Germans or Russians?

[VerKuilen Ager]

I ran across this photo on the German eBay and at first glance thought they were Russians. Then I noted the guy in the back with the ribbon in his buttonhole, started pondering the headgear, and . . . (Sorry for the download on the larger pic.) Reducing it any more made it too fuzzy.)

[Mike H.]

German Kossak unit?

[stogieman]

both?

Maybe two Germans and five Russians??

[Bill M]

--Well, the picture that I can see seems to be a German and a Russian.

[Rick Research]

The guy with the Cossack saber is wearing GERMAN cockades on his RUSSIAN cap. Can't tell about the two guys in back.

The other German headgear is double cockaded, indicating to me pre-11/11/18. Absence of Russian cockades makes me think Kerensky's period or post-Bolshie takeover.

I'm wondering if this is a "joke" picture, Germans dressed up as Russians, 1917-18-- a variation on the girlfriend/wife in the German uniform we see fairly often. If they were German POWs in Russia....

haven't ever seen any pictures of how they were dressed. No inscription or date, of course?

[George Stimson]

Why can't I see the pictures? (This happens on a lot of other threads too....)

George

[stogieman]

I've got it!

The guy in the back is Sepp's nephew Willie (only 17 when the photo was shot, but those cigarette's are aging him). Willie was one of the Dietrich Family's less known members. He had a hideous sense of direction and was rarely asked to pop out for a sausage by his mom, Sepp's sister Gertrude. Willie wandered off the front one day and was found by a band of passing Russians, who initially captured him, but Willie, who thought it was all a joke of some sort, quickly ingratiated himself with his Russian Captors. Many a long night on the front was spent over rat-borscht stew, bemoaning the Tsar and Kaiser. Eventually, our little band became great friends, slipped over the border into Albania and formed the first wholly-autonomous and self supporting collectives of the post WW1 era.

[Newlyn]

Solution

This is a very early Marlborough advert