senior sergeant was left to me.

Soon Podkolzin informed me that some kind of trophy team was being formed, that is, a team collecting some trophies of war, and he recommended me as its deputy commander, which I of course agreed to.
Finally, such a team was created, it included forty drivers, of the most experienced. We were lined up on the street to meet the new commander, whom none of us saw or knew. Finally, an officer came out of the building and I, giving a command at attention, typing a step, went to meet him.
Throwing up my hand, saluting, and looking up, I was dumbfounded - my new interim commander was Captain Yamkova, apparently for some actions removed from the battalion commander's position and sent to the front reserve.
Having received the next day a weapon and two "Studebakers" in addition, we drove to our destination, which none of us knew.
In the evening, overnight, in a small Polish village, the captain summoned me to his place and told me in secret that a big offensive was soon planned. And our team is indeed a trophy, but the trophies are German cars, which, as a rule, are destroyed in the heat of battle, but we need to save them.
To do this, during the battle, go among the attackers, seize the "cars" ourselves, set up guards and then send them to their destination. Only he himself, and now me, should know about this in the team. We will inform the rest of this before the very battle in which we have to participate.
Since there were not cars in every German unit, we will participate in battles only at the direction of the headquarters of the formation, to which we will be attached.

However, on January 14, 1945, when the offensive of the 1st Belorussian Front began, Captain Yamkovy had to make a lot of efforts so that we did not participate in the breakthrough battles, reasonably declaring that there were no cars on the front line of the Germans' defense.
At the same time, on January 17, we all had to participate in an offensive foot battle on the southwestern outskirts of Warsaw together with the first Polish army, half manned by our guys, and which was instructed to finish off the encircled garrison.
All of us for this battle, subsequently, were awarded the medal for the liberation of Warsaw. But we did not manage to find whole cars among the completely destroyed city.

Soon the order came to immediately move to the area of \u200b\u200bthe city of Radom, where the headquarters of the German corps was surrounded in the forest near the village of Pshysykh (so in memory).
We got together urgently and were already in place in the evening. After spending the night in the village, at 7 o'clock in the morning we arrived at the starting point of the upcoming offensive, in a small village called Russian Brody, located at the very edge of the forest.
As we were told, a large column of various vehicles with the property of the corps headquarters entered the forest the day before and, stretching along a wide clearing, found itself surrounded by our troops.
It was guarded by a cover battalion and scattered small units of German troops who retreated from Radom after its capture. The Germans refused the offer to surrender. Therefore, it was decided to destroy them.
Yamkova went to look for the command, questioning the soldiers who were here, and I gathered my guys and again reminded us what to do: stick together, not disperse and at the same time act in groups of 10 people, listen to the commands of the infantry commanders, and make decisions according to the circumstances and by order of the senior ten.

It began to dawn and, at last, Yamkova appeared with a pistol in his hand. "Spread out! - he ordered - soon we will go too." Taking a prearranged position, I listened to the sounds coming from the forest, but everything was quiet. After an infinitely long time, so it seemed to me, perhaps in 15-20 minutes, the forest seemed to shudder from the explosions of grenades and automatic shots. The command "forward" sounded, and the soldiers around me almost ran to the forest, and we followed them. I ran after the soldiers, holding my machine gun at the ready, trying to follow the trail of the one in front.
There was little snow in the forest, and it was easy to run, but the trees, over whose roots he stumbled all the time, got in the way. How did I feel at the time? Anger and fear at the same time, but the anger was stronger, I wanted to push the trees apart with my hands and get to the Germans as soon as possible.
And the worst thing is the limited visibility in the forest: behind each large tree an enemy dreamed of, and you convulsively twist the barrel of your machine gun in different directions.

The first wave of the advancing, meeting forest debris and enemy fire, lay down and we, too, but not for long. In the rear of the Germans, shots and shouts of "hurray" were heard, and all the soldiers and we got up in one rush and rushed forward, avoiding the rubble.
Running from tree to tree, I, together with the others, jumped out into the clearing, where the battle was already raging, which gradually turned into a simple destruction of people. There was a large German truck in front of me. The chauffeur had already been killed, and his capless head with red hair stood out brightly in the snow.
An opel-cadet passenger car with an open door was parked next to the truck. Near her in the snow lay a German officer in a fur coat with a collar, but in a cap and was aiming, as it seemed, at me with a pistol.
Instinctively, I threw myself down, simultaneously pressing the trigger of the machine gun. I do not know who killed him, but when I raised my head, the officer turned over, threw himself into the snow, and two of our infantrymen ran to him.
Approaching the car, I examined it, it was intact. The soldiers, taking off the watch from the dead man and shaking out every little thing from his pockets, ran on.

