interesting photos

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/06/world-war-ii-the-invasion-of-poland-and-the-winter-war/100094/

 

Thank you for posting. I had not seen many of these .

Gaines

 

Excellent quality and some are most intriguing

 

Thanks for posting, the captions about the LAH look wrong (LAH was a regiment not a division in 1939) and the one about the German civilians touches two subjects I would like to find out more about:

- Polish atrocities against German civilians in 1939, they are often hinted at but that picture/caption is one of the more detailed things I ever saw (and as many other captions on the page include errors suspect).

- What does the English term "sniper" mean, I suspect a "lost in translation" thing here and a lot of low level "war crimes" depend on the definition you use.
---- IIRC in French Franc Tireur (sniper) refers to an irregular fighter as well as to an elite shooter and as French was the language of diplomacy it was probably the word used in the treaties to refer to irregulars that were not as protected as uniformed soldiers.
---- In Italian cecchino (sniper) is a specially trained or especially good rifleman but always a regular soldier in uniform.

 

Sniping is a person who acts alone to shoot at opponents and may have received specialized training

 

You are right for the term Franc-Tireur. Rather than sniper .

"The term franc-tireur can be traced to the time of the French Revolution. It is rooted in the Medieval Latin expression for a freeman, namely a Franc (from the Germanic Franks). The French verb tirer literally means to pull, but in many contexts also means to fire or shoot. Tirer is often used idiomatically, as in tirer à blanc, to shoot blanks, or tirer la jambe, to drag one’s feet—not, as one might expect, to pull one’s leg. Unlike tirailleurs (skirmishers or sharpshooters), who fought as part of the formed Napoleonic army, francs-tireurs did not wear military uniforms and usually operated in small groups independent of the army."

http://asl-battleschool.blogspot.fr/2012/12/la-verite-sur-les-franc-tireurs.html





The term was also used during the siege of Sebastopol and again in 1870 against the Prussians.
They were supposed to be grnated Geneva Convention terms , as long as they fough tin military units, but that was theory...

I would also translate it by rear guard fighter. Those troops were often left behind the lines, just like the Russian partisans. This term is also given to lone civilians who fired a shot or too at the Germans When they were caught, they were killed as a reprisal for going so.

 

Very interesting photos.

 

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