Heereskarten - question about starting double S in citynames in German

[wrongplanet67]

When I look at the Heereskarten of the Wehrmacht I notice the not unfrequent use of a double S (SS) at the start of names of cities.

I know the use of a double S in place of the "Eszett" ß sign inside words, but there are no words in German starting with "Eszett" ß or SS.

Can someone explain this double starting S to me. Maybe a native speaker?

Here are a few examples of well known Eastern Front cities, but there are many more cities, towns and hamlets starting with SS on the Heereskarten.

[John A.]

Excellent question!

Thanks for posting!
John

[wrongplanet67]

Thanks, John.
And now a German native speaker to explain ...

[Sonnenwende]

I suspect direct letter-to-letter translation of names from russian Beutekarten (copies of captured russian maps).

Regards
Sonnenwende

[wrongplanet67]

I don’t know as I looked at the (modern) Russian name of those above mentioned larger cities, and all names start with a single cyrillic character “C” for the western character “S”.

[Dietrich Maerz]

There are no words in the German language that start with “ß”, nor are there any that start with “Ss”. I assume that these names are spelled like that due to translastion from Russian language. They have nothing to do with the German language.