The murdered officer was young and handsome, the pleasant scent of expensive perfume emanated from his clothes, and my nervous excitement was replaced by sadness. The shots died down. Realizing that now no one would touch the car, I went along the column, looking for my own.
The entire clearing was filled with wounded and killed Germans, the corpses of drivers hung from the cabins. Our killed soldiers were few here, but in the forest they met literally at every step. The orderlies were already putting the wounded into cars and our Studebakers, which were temporarily confiscated for this purpose.
We did not have serious losses in the group - only three were slightly wounded, and the trophies included eleven serviceable passenger cars of various brands, suitable for driving on their own. The very next day, among the still uncleaned corpses, avoiding meeting with us, Polish marauders worked, loading their carts with German junk.
After a ten-day trip, we returned to the 29th reserve auto regiment, and three days later, I and seven other drivers familiar with foreign cars were sent to the 41st Red Banner Automobile Regiment of the 5th Shock Army.

The battalion commanded by Major Chirkov was assigned to the newly organized advance detachment of the army for operational operations ahead of our main forces and consisted of an infantry regiment, a tank brigade, mortar units and some other military units.
Our army could not keep up with the rapidly retreating Germans. The rear was catastrophically lagging behind, the fighters did not receive hot food, and it was impossible to stock up on ammunition, and therefore this group was created.
Having put infantry soldiers on the vehicles, she was always in contact with the enemy, capturing small German cities on the way, where they did not expect the arrival of our troops.
I remember one episode when a small detachment of ours, where I was, consisting of fifteen vehicles with soldiers and three guns, drove into a town and stopped in its center.
Shops were open here, buses were running, police were standing at the crossroads, and there were a lot of people on the street, and you could call Berlin from payphones on the street. We looked at all this in a daze.
The soldiers began to jump from their cars, and the city was instantly empty. The streets were covered with white sheets hanging from windows, balconies, and even on the doors of entrances.
So, without encountering serious resistance, we slipped as far as the Oder River, north of the fortress city of Kyustrin, and even captured a bridgehead on the western bank of the river. Kustrin himself managed to take only in March, and the bridgehead was held until April by the whole army. " - From the memoirs of a senior sergeant of a separate auto regiment V. Bronstein.

Let's talk about the trophies of the Red Army that the Soviet victors were taking home from defeated Germany. Let's talk calmly, without emotions - only photos and facts. Then we will touch upon the delicate issue of the rape of German women and go through the facts from the life of occupied Germany.

A Soviet soldier takes a bicycle from a German woman (according to Russophobes), or a Soviet soldier helps a German woman to align the steering wheel (according to Russophiles). Berlin, August 1945. (as in fact, in the investigation below)

But the truth is, as always, it is in the middle, and it consists in the fact that in abandoned German houses and shops, Soviet soldiers took whatever they liked, but the Germans had quite a bit of impudent robbery. Looting, of course, happened, but for him, it happened, and was tried by a show trial of the tribunal. And none of the soldiers wanted to go through the war alive, and because of some junk and the next round of struggle for friendship with the local population, not go home as a winner, but to Siberia as a convict.

Soviet soldiers are buying up on the black market in the Tiergarten garden. Berlin, summer 1945.

Although the junk was appreciated. After the Red Army entered the territory of Germany, by order of the NKO of the USSR No. 0409 of 12/26/1944. all servicemen of the active fronts were allowed to send one personal parcel to the Soviet rear once a month.
The most severe punishment was the deprivation of the right to this parcel, the weight of which was set: for privates and sergeants - 5 kg, for officers - 10 kg and for generals - 16 kg. The size of the parcel could not exceed 70 cm in each of the three dimensions, but they managed to transport home in various ways large-sized equipment, carpets, furniture, and even pianos.
During demobilization, officers and soldiers were allowed to take away everything that they could take with them on the road in their personal luggage. At the same time, large-sized things were often taken home, fastened on the roofs of the heating units, and the Poles left the field for pulling them along the train with ropes and hooks (grandfather told me).
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Three Soviet women hijacked to Germany carry wine from an abandoned liquor store. Lippstadt, April 1945.

