Kuznechik, a camel, followed the Red Army’s 308th Rifle Division from Stalingrad (1942/3) to Berlin (1945), according to A Writer at War, Vasily Grossman, by Antony Beevor.
The Red Army Camel
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Author Archives: Robert
Gas Masks: Not Just for People
One Size Does Not Fit All During—and before—the war, gas masks were fitted to pets as well as to working animals.
Memories of the gassing horrors from the First World War were still fresh. Continue reading
Patton Pis
Patton Pissing in the Rhine?
George S. Patton crossed the Rhine in March 1945 at Oppenheim, south of Frankfurt. While still on the pontoon bridge, the irrepressible American general heard the call of nature – and answered it.
And he was supposedly photographed doing so. Continue reading
Shostakovich Leningrad Symphony
Shostakovich’s Starvation Symphony
A Red Army soldier purchases a ticket for the historic – in some ways, miraculous – performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh – the “Leningrad.” At the time, cats – being edible – were more valuable than roubles. Continue reading