A German Oberfeldwebel is preparing to undermine a section of the Russian railway and telegraph poles in the Grodno region during the retreat of the Wehrmacht from the Nazi-occupied Belarus, USSR. Eastern Front, World War II.
At the time of the picture, this German Oberfeldwebel is inserting a fuse into a stick of dynamite. July 16 – 17, 1944.
Since the summer of 1943, during the retreat from the territory of the USSR, the Wehrmacht pursued a policy of “Scorched Earth“. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet civilians were forcibly removed to Third Reich, infrastructure was destroyed. All that was left was the desert.
Location: Grodno, Belarus, USSR
Shooting time: July 1944
Author: Moller