During the war and the first months after its end, soldiers mainly sent non-perishable provisions to the home front (the most valuable were American dry rations, consisting of canned food, biscuits, egg powder, jam, and even instant coffee). The medicinal preparations of the allies - streptomycin and penicillin - were also very much appreciated.
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American soldiers and young German women combine trading and flirting on the black market in the Tiergarten garden.
The Soviet military in the background in the market has no time for stupidity. Berlin, May 1945.

And this could only be obtained on the "black market", which instantly appeared in every German city. At flea markets, you could buy everything from a car to women, and the most common currency was tobacco and food.
The Germans needed food, and the Americans, British and French were only interested in money - Nazi Reichsmarks, the occupation marks of the winners, and foreign currencies of the Allied countries, on whose rates a lot of money was made, were circulating in Germany.
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An American soldier is bargaining with a Soviet junior lieutenant. Photo LIFE from September 10, 1945.

And the funds from the Soviet soldiers were found. According to the Americans, they were the nicest buyers - gullible, bargaining poor, and very wealthy. Indeed, since December 1944, Soviet servicemen in Germany began to receive a double salary both in rubles and in stamps at the exchange rate (this system of double payment will be canceled much later).
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Photos of Soviet soldiers bargaining at a flea market. Photo LIFE from September 10, 1945.

The salary of Soviet military personnel depended on the rank and position held. So, a major, deputy military commandant, in 1945 received 1,500 rubles. per month and for the same amount in occupation stamps at the exchange rate. In addition, officers from the position of company commander and above were paid money to hire German servants.
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For an idea of \u200b\u200bprices. Certificate of purchase by a Soviet colonel from a German of a car for 2,500 marks (750 Soviet rubles)

The Soviet military received a lot of money - on the black market, an officer could buy whatever his heart desires for one of his monthly salaries. In addition, the servicemen were paid the debts for cash allowances for the past, and they had plenty of money even if they sent home a ruble certificate.
Therefore, it was simply stupid and unnecessary to risk "falling under the hand" and be punished for looting. And although there were, of course, enough greedy marauding fools, they were more the exception than the rule.
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Soviet soldier with an SS dagger attached to his belt. Pardubicki, Czechoslovakia, May 1945.

The soldiers were different, and they also had different tastes. Some, for example, greatly appreciated such German SS (or naval, flight) daggers, although there was no practical benefit from them. As a child, I held one such SS dagger in my hands (my grandfather's friend brought me from the war) - its black and silver beauty and sinister history fascinated me.
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Veteran of the Great Patriotic War Petr Patsienko with a trophy Admiral Solo accordion. Grodno, Belarus, May 2013

But the majority of Soviet soldiers valued everyday clothes, accordions, watches, cameras, radios, crystal, porcelain, which, even after the war, were piled high on the shelves of Soviet thrift stores.
Many of those things have survived to this day, and do not rush to accuse their old owners of looting - no one will know the true circumstances of their acquisition, but most likely they were simply and banally bought from the Germans by the winners.

On the question of one historical falsification, or the photo "Soviet soldier takes a bicycle."

This well-known photograph is traditionally used to illustrate articles about the atrocities of Soviet soldiers in Berlin. This theme rises with surprising constancy from year to year to the Victory Day.
The picture itself is published, as a rule, with a signature "A Soviet soldier takes a bicycle from a woman in Berlin"... There are also signatures from the cycle "Looting flourished in Berlin on 1945" etc.

There are heated debates over the issue of photography itself and what is captured on it. The arguments of the opponents of the version of "looting and violence" that I have come across on the Internet, unfortunately, sound unconvincing. Of these, one can single out, firstly, calls not to build judgments on the basis of one photograph. Secondly, an indication of the posture of a German woman, a soldier and other persons caught in the frame. In particular, from the calmness of the supporting characters, it follows that this is not about violence, but about an attempt to straighten out some cycling detail.
Finally, doubts are raised that it was a Soviet soldier who was captured in the photograph: a roll over the right shoulder, the roll itself of a very strange shape, an oversized cap on the head, etc. In addition, in the background, right behind the soldier, if you look closely, you can see a soldier in a uniform that is clearly not Soviet-style.

But, I emphasize again, all these versions do not seem convincing enough to me.

