Forests, wood and bunkers.

[TabsTabs1964]

In 1978 or 1979 when I was a 15 year old boy I went to the cinema to see this movie.



Sam Peckinpah's unforgettable and shocking insight into the lives of German soldiers on the Ostfront.

I remember three of its characters in their bunkers



James Mason as Col. Strauss
(Although it is not my specialty, I think that the arm of the Krimschild is not the correct one)



David Warner as Capt. Kiesel

And my favourite:



Igor Galo as Leutnant Meyer (next to a samovar!)

To get an idea of how unhealthy the air is inside a bunker in the front, I guess this scene from the movie is quite illustrative

YouTube

Life in the bunker: Dirt & natural body oils can keep you waterproof.

Well, comrades, we have seen life inside. Tomorrow we will finish seeing the dangers that lie in wait outside.
Best regards.

Santi

[Adravor]

Love this post, really shows a glimpse of the conditions the soldiers, which items we all collect, lived in. I might start searching for Albums and pictures myself, once the corona quarantine closes and the flea makets open again.

[TWS]

The really inauthentic haircuts/hair styles bother me. Maybe I'm too OCD, but thankfully more modern films have made their actors wear more authentic hair cuts/styles.

[TabsTabs1964]

Strongly agree Todd. It is a failure of many war movies of the 60s and 70s. It's the truth.

[The Devil's Bank]

This is a great thread, covering all the aspects of a lonely war, miles from home.

Looking at the pictures of the troops inside the bunkers, trying to make it homely.

It just shows how sad and isolated they must have felt.

I too, loved the movie "Cross of Iron", I was only 16 at the time and a militaria shop opened up just over the road from where I lived.

I was in heaven, but these pictures show the reality of war, I wonder how many soldiers in the pictures, ever returned home?

[TabsTabs1964]

Unfortunately, my friend, I imagine that many of them fell and stayed on Russian soil for ever ....

[TabsTabs1964]

We all know that in the forests of Belarus and western Russia, that is to say in the rear of Army Group Central since the summer of 1941 partisan units of very different sizes, operated sabotaging Wehrmacht communications and attacking all targets within their reach.
That was the real danger that lay in wait for the soldiers in the rear.

A few images of those partisans who staged a cruel fight with the German Security Divisions.

[TabsTabs1964]

It was a ruthless fight. The partisans did not take prisoners, if a German soldier was captured, they executed him.
And the same thing happened to them. The captured partisans had a job to do: dig their own graves. Then they were shot.



A captured partisan.



Digging his own grave.



Looking at death.

[Adravor]

Horrifiying pictures. The way they stand arround them gives these pictures an really terrible atmosphere, but it shows very good the cruelty of war.
I´m sad for either side, as after all, they where all humans.

[TabsTabs1964]

The forests of the USSR were the grave for thousands of German soldiers and the men they were fighting against. May they all rest in peace.





This has been all friends, thank you very much for following the thread and for the many kind comments that really are an encouragement to make these threads.