TheAxisCampaign

🎞️ Exploring The Second World War through the Axis Perspective. Colourised photos and videos of the Third Reich.

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🎥 Raw sound of German Tiger I Tank destroying a Soviet T-34 Tank at the Battle of Kursk, 1943

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Michael Wittmann

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Panzer IV tanks of 1st Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht stuck in the mud

Possibly October 1943.

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Battered corpses of Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and Claretta Petacci lying on the ground.

Official caption on front: "Benito Mussolini and Claretta Petacci lie in battered death in Milan public square, 4-28-45. US Army Photo 178-19."

Milan, Italy. 28 April 1945

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The turret of a German medium tank Pz.Kpfw. III Ausf. G, knocked out on the Eastern Front.

The vehicle is from the 10th Panzer Division of Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group of Army Group Center.

A combat light searchlight is mounted on the gun mantlet.

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🪖 A German landser takes a Soviet soldier prisoner. Soviet Union, 1941/42 .

Given that the German soldier doesn’t have a magazine on his MP-40 points to this being an after-action photo shot for propaganda purposes.

Despite the initial successes, the Wehrmacht suffered an unexpected high number of casualties during the first months of Operation Barbarossa. Although poorly trained and poorly led, the Soviet soldier was well armed and proved to be a tenacious adversary.

Hitler and his generals expected never materialized despite some costly Soviet defeats such as the the Battle of Białystok–Minsk (22 June to 9 July 1941) which resulted in the destruction of the Soviet Western front and the loss of some 420,000 Soviet soldiers.

Two months later an even greater Soviet defeat was suffered at the First Battle of Kiev which resulted in the loss of more than 600,000 soldiers of which more than 400,000 were captured.

This particular photo provides a good example of early/mid war German and Soviet individual equipment and armament. The Soviet soldier was armed with what seems to be a Mosin-Nagant rifle and a 7.62 mm Degtyarev machine-gun.

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Field Marshal Erwin Rommel speaking with soldiers of the Afrika Korps from his Sd.Kfz. 250/3 half-track armored vehicle.

Tobruk Barca Libya North Africa 1941.

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A picture of the Africa Corps, a pilot's grave in Tobruk, the German cemetery.

Date ‘41 or ‘42

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The crew of a German heavy tank Tiger I loading 88mm ammunition into the tank.

Operation Citadel, near Kursk, Summer, 1943.

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Hetzer tank destroyers receiving their guns and mantlets at the Skoda factory.

Czechoslovakia, 1944

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@ConeOfArc Did you jam the rudder of the person that did this?

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🪖 A German machine gun crew armed with an MG-34 machine gun in a firing position.

The second man in the crew has a captured Soviet SVT-40 rifle.

Eastern Front, 1943-1944

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🪖 Wehrmacht infantry approach the wrecks of destroyed Soviet T-34-85 medium tanks of the Red Army.

Pomerania, 15th of March ‘45

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@Rok711750732614 I couldn’t imagine staring down the barrels of a quad .50 😳

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Spotting the famous Sd.Kfz. 234/2 "Puma". Recon vehicles were supposed to avoid fights, but the Puma was built to bite back if cornered.

It packed a 50mm KwK 39/1 gun – the exact same firepower used by late Panzer III tanks. Mounting a gun this big on a wheeled chassis with a fully enclosed turret gave it serious punch, allowing it to easily take on light and medium armor.

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German soldiers with MG 34 and 5cm Granatwerfer.

Stalingrad Sector, October, 1942

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@SilviuA60019 Agreed, but the 42 was cheaper to manufacture and took less man hours to produce. For the Axis, this was the correct decision

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Wehrmacht soldiers on the Eastern Front 1942.

The MG 34 machine gun shown in the photo was later replaced- mainly because it was cheaper to manufacture by the famous MG 42, which was nicknamed "Hitler's Buzzsaw" by the Allies.

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🪖A long road through Ukraine.

German infantry march along a rural road during the invasion of the Soviet Union. Ukraine.

August–September 1941.

#ww2history

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A Soviet heavy tank KV-1 lies abandoned after a battle with German forces in

August 26th, Kolosowo, Soviet Union, 1942.

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📸 German SdKfz. 251/1 half-track at a rail crossing, Aiviekstes, Latvia, June 1941.

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Two German Gebirgsjäger ‘Mountain’ Infantry soldiers man their MG34 machine with Tripod

France, May 1940