In general, I decided to understand this story. The picture, I reasoned, clearly must have an author, must have the original source, the first publication, and - most likely - the original signature. Which can shed light on what is shown in the photograph.

If we take literature, as far as I remember, I came across this picture in the catalog of the Documentary Exhibition for the 50th anniversary of the German attack on the Soviet Union. The exposition itself was opened in 1991 in Berlin in the Topography of Terror hall, then, as far as I know, it was exhibited in St. Petersburg. Her catalog in Russian "The War of Germany against the Soviet Union 1941-1945" was published in 1994.

I do not have this directory, but my colleague, fortunately, found it. Indeed, the desired photograph is published on page 257. Traditional signature: "A Soviet soldier takes a bicycle from a woman in Berlin, 1945"

Apparently, this catalog, published in 1994, became the Russian primary source of the photograph we need. At least on a number of old resources dating back to the early 2000s, I came across this picture with a reference to "Germany's war against the Soviet Union .." and with a signature familiar to us. It seems that the photograph is from there and roams the network.

Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz - Photo archive of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is listed as the source of the image in the catalog. The archive has a website, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not find the picture I needed.

But in the process of searching, I came across the same snapshot in the archive of Life magazine. In the Life version, it is called "Bike Fight".
Please note that here the photo is not cropped at the edges, as in the exhibition catalog. New interesting details emerge, for example, on the left behind the backs you can see an officer, and, as it were, not a German officer:

But the main thing is the signature!
A Russian soldier involved in a misunderstanding with a German woman in Berlin, over a bicycle he wished to buy from her.

"There was a misunderstanding between a Russian soldier and a German woman in Berlin over a bicycle he wanted to buy from her."

In general, I will not bore the reader with the nuances of further search for the keywords "misunderstanding", "German woman", "Berlin", "Soviet soldier", "Russian soldier", etc. I found the original photo and the original caption. The picture belongs to the American company Corbis. Here it is:

As it is not difficult to see, here the picture is complete, on the right and left there are details cut off in the "Russian version" and even in the Life version. These details are very important, as they give the picture a completely different mood.

And finally, the original signature:

Russian Soldier Tries to Buy Bicycle from Woman in Berlin, 1945
A misunderstanding ensues after a Russian soldier tries to buy a bucycle from a German woman in Berlin. After giving her money for the bike, the soldier assumes the deal has been struck. However the woman doesn "t seem convinced.

A Russian soldier tries to buy a bicycle from a woman in Berlin, 1945
The misunderstanding came after a Russian soldier tried to buy a bicycle from a German woman in Berlin. After giving her the money for the bike, he believes that the deal took place. However, the woman thinks differently.

These are the things, dear friends.
Around, wherever you dig, lies, lies, lies ...

So who raped all the German women?

From an article by Sergei Manukov.

Forensic science professor Robert Lilly of the United States checked the American military archives and concluded that by November 1945, the tribunals had dealt with 11,040 cases of serious sex crimes committed by American military personnel in Germany. We agree that other historians from Great Britain, France and America have also "let their hands go" by the Western allies.
For a long time, Western historians have been trying to pin the blame on Soviet soldiers with evidence that no court will accept.
The most vivid idea of \u200b\u200bthem is provided by one of the main arguments of the British historian and writer Anthony Beevor, one of the most famous specialists in the history of the Second World War in the West.
He believed that Western soldiers, especially the American military, did not need to rape German women, because they had plenty of the most popular goods with which it was possible to obtain Fraulein's consent to sex: canned food, coffee, cigarettes, nylon stockings, etc. ...
Western historians believe that the overwhelming majority of sexual contacts between victors and German women were voluntary, that is, that it was the most common prostitution.
It is no coincidence that the joke was popular in those days: "It took the Americans six years to cope with the German armies, but it took a day and a bar of chocolate to conquer German women."
However, the picture was nowhere near as rosy as Anthony Beevor and his supporters are trying to imagine. Post-war society was unable to differentiate between voluntary and violent sexual contacts of women who were given because they were dying of hunger, and those who became victims of rape at gunpoint or machine gun.

