German soldiers from the 1st Fallschirm-Panzer Division Hermann Göring of the Nazi Wehrmacht in the back of a Krupp Protze military truck drive past a motorcycle stuck on Russian off-road. Operation Barbarossa, Eastern Front, World War II.
Location: Ukraine, USSR
Shooting time: autumn 1941
The German truck Krupp Protze went down in history as one of the most original army trucks in its class.
The small automobile company Krupp, which was part of Germany’s largest steel and engineering concern, founded in 1811 by Friedrich Krupp in the city of Essen, began producing trucks in 1906. During the First World War, the company created one of the world’s first four-wheel drive tractors, as well as the Krupp-Daimler chassis for mounting anti-aircraft machine guns or 77-mm cannons and transporting combat crews.
There were several modifications and variants of the Krupp Protze truck:
Kfz.19 – a mobile telephone communication center, was also used as a sound and light meter car;
Kfz.21 – command staff or representative cabriolet on the L2H143 chassis with an open 4-door body;
Kfz.68 – mobile radio unit;
Kfz.69 – truck-tractor 37-mm anti-tank gun PaK-35/36;
Kfz.70 – a standard truck-transporter for transporting personnel;
Kfz.81 – anti-aircraft gun with a 20 mm Flak 38 automatic gun;
Kfz.83 – a mobile anti-aircraft searchlight installation with a power of 8 kW, a diameter of 60 cm;
Sd.Kfz.247 Ausf.A – a specialized staff armored vehicle, 10 units were manufactured.