Snapshots : Wehrmacht on the Mius Front in April 1943.

I've recently acquired a little group of photos which I decided to post here instead of the 'militaria' thread. Soldier snapshots of the Eastern Front from 1941-42 are easy to find, but as the tide turned against the Germans, photos of later stages of are less common.

Luckily, this group has some captions on the reverse ; 'South Russian steppe' and 'Mius 4/43'. This was the River Mius line to which Manstein ordered a strategic retreat in February 1943 and was held by Gruppe Hollidt.

Maybe I'm reading too much into them, but these faces have the look of veterans. The unlined faces of 1941 have gone, and EK2s and Assault Badges can be seen. And the two faces in the grass and flowers certainly don't look like raw recruits. And are those 'German Russians' in the smaller group pic - or Rumanians....?

 

I don't see any Romanian uniforms in the pix. The guy in the vest appears to be a rural Ukrainian, perhaps a Cossack. A lot of Ukrainians and Russians ended up in German service as cooks, laborers, etc, as I'm sure you know.

 

I read Willi , Emil and Fritz , the two on the left are hard to decypher. the group apparently belonged to Emil as he is represented on at least two of the pics with a cross above his head.

 

Must confess I have no idea what Rumanian uniforms look like - but certainly, the man on the left appears to be wearing a quilted jacket ; possibly Russian.....

 

From my knowledge even Russians who fought for the Germans wore German uniforms. Perhaps a German in a Russian coat?

 

My own opinion is that they're Russians - the one on the left is wearing a Russian quilted jerkin.