Atmospheric high-altitude photo taken in Chmahara Pass at 2486 meters in the Caucasus, showing a Gebirgsjäger with a MG 34 machine gun mounted on a tripod "Lafette 34" with telescopic sight, scanning the horizont, in 1942.

In the Caucasus

Crimean Tatar soldiers in German (Heer) service, (?) Winter, 1942-'43.  The Tatars were - and are - the Red Indians of south Ukraine.  If the Russians can advance an historical claim to the Crimea, this is rather similar to the claim of the "Americans" to the Black Hills of Dakota.  The Crimean Tatars were an oppressed minority in the midst of a Russo-Ukrainian colony of relatively recent origin in their own traditional lands.  The support afforded by many Tatars to the Germans attracted retribution from Comrade Stalin after the war - most of them were deported to Siberia and other points of exile.  Many subsequently returned to the Crimea - only to find themselves, again, a threatened minority with an distinctly uncertain future.  Best regards, JR.

Crimean Tatars in German service.

Confused German occupiers, fresh from the boat, and Norwegian sentinel keeps guard in Trondheim on April 9, 1940. Neither the Germans nor the Norwegian soldier knows what's going on.