The fact that this is an overly idealized picture was loudly declared by Miriam Gebhardt, professor of history at the University of Constance in southwestern Germany.
Of course, when writing a new book, she was least guided by the desire to protect and whitewash Soviet soldiers. The main motive is the establishment of truth and historical justice.
Miriam Gebhardt tracked down several victims of the "exploits" of American, British and French soldiers and interviewed them.
Here is the story of one of the women who suffered from the Americans:

Six American soldiers arrived in the village just as it was getting dark and entered the house where Katerina V. lived with her 18-year-old daughter Charlotte. The women managed to escape just before the intruders appeared, but they did not even think to give up. Obviously, this is not the first time they have done this.
The Americans began to search all the houses one by one, and in the end, at almost midnight, they found the fugitives in a neighbor's closet. They dragged them out, threw them on the bed and raped them. Instead of chocolates and nylon stockings, uniformed rapists took out pistols and machine guns.
This gang rape took place in March 1945, a month and a half before the end of the war. Charlotte, terrified, called her mother for help, but Catherine could do nothing to help her.
The book contains many such cases. All of them took place in southern Germany, in the zone of occupation of the American troops, which numbered 1.6 million people.

In the spring of 1945, the Archbishop of Munich and Freising ordered his subordinate priests to document all events related to the occupation of Bavaria. Several years ago, part of the 1945 archives were published.
Priest Michael Merksmüller from the village of Ramsau, which is located near Berchtesgaden, wrote on July 20, 1945: "Eight girls and women were raped. And some right in front of their parents."
Father Andreas Weingand of Haag an der Amper, a tiny village on the site of what is now Munich Airport, wrote on July 25, 1945:
“The most sad event during the US Army offensive was three rapes. Drunken soldiers raped one married woman, one unmarried and a girl of 16 and a half.
“By order of the military authorities,” wrote the priest Alois Schiml from Mosburg on August 1, 1945, “on the door of every house there should be a list of all residents, indicating their age. 17 raped girls and women were admitted to the hospital. raped many times. "
From the reports of the priests, it followed: the youngest victim of the Yankees was 7 years old, and the oldest was 69.
When the Soldiers Came, hit bookstore shelves in early March and immediately sparked a heated debate. There is nothing surprising in this, because Frau Gebhardt dared to swing, and during a strong aggravation of relations between the West and Russia, at attempts to equalize those who unleashed the war, and those who suffered most from it.
Despite the fact that the main attention in Gebhardt's book is paid to the exploits of the Yankees, the other Western allies, of course, also performed "feats". Although in comparison with the Americans, they misled a lot less.

The Americans raped 190 thousand German women.

Best of all, according to the author of the book, British soldiers behaved in Germany in 1945, but not because of any innate nobility or, say, a gentleman's code of conduct.
The British officers turned out to be more decent than their colleagues from other armies, who not only strictly forbade their subordinates to molest the Germans, but also very closely watched them.
As for the French, they have a slightly different situation, just like in the case of our soldiers. France was occupied by the Germans, although, of course, the occupation of France and Russia, as they say, are two big differences.
In addition, most of the rapists of the French army were Africans, that is, they came from the French colonies on the Black Continent. By and large, they didn't care who to take revenge on - the main thing was that the women were white.
Especially the French "distinguished themselves" in Stuttgart. They herded the women of Stuttgart into the subway and staged a three-day orgy of violence. According to various sources, during this time from 2 to 4 thousand German women were raped.

Just like the allies from the east they met on the Elbe, American soldiers were horrified by the crimes committed by the Germans and embittered by their stubbornness and desire to defend their homeland to the end.
American propaganda also played a role, suggesting to them that the Germans were crazy about liberators from overseas. This further inflamed the erotic fantasies of the warriors deprived of female affection.
Miriam Gebhardt's seeds fell into the prepared soil. In the aftermath of the atrocities committed by American soldiers several years ago in Afghanistan and Iraq, and especially in the infamous Iraqi prison of Abu Ghraib, many Western historians have become more critical of the behavior of the Yankees before and after the end of the war.
Researchers increasingly find documents in the archives, for example, about the plundering of churches in Italy by the Americans, the murder of civilians and German prisoners, as well as the rape of Italian women.
However, attitudes towards the American military are changing extremely slowly. The Germans continue to treat them as disciplined and decent (especially compared to their allies) soldiers, who gave children gum and women - stockings.

