March of prisoners of war of Germans in Moscow. Soviet officers escort German high-ranking officers. Ahead of thousands of convoys of captured soldiers, junior and senior officers led a group of 19 prisoners of German generals.
With a cane and a raincoat – Lieutenant-General Hans Traut, commander of the 78th Wehrmacht Assault Division. His division was defeated and its remains were taken prisoner by units of the 385th Infantry Division in the area of Smilovichi. The commander of the division M.F. Suprunov wrote: “The division was attacked by a large group of German troops trying to get out of the encirclement. Without tanks and artillery, armed with light weapons, i.e. machine guns, rifles and light machine guns, they chained several rows, firing on the move, went for a breakthrough method of psychic attack. Within a few hours this grouping was liquidated. Over two thousand were killed, the rest – about six thousand surrendered. The commander of the corps, the colonel-general was taken prisoner together with his staff. In the 4th volume of the History of the Great Patriotic War on page 193 in the loose leaf, in the lower left corner, a photograph of German generals. This colonel-general walks around Moscow, in his right hand there is a thick cane, on his left hand there is a cloak; so we took him prisoner.”
March of the German prisoners took place on July 17, 1944, demonstrating to Soviet people, as well as to the allies of the USSR, who did not believe in the successes of the Red Army, the results of the defeat of the German troops in Belarus. About 57,000 German soldiers and officers (including 19 generals) passed through the Garden Ring and other streets of Moscow, mostly captured by troops of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Byelorussian Fronts in Byelorussia. The columns were followed by watering machines, symbolically washing away the Nazi dirt from the asphalt.
Location: Moscow, USSR
Date: July 17, 1944
Source of information about the German generals.:
1. 385-division.livejournal.com