Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East

Photo insert (in Chapter 5)

German troops in Russia, summer 1941. NARA 242-GAP-286B-4. German assault gun on the move over dusty roads, June–July 1941. Note the juxtaposition of mechanized and horse-drawn transport. BA Bild 101I-136-0882-13. German infantry marching through a village in the Baltic, June 1941. BA Bild 101I208 -0027-04A. German infantryman before a dead Red Army soldier and burning Soviet BT-7 tank, Ukraine, June 1941. BA Bild 101I-020-1268-36. German soldiers watch a burning synagogue in a small Lithuanian village, June 1941. BA Bild 183-L19427. The intensification of anti-Jewish policy began simultaneously with the invasion of the Soviet Union. Here, Jewish men and women are shoveling their own graves under the watchful gaze of SS men, Storov, Ukraine, 4 July 1941. BA Bild 183-A07060018 -029. Red Army prisoners were not spared the impact of the hunger policy. Distribution of bread to Soviet prisoners of war, Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 28 July 1941. BA Bild 146-1979113 -04. Himmler visiting a camp for Soviet prisoners of war, Minsk, Belorussia, August 1941. At roughly the same time as this visit, Himmler, acting on an order from Hitler, vastly expanded the killing operations in the east. NARA 242-HB-47721-306. Vitebsk: Transport of Soviet prisoners of war in an open rail car, 21 September 1941. In the winter of 1941–1942, this policy often resulted in large numbers of the prisoners freezing to death before arrival at the prison camps. BA Bild 101I-267-0124-20A. Two German soldiers before a burning building and a billowing cloud of flames, October 1941. BA Bild 101I-268-0154-11. The impact of weather and primitive Russian roads is clearly visible as a German vehicle attempts to negotiate a muddy road in a small village in the Moscow region, November 1941. BA Bild 183-B15500. The fierce snowstorms of Russia burdened both humans and animals, making movement virtually impossible. A German soldier urges on a horse pulling a panje wagon through deep snow, winter 1941–1942. BA Bild 101I-215-0366-03A. Hunger! Russian women carve a dead horse for food, February 1942. BA Bild 183B15171 . The fierce fighting of the winter is clearly evident from this photograph of the Kholm pocket, where Germans have stacked dead Red Army soldiers to form a protective wall, early 1942. BA Bild 101I-004-3633-30A. The spring rasputitsa turned western Russia into a sea of mud. A horse-drawn wagon struggles through deep mud near Kursk, March–April 1942. BA Bild 101I289 -1091-26. The lack of a quick victory and the need for workers forced the Germans to resort to foreign workers. Here we see the deportation of forced laborers for the German armaments industry, Artemovsk, Ukraine, May 1942. BA Bild 183-B19867. The decision to use Ostarbeiter in German industry doomed Jews to a different fate. Deportation of Jews to an extermination camp (probably summer 1942). BA Bild 183-68431-0005.1942. The second attempt at a blitzkrieg triumph. A panzer commander on the DonStalingrad front surveys the situation as his forces seem swallowed by the vastness of the steppe, July 1942. BA Bild 101I-218-0510-22. German infantry on the march in southern Russia, August–September 1942. BA Bild 101I-217-0465-36. Stalingrad: A German captain takes cover in the debris of the Barrikady artillery factory , October 1942. BA Bild 116-168-618. Stalingrad: The nerve-wracking nature of house-to-house fighting is illustrated as German soldiers with an MG 34 machine gun and rifles anxiously peer out the window of a building, autumn 1942. BA Bild 101I-617-2571-04. Stalingrad: German soldiers patrol in a destroyed industrial area, autumn 1942. BA Bild 116-1974-107-66. Stalingrad: The swastika flies bravely from the ruins of the department store in whose cellar Paulus had his headquarters, October 1942. BA Bild 183-B22531. Stalingrad: The face of an exhausted Landser after storming the Barrikady artillery factory, November 1942. BA Bild 183-R1222-501. Executed Soviet partisans, 20 January 1943. The sign at the top says, “We are bandits ; we have not only murdered and plundered German soldiers but also Russian citizens.” The sign at the bottom reads, “Photography prohibited!” BA Bild 101I-0312436 -05A. The cruelty...