Of course, the evidence provided by Miriam Gebhardt in When the Military Came in did not convince everyone. It is not surprising, given that no one kept any statistics and all calculations and figures are approximate and speculative.
Anthony Beevor and his supporters ridiculed Professor Gebhardt's calculations: “It is almost impossible to get accurate and reliable numbers, but I think that hundreds of thousands is a clear exaggeration.
Even if we take as the basis for calculations the number of children born to German women from Americans, then here it should be remembered that many of them were conceived as a result of voluntary sex, and not rape. Do not forget that German women crowded at the gates of American military camps and bases in those years from morning till night. "
Of course, one can doubt the conclusions of Miriam Gebhardt, and especially her numbers, but hardly even the most zealous defenders of American soldiers would argue with the assertion that they were not as "fluffy" and kind as most Western historians try to present them.
I would like to because they left a "sexual" trail not only in hostile Germany, but also in allied France. American soldiers raped thousands of French women, whom they freed from the Germans.

If in the book "When the soldiers came" the Yankees blame the professor of history from Germany, then in the book "What the soldiers did" it is done by the American Mary Roberts, professor of history from the University of Wisconsin.
"My book debunks the old myth of American soldiers who were generally considered to have always behaved well," she says. "Americans had sex everywhere and with everyone who was wearing a skirt."
Arguing with Professor Roberts is more difficult than with Gebhardt, because she presented not inferences and calculations, but only facts. Chief among them are archival documents, according to which 152 American servicemen were convicted of rape in France, and 29 of them were hanged.
The figures, of course, are scanty in comparison with neighboring Germany, even if we consider that behind each case there is a human destiny, but it should be remembered that these are only official statistics and that they represent only the tip of the iceberg.
Without much risk of being mistaken, it can be assumed that only a few victims filed complaints against the liberators with the police. Shame often prevented them from going to the police, because in those days rape was a stigma for a woman.

In France, rapists from across the ocean had other motives. For many of them, the rape of French women seemed like amorous adventures.
The fathers of many American soldiers fought in France in World War I. Their stories must have set quite a few of General Eisenhower's army soldiers on romantic adventures with attractive French women. Many Americans considered France to be like a huge brothel.
Military magazines such as "Stars and Stripes" also made their contribution. They printed photographs of laughing French women kissing their liberators. They also printed phrases in French that might be needed when dealing with French women: "I am not married", "You have beautiful eyes", "You are very beautiful", etc.
Journalists almost in plain text advised the soldiers to take what they liked. Not surprisingly, after the Allied landings in Normandy in the summer of 1944, northern France was swept by a "tsunami of male lust and lust."
Liberators from across the ocean in Le Havre especially distinguished themselves. The city archives preserved letters from the residents of Havre to the mayor with complaints about "a wide variety of crimes that are committed day and night."
Most often, the inhabitants of Le Havre complained of rape, and often in front of others, although there were, of course, robberies and thefts.
The Americans behaved in France as in a conquered country. It is clear that the attitude of the French towards them was the same. Quite a few people in France considered the liberation a "second occupation". And often more cruel than the first, German.

They say that French prostitutes often remembered German clients with a kind word, because Americans were often interested in more than sex. With the Yankees, girls had to keep track of their wallets. The liberators did not disdain banal theft and robbery.
Meetings with the Americans were life-threatening. 29 American soldiers were sentenced to death for the murder of French prostitutes.
In order to cool the heated soldiers, the command distributed leaflets among the personnel condemning the rape. The military prosecutor's office was not particularly strict. Only those who could not be judged were tried. The racist sentiments prevailing at that time in America are also clearly visible: of the 152 soldiers and officers who were court-martialed, 139 were blacks.

Life in occupied Germany

After World War II, Germany was divided into occupation zones. Today you can read and hear different opinions about how people lived in them. Often the exact opposite.

Denazification and re-education

The first task that the Allies set themselves after the defeat of Germany was the denazification of the German population. The entire adult population of the country underwent a survey prepared by the "Control Council for Germany". There were 131 questions in the Erhebungsformular MG / PS / G / 9a questionnaire. The survey was voluntary and compulsory.

The refuseniks were deprived of ration cards.

Based on the survey, all Germans are divided into “not involved”, “acquitted”, “fellow travelers”, “guilty” and “highly guilty”. Citizens from the last three groups were brought before the court, which determined the measure of guilt and punishment. The "guilty" and the "supremely guilty" were sent to internment camps, the "fellow travelers" could atone for their guilt with a fine or property.

It is clear that this technique was imperfect. The mutual responsibility, corruption and insincerity of the respondents made denazification ineffective. Hundreds of thousands of Nazis managed to escape the trial using forged documents on the so-called "rat paths".

