Germany

Crew of German U-550 U-Boat abandon ship and await rescue on the deck. April 16th, 1944. The German submarine torpedoed and sunk the massive Pan Pennsylvania tanker, which was trailing behind its convoy south of Nantucket Island. Expecting a counterattack from the US convoy CU 21, captain Klaus Hanert decided, …

Wehrmacht soldiers surrender to Soviet troops in the district of Tula, late 1941. The Soviet soldier is carrying a SVT-40 semi automatic rifle. The SVT-40 was used intensively at the start of the war and was supposed to be the new standard rifle of the Red Army, but the German …

A British sentry guarding an injured German officer, while waiting for backup, during the first two days of a British offensive in the Egyptian desert. North African campaign, November 13th, 1942. Book suggestion ⤵️ 📖 Desert War: The North African Campaign 1940-43 (Alan Moorehead, 1965)

Periscope view from a German U-Boat as it hit and sunk an enemy vessel with a torpedo, 1942. Other details are unknown. Book suggestions ⤵️ 📖 Iron Coffins: A Personal Account of the German U-boat Battles of World War II (Herbert A. Werner, 1968) . 📖 U-Boat War (Lothar Gunther …

German U-boat with crew posing beside a frozen deck gun in the Polar Sea, probably the Arctic Circle, sometime in 1942. Book suggestion ⤵️ 📖 U-Boat War (Lothar Gunther Buchheim, 1986)

German policemen (Ordnungspolizei) sharing a smoke with a French colonial prisoner. Vichy, 1940. The Ordnungspolizei were the uniformed police force of Germany between 1936 and 1945. Book suggestion⤵️ 📖 The Volksdeutschen in the Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS, Ordnungspolizei in World War II (Rolf Michaelis, 2012)

Generaloberst Heinz Guderian, a World War I veteran, was one of the pioneers of tank warfare in Germany. Guderian studied this concept between 1922 and 1928, becoming a leading expert on tanks despite not setting foot into one before 1929 (due to the Versailles treaty restrictions). Because of the same …

Sandbags are cleared off the facade of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, as Germany occupied the city unopposed on June 14th 1940. The sandbags were used by Parisians to protect Notre Dame against bombardments. Paris and its invaluable cultural and architectural heritage was saved twice from destruction during World War …

Panzer III tanks leaving the production plant in October 1942, alongside stacked piles of tracks. Book suggestion ⤵️ 📖 Achtung-Panzer!: The Development of Armoured Forces, Their Tactics and Operational Potential (Heinz Guderian, 1937)

The bombing of Dresden (13-15 February 1945) has been a highly controversial topic of debate over the years. Trying to force Germany into submission, the British and the Americans bombed a civilian city with little strategic importance, killing around 25.000 civilians in the process. During and after the war propaganda …