The German Army arrives in town

26 June 1941:Another day in the long march East for the infantry footsloggers .

The invasion of Russia meant long marches for the majority of German soldiers.

Accompanying the Wehrmacht invading Russia were many official photographers whose work now sits in the German national archives. These images in the Bundesarchiv often have very sparse background information. Sometimes there are sequences of images which tell us something. Here we see German troops march into a small town for the first time, sometime in June 1941.

We do not know what town - only that it is ‘Russland-Sud’, we do not know the exact date. But these pictures represent how the invasion arrived for the greater part of rural Russia. Only a small part of the invasion force formed the Panzer spearhead, supported by motorised infantry. The vast majority of the invasion force travelled on foot. They experienced day after day of exhausting marching.

Some soldiers provide cover as the main body of the patrol enters a small Russian town.

The initial search of the town is made cautiously.

German troops search houses for hiding places, as they occupy the town.

Some of the residents of the town are apparently welcoming.

Soviet officials are arrested and marched off, watched by the exhausted patrol.

The last image in the sequence shows the Soviet officials as prisoners under armed guard.

Hitlers ‘Commissar Order’ issued by the German High Command on the 6th June had stated that the political commissars attached to Soviet military units were to be separated from other troops and then ‘finished off’. The treatment of non military Commissars was less clearly set out:

4. Political commissars who have not made themselves guilty of any enemy action nor are suspected of such should be left unmolested for the time being. It will only be possible after further penetration of the country to decide whether remaining functionaries may be left in place or are to be handed over to the Sonderkommando. The aim should be for the latter to carry out the assessment.¹

We do not know the fate of the individuals seen here.

1. German History in Documents and Images