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Frontier post on the line of demarcation between Russia and Lithuania.
A horde of German panzers formed in columns advances across the Russian steppe during the summer of
1941. Field Marshal Von Manstein advised to Hitler that England should be conquered before attacking the Soviet Union, but Hitler
was very suspicious about Stalin. Fearing that he had the intention to attack Germany, the Soviet Union should be invaded before
the Red Army could reorganize its forces, at that moment still weakened by the purges of Stalin.
In the middle of the Russian steppe, a German high officer gives the last instructions.
Italian officers in the Eastern Front. Making use of his usual rhetoric, Hitler easily convinced Mussolini to join forces against
the Communism. But from the very beginning, it was seen that the Italian Army was not prepared at all for this challenge.
A Russian town in flames. The retreating Russians leave only ruins to the enemy.
The German weekly propaganda magazine Signal published this photograph in September 1941, to explain that German soldiers put
effort into saving the buildings burnt by the retreating Russians.
Some Soviet medium tanks T34/76 immobilized on a muddy terrain in the area of Tolocin, near the river Drut. At the beginning of
the campaign, the German invasion was helped by the inability of the Russians troops to properly exploit the full potential of
their armored forces.
The city of Vitebsk burnt down and abandoned by the Russians. This was the dramatic image that the Germans found.
A burning izba in the periphery of Smolensk.
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The 22nd June 1941 the German advance into Russia begins. In this photograph a German officer watches through binoculars a column
of smoke that arises in an area where the panzers have just passed by.
A medium tank Panzerkampfwagen III photographed while moving across a burning Russian village, in the summer of 1941, during the
campaign of invasion which was called Operation Barbarossa.
A medium tank Panzerkampfwagen III crosses a river helped by a bridge quickly assembled by engineers. The advance cannot
have any pause and any obstacle must be overcome to prevent the reorganization of enemy forces.
As it had happened during the Napoleonic invasion of Russia, the Soviet Army resorted to a tactic known as "scorched land" to
leave only ruins and destruction to the enemy.
Some German soldiers listening to the Headquarters bulletin on a radio connected to a truck battery.
German grenadiers supported by a MG 34 machine gun advance with caution across the Ukrainian countryside. The Germans, delaying
the assault on Moscow, directed their efforts against the southern regions, which would grant access to the grain of Ukraine and
the rich oilfields on the Black Sea and the Caucasus.
Two German soldiers lay a signal flag on the steppe to serve as indication to aviation about the position of attacking ground
troops.
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