Snow, driving wind, and lack of shelter aggravated the situation of the dead-tired retreating soldiers, suffering from constant hunger and decimated by frostbite in the bitter cold. The weak and wounded often fell by the wayside, just to freeze solid stiff in a short while by the side of the road.

Honved Retreat in Russia, 1943

A series of Soviet attacks drove the Axis forces back on the Don River front during 1942-1943. First came the Romanians and Italians, and then in January, 1943, came the turn of the Hungarians and Germans. After suffering heavy casualties, here Hungarian Honved columns are retreating toward the West in below zero winter weather on the open, snow-swept Russian steppe.

Honved Retreat from the Don, 1943

Once the lines broke after days of fighting, the Hungarian battle dead could not be attended to, so they lay twisted in frozen clusters along the Don, as a sad testimony to the horrors of WW2.