The Allies also carried out a large-scale campaign in Germany to reeducate the Germans. Films about the atrocities of the Nazis were continuously shown in cinemas. Inhabitants of Germany also had to go to the sessions without fail. Otherwise, they could lose all the same ration cards. Also, the Germans were taken on excursions to former concentration camps and involved in the work carried out there. For the majority of the civilian population, the information received was shocking. Goebbels' propaganda during the war years told them about a completely different Nazism.

Demilitarization

According to the decision of the Potsdam Conference, demilitarization was to take place in Germany, including the dismantling of military factories.
The Western allies adopted the principles of demilitarization in their own way: in their zones of occupation, not only were in no hurry to dismantle factories, but also actively restored them, while trying to increase the quota of metal smelting and wanting to preserve the military potential of Western Germany.

By 1947, more than 450 military factories were hidden from the register in the British and American zones.

The Soviet Union was more honest in this respect. According to historian Mikhail Semiryaga, in one year after March 1945, the highest authorities of the Soviet Union made about a thousand decisions related to the dismantling of 4,389 enterprises from Germany, Austria, Hungary and other European countries. However, even this number cannot be compared with the number of facilities destroyed by the war in the USSR.
The number of German enterprises dismantled by the USSR was less than 14% of the pre-war number of factories. According to Nikolai Voznesensky, the then chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee, supplies of captured equipment from Germany covered only 0.6% of the direct damage to the USSR.

Marauding

The topic of looting and violence against civilians in post-war Germany is still controversial.
A lot of documents have survived, indicating that the Western Allies were literally taking out property from defeated Germany by ships.

Marshal Zhukov also distinguished himself in collecting trophies.

When in 1948 he fell out of favor, the investigators began to "dispossession" of him. The confiscation resulted in 194 pieces of furniture, 44 carpets and tapestries, 7 boxes of crystal, 55 museum paintings and much more. All this was taken out of Germany.

As for the soldiers and officers of the Red Army, there were not many cases of looting according to the available documents. The victorious Soviet soldiers were more likely to be engaged in applied "hoarseness", that is, they were engaged in collecting ownerless property. When the Soviet command allowed sending parcels home, boxes with sewing needles, cuttings of fabrics, and working tools went to the Union. At the same time, our soldiers had a rather squeamish attitude to all these things. In letters to their relatives, they made excuses for all this "junk".

Strange calculations

The most problematic topic is the topic of violence against civilians, especially against German women. Until perestroika, the number of German women subjected to violence was small: from 20 to 150 thousand throughout Germany.

In 1992, a book by two feminists, Helke Zander and Barbara Jor, Liberators and Liberated, was published in Germany, where another figure appeared: 2 million.

These figures were "pulled" and were based on the statistics of only one German clinic, multiplied by the hypothetical number of women. In 2002, Anthony Beevor's book "The Fall of Berlin" was published, where this figure also appeared. In 2004, this book was published in Russia, giving rise to the myth of the brutality of Soviet soldiers in occupied Germany.

In fact, according to the documents, such facts were considered "extraordinary incidents and immoral phenomena." Violence against the civilian population of Germany was fought at all levels, and looters and rapists fell under the tribunal. There are still no exact figures on this issue, not all documents have yet been declassified, but the report of the military prosecutor of the 1st Belorussian Front on unlawful actions against the civilian population for the period from April 22 to May 5, 1945 contains the following figures: for seven armies front, 908.5 thousand people recorded 124 crimes, of which 72 were rapes. 72 cases per 908.5 thousand. What two million can we talk about?

Looting and violence against the civilian population also took place in the western occupation zones. The mortarman Naum Orlov wrote in his memoirs: "The British guarding us rolled chewing gum between their teeth - which was new to us - and boasted to each other about their trophies, throwing up their hands, humiliated by a wristwatch ...".

Osmar Uyat, an Australian war correspondent who can hardly be suspected of being partial to Soviet soldiers, wrote in 1945: “The Red Army is ruled by harsh discipline. There are no more robberies, rapes and bullying here than in any other zone of occupation. Wild stories of atrocities emerge from exaggerations and distortions of individual cases under the influence of nervousness caused by the immoderate manner of Russian soldiers and their love of vodka. One woman who told me most of the tales of Russian atrocities that made her hair stand on end was eventually forced to admit that the only evidence she saw with her own eyes was how drunken Russian officers fired pistols into the air and bottles ... ".