Infantrymen of the Wehrmacht's 17th Army during rest after street fighting in Rostov-on-the-Don.

Break-time

A group of Red Army troops surrender in a wheat field to German soldiers of the 16th Army of the Wehrmacht. Army Group "North". 
 

Arms raised

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.