WARNING GRAPHIC PICS: What is the story behind these?

[organix]

whilst researching photos of Stalingrad on the internet I stumbled across these horrible pics of literally heaps of dead German troops, obviously taken after the German surrender. What is the story behind these? Were they massacred by Russian troops? Left behind wounded who died at the airfield? Or were they dead collected from the battlefield by the Russians and laid into heaps for propaganda shots? Anybody know the story behind these awful pics?

Apologies for the graphics nature of this post, but I've never come across pics like this of Stalingrad

http://www.russian-victories.ru/stal..._invaders2.jpg

http://www.russian-victories.ru/stal...n_invaders.jpg

[makisraf]

actually those have been in another topic about photographs from Stalingrad...

my opinion was that there are bodies gathered from allover the place...
since at the same topic there where pictures of various items shown in large quantities,
like there where gathering places after the german surrender.
but i asked also if anyone had further info....

[karlo]

http://mosarchiv.mos.ru/images/vystavki/strunnikov/

[John Pen.]

http://mosarchiv.mos.ru/images/vystavki/strunnikov/

Thanks guys...for the reminder;
Never attack Russia during the Winter.

How many times has this lesson been learned?

[Jean-Loup]

It looks like piles of frozzen bodies, probably brought together after the fighting, that are waiting for spring to come so that a mass grave can be dug for them.

[Steven Baumgartner]

http://mosarchiv.mos.ru/images/vystavki/strunnikov/

Wow, talk about some sobering pictures on that site. The pic of the frozen Heer Obergefreiter is moving! Must have been literely hell on earth at the end.

Steve

[John Pen.]

......a VERY Cold- "Hell on Earth"

[Uncle Goose]

since the ground was frozen solid there was no oppertunity to burry all those bodies. Another reason might be that those were collected from all over the ruines of Stalingrad after the German surrender, before that it might have been hard to collect the dead because it would meant risking being shot if they tried to retrieve them. Kind of like No Mans Land in WW1.

[Steinar]

I wonder if the Russians took these uniforms/ german items from the dead... i once read that the Russians took everything they could get with a swastika.

[byterock]

I wonder if the Russians took these uniforms/ german items from the dead... i once read that the Russians took everything they could get with a swastika.

Well not as bad as the Yanks

It was a court-marshal (or worse) offense in the Soviet Army to be in possession of anything that could have 'inelegance' value. Any and all things to with POWs and any captured stuff went to the NKVD and heaven help you if you were some poor Ivan who was unlucky enough to be caught say with a KC as it was 'State Property'

What Ivan wanted was wrist watches and that seem to be this think that they were interested in taking. Watches and any other personal property were not considered state property so it was open season on almost anything else lying around sort f the opposite of the Yanks.

[John Pen.]

Well not as bad as the Yanks

It was a court-marshal (or worse) offense in the Soviet Army to be in possession of anything that could have 'inelegance' value. Any and all things to with POWs and any captured stuff went to the NKVD and heaven help you if you were some poor Ivan who was unlucky enough to be caught say with a KC as it was 'State Property'

What Ivan wanted was wrist watches and that seem to be this think that they were interested in taking. Watches and any other personal property were not considered state property so it was open season on almost anything else lying around sort f the opposite of the Yanks.

byterock,
Intersting point, and most likely true...seems within the Communist code..... but wouldn't a nice German watch be way more valuable than a KC at that time?
Just a thought.
Jp

[W Petz]

I believe the bodies were collected by POW's and burned by the russians due to the numerous types of diseases that were present. I remember seeing some photos years ago showing a funeral pyre...so burial was not an issue.

since the ground was frozen solid there was no oppertunity to burry all those bodies. Another reason might be that those were collected from all over the ruines of Stalingrad after the German surrender, before that it might have been hard to collect the dead because it would meant risking being shot if they tried to retrieve them. Kind of like No Mans Land in WW1.

[KOHCTAHTIH]

byterock,
Intersting point, and most likely true...seems within the Communist code..... but wouldn't a nice German watch be way more valuable than a KC at that time?
Just a thought.
Jp

The communist code said nothing about war booty. Wrist watches were actually not very popular maybe because there wasn't much of it left after campaigns like that one. In reality the most popular item was harp, also know as blues harp , mouth harmonica etc, I hope you know what I mean. When they moved into Prussia the most sought after things shifted from harps to leather coats, furniture, antiques, and cameras. There weren't many good cameras like fully working leicas so those who managed to get one were lucky. Leather coats were VERY popular but those were not military uniforms so definitely not picked on the battlefield. Some people collected various daggers but those were hard to legalize for regular enlisted men so the large part was later confiscated as illegal weapons. No one was actually interested in uniforms or swastika -branded stuff back then. Although I must admit 5RM and 2RM coins with the hoheitsadler were quite popular and used to cost very little on the collectors market up until the early 1990's.But nevertheless for the most people in Russia the good large German harp was and perhaps still is the epitome of the war booty.
Peace

[John Pen.]

KOHCTAHTIH,
Thank-you, that was good and useful information. You seem to know alot about the WWII Russian soldier. THanks for sharing.
The WAF is an excellent tool for learning.
Jp

[Jean-Loup]

"I believe the bodies were collected by POW's and burned by the russians due to the numerous types of diseases that were present. I remember seeing some photos years ago showing a funeral pyre...so burial was not an issue."

Well they definitly buried a fair amount as well, because there are still large numbers of mass graves around Stalingrad today.

JL