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03-28-2020 11:10 PM
# ADS
Circuit advertisement
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For a soldier, washing with soap and water, shaving and cutting their hair regularly, and being able to wash their underwear and have a change of clean clothes, were, together with adequate food, a guarantee to stay healthy.
Short hair was not a whim. it was a matter of personal hygiene.
This soldier has left us his toiletry bag open: razor, brush and shaving soap, toothbrush, soap, and a small mirror.
Last edited by TabsTabs1964; 01-01-2023 at 05:21 PM.
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But everything began to change when at the end of September the east wind began to bring the aroma of Russian autumn. With it would come rain and mud first, and later snow and cold. Then the soldiers would have to start looking for refuge to spend the nights.
There were only two accommodation possibilities for the German troops. On the one hand the huts and houses of the peasants of the occupied populations and, on the other, the bunkers, shelters and positions built by the soldiers.
TABSTABS collection
With the last heat of summer the houses and cabins of the peasants, still offered a friendly perspective for the soldier, they could wash themselves with the water from their well and wash clothes
Depending on the stability of the different fronts, in the winters from 1941 to 1944 there were bunkers and shelters that were very well equipped and with certain comforts, although in general they all had poor ventilation (both to protect themselves from the cold, as well as the fact of being totally or partially under ground, to protect its occupants from Russian artillery)
In both places the same situation would occur: many people together in very little space. Cold outside and increasingly limited possibilities for body cleaning and washing clothes.
As we already imagined this would end up causing a lot of discomfort first and later a serious health problem for an entire army
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It is interesting at this time to make two quotes from David Stahel. One from his book "Operation Typhoon" and the other from "The Battle for Moscow"
Operation Typhoon.- “The homes of the Russian peasants also posed new problems for the soldiers. When the Germans routinely inhabited the peasant houses, a new and life-threatening plague was introduced into the German army. As the soldier Helmut Güther wrote: it was not a secret that we were infested with lice since the cold forced us to go inside buildings, as it was no longer possible to sleep in the open.
On October 15, 1941, soldier Erich Hager wrote in his diary: lice, bugs, fleas, their armies! And helmut Pabts wrote: I was alone in a house, I lit a match and the bugs fell from the ceiling. Regiments of insects crawled along the walls and floor. Next to the fire was quite black, a hideous living carpet. As I stood still I could hear the constant murmur.
The Battle for Moscow.- “The ransacked houses and Russian clothes were generally infested with lice and the human body is the only vector of Rickettsia prowazekii, a bacterium that causes epidemic typhus. Lice had been a growing problem for Germans since September, when they first started talking about peasant houses, but typhus was starting to appear now and would soon reach epidemic proportions, producing some 10,000 deaths among Germans, mainly in 1942. Soldiers were frequently warned of the importance of keeping lice free, but in the cold they had little scope to protect themselves from infection or to get rid of parasites without changing clothes. One soldier wrote: Although we were freezing, we were still providing enough heat to the lice that fed on us. We were simply tormented by those bugs. Some soldiers insulted the civilian population by calling it lice machines and blaming it for their homes being infested. However, the countrymen's houses were better than freezing. Soldiers wrote to their homes asking their families to send them ointments or lotions that could rid them of lice. The problem was that many men did not have a change of clothes to change while cleaning their uniforms, so the lice that remained on the body guaranteed a rapid infestation.
So lice were the vector for Rickettsia prowazekii, the bacterium that causes epidemic typhus; but they also transmitted another bacterium, Rickettsia quintana, which caused trench fever and recurrent fever. In addition, mites, ticks and fleas transmitted spotted fever.
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