Two Soviet POWS inspect a toppled statue of Lenin.

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Soviet POWs on their way to Germany. Millionms of Red Army soldiers were sent to Germany where they were used as slave labourers. The vast majority of these men did not survive the war. Another of the innumerable German crimes against humanity.

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German soldiers, with inadequate winter uniforms on the Moscow front, November 1941. Ultimately the harsh Russian winter and the incomprehensible unpreparedness of the Wehrmacht would be two ne of the main reasons for the German disaster on the eastern front.

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July 7, 1941, Soviet soldiers are taken prisoner by the Wehrmacht.

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This photo was taken on June 22, 1941. The photo shows the border guards of one of the checkpoints. They were on guard at night (they were wearing warm sheepskin coats, which in the summer heat are completely pointless to wear). The footage of their capture was published in the German newsreel Deutsche Wohenschau. The border guards surrendered only after a flamethrower was used against them.
 
As can be judged from the newsreels, several soldiers defended themselves for a long time and stubbornly in the customs building. The Germans were forced to use artillery and a flamethrower. Only after that did two soldiers surrender. One of them (in a coat) clearly received a shell shock. The first soldier (in a wadded jacket) was either concussed or wounded in the leg.



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On September 15, his 99th birthday was celebrated by the Honorary Citizen of Veliky Novgorod, front-line soldier of the Great Patriotic War, colonel of armored forces Alexander Petrovich Popov (born September 15, 1922)

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Auto-machine gun system captured by the Finns on the Hanko Peninsula.

The defense of Hanko continued by the forces of the 25 thousandth garrison from June to December 2, 1941, when the garrison was evacuated from the peninsula. And on December 2, 1941, in the final part of the evacuation, the forces of the garrison opened heavy fire on the enemy from all types of weapons to consume ammunition, the guns themselves were then blown up or drowned. All roads and buildings were pre-mined. From the existing pillboxes, barrage, machine-gun fire was conducted in the direction of the enemy in short bursts. The Finns nicknamed the new Russian weapon "Aavekonekivääri" - literally "ghost machine gun".

For 30 minutes, the "machine gun-alarm clock" systems fired from the pillboxes, their device can be seen from Finnish photographs. The tapes connected to each other created a total of several thousand rounds of ammunition. An electromagnetic starter, a car battery, an alarm clock, a wire system and a gramophone record - and before us is an automatic system for covering fire, firing at a certain interval between bursts.

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Matvey Kuzmin: the oldest Hero of the Soviet Union. He accomplished his feat at the age of 83

Matvey Kuzmich was a peasant, hunted and fishing, was unsociable, for which he received the nickname Biryuk. But in August 1941, his native village of Kurakino in the Pskov region was occupied by the Nazis. The commandant settled in Kuzmin's house, who drove Matvey himself into the barn. In early February 1942, units of the Soviet army took up defensive positions near Kuzmin's hometowns.

On February 13, 1942, the commander of the German battalion demanded that Matvey act as a guide and withdraw the German unit to the village of Pershino occupied by Soviet troops. For this, the old man was promised money, flour, kerosene and a hunting rifle. Kuzmin agreed, but, having learned the proposed route, sent his grandson Vasya to the Soviet troops to warn them and assign them a place for an ambush.

Kuzmin himself drove the Germans along the roundabout routes and eventually led the Germans to the village of Malkino at dawn - it was there that the Soviet battalion took up its position. The Germans came under machine-gun fire and suffered heavy losses (more than 50 killed and 20 prisoners). Kuzmin himself was killed by the German commander.

By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 8, 1965, for courage and heroism shown in the struggle against the Nazi invaders, Matvey Kuzmich was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin. It was he who posthumously became the oldest holder of this high title.

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