Two German snipers surrender to GIs of the 3rd Army in Koblenz. The youngster on the right was wounded by US return fire. The Russians took no sniper prisoners; they were invariably shot on sight. March 26, 1945.


Snipers surrender

German infantry slog on, Bolkhov, Orlovskya Oblast, Russia, August, 1942.  "Signal" type photo, contemporary color.  In spite of the myth of the German "motorized juggernaut", the vast majority of German soldiers in WW2 were dependent on their own legs to get about, and on horse-drawn carts to carry their supplies.  Best regards, JR.

"Let us go marching ..."

Karl-Otto Koch was commander of a succession of concentration camps; Ilse entered the system when she became a guard/secretary at Sachsenhausen Camp in 1936.  Otto commanded the camp at the time.

Otto and Ilse were subsequently investigated for embezzlement and murder conducted while Otto was Commandant of Buchenwald Concentration Camp.  Otto had, apparently, drawn attention to himself by murdering SS medical personnel (who had examined him for suspected venereal disease).  Ilse was discharged due to lack of evidence, but Otto was convicted in trial before SS judge Konrad Morgen and executed in 1945.

Postwar, Ilse was tried twice and, in the second trial, sentenced to life imprisonment for war crime.  She failed to secure remission of sentence, and committed suicide,  in prison, in 1967.  Best regards, JR.