Incredible photographs documenting the devastating rise of the German war machine at the chilling peak of the Third Reich during the Second World War have been unearthed in two albums compiled by high-ranking Nazi Field Marsh Wolfram von Richtofen.
Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen, who was the cousin of the infamous First World War fighter pilot the Red Baron, was a commanding officer in the German invasion of Russia in July 1941.
He documented the devastating Operation Barbarossa in haunting pictures that have never been seen before. They include images of the wiped-out Soviet cities of Minsk, Grodnow and Smolensk, burnt out enemy tanks, thousands of captured troops, female Bolshevik soldiers and rounded-up Jewish citizens.
One of the captured soldiers featured is Yakov Jugashvili, the eldest son of Russian communist leader Joseph Stalin, who went on to die in the notorious Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There are also images showing Nazis in more light hearted moments of the campaign - including a kitten nestled inside a German jack boot and officers catching fish by hurling stick bombs into a lake.
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Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen is pictured here marching benind General Franco during the Spanish civil War
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Operation Barbarossa - before the Russian winter set in. During the campaign the German army captured five million Soviet prisoners of war. The majority of them never returned alive
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Operation Barbarossa: This haunting image shows the destruction caused to the outclassed Russian tanks
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'Stalin's son a prisoner': Richthofen's previously unseen snap of Stalin's son Yakov after his capture near Smolensk in July 1941
The devastated town of Merkin in Operation Barbarossa - homes and buildings across the town have been completely destroyed as the enemy launched their rampage
[h=3]FIELD MARSHAL WOLFRAM VON RICHTHOFEN[/h]
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Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen is pictured here in high spirits during the Spanish Civil War
Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen served in the First World War in the German Air Force and was in the same squadron as his cousin, Manfred von Richthofen, who was credited with 80 aerial victories. Wolfram was inadvertently responsible for the Red Baron's death as Manfred was shot down while trying to defend the novice pilot during his first flight in 1918. He was the youngest field marshal in the German army and he would have gone further in his career, had he not had disagreements with his superior. He trained as an aeronautical engineer between the wars before rejoining the Luftwaffe under Hermann Goering. He designed the so-called Jericho trumpet, the propeller-driven high-pitched sirens on Stuka dive bombers which sent a shudder down any British pilot's spine. In November 1936, he took command of the Condor Legion which carried out bombings in support of Franco's nationalists in Spain. Von Richthofen survived the war but died of a brain tumour in July 1945 and was never put on trial at Nuremberg.
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Ricthofen can be seen here with Hitler at the huge Nazi victory parade for the Condor Legion in the heart of Berlin in June 1939
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The huge Nazi victory parade for von Richthofen's Condor Legion in the heart of Berlin in June 1939
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Ricthofen with Hitler: The unseen personal photo album of Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin to the legendary Red Baron, gives an unprecedented insight into his military career in the Third Reich
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Ricthofen (right) with Hitler at the Nazi victory parade - Wolfram served in the Red Baron's squadron in the WW1, went on to design the 'Jericho trumpet' of the infamous Stuka Bomber between the wars
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Russian prisoners from a burned village are marched away from the burnt out shells of their homes by Nazi guards
[h=3]OPERATION BARBAROSSA[/h]Operation Barbarossa was the name given to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia on June 22nd 1941. Barbarossa the largest military attack of World War Two and was to have appalling consequences for the Russian people. During Operation Barbarossa the German army captured five million Soviet prisoners of war. The majority of them never returned alive. Hitler, appealing to history, called his campaign Operation Barbarossa, after a daring and expansionist medieval German emperor. For the campaign against the Soviet Union, the Germans allotted almost 150 divisions containing a total of about three million men. Among those units were 19 panzer divisions, and in total the Barbarossa force had about 3,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces, and 2,500 aircraft. It was in effect the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history. The Germans’ strength was further increased by more than 30 divisions of Finnish and Romanian troops. Operation Barbarossa had begun to miscarry in August 1941, and its failure was patent when the Soviet counteroffensive started. Although the Red Army experienced greater losses than the Germans during the campaign, the inability of German forces to defeat the Soviet Union marked a significant setback for the German military effort. Source: Britannica.com
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Richthofen in the heady early days of the Operation Barbarossa campaign before the brutal Russian winter set in
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German General Hermann Hoth (left), a German army commander and war criminal during the Second World War
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Ricthofen with Hitler: One of the two personalised albums was compiled just before the war and is of a huge victory parade in Berlin for Germany's Condor Legion, a military unit which supported General Franco in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and March 1939
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There are some images showing Nazis in more light-hearted moments of the campaign - including a cute kitten sat in a German jack boot
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The album even contains a bizarre set of pictures of Richthofen and his cronies fishing with hand grenades during the campaign
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This aerial photograph shows the pockmarked lunar landscape around the Russian city of Smolensk
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Richthofen (right) with General Kesselring: The albums document the 'honeymoon' period of the Third Reich, before the onset of the Russian winter of 1941 which proved a significant turning point of the war
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A pilot in the foreground can be seen in a flight of Henschel Hs 123 biplanes during the lethal Operation Barbarossa
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Russian prisoners can be seen huddled together in the haunting images, awaiting their fate at the hands of the Nazis
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Richthofen (left) with Field Marshal Ernst Busch, a German field marshal during World War II and one of Third Reich's most powerful men
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The photograph, entitled 'Jews are led to work', shows the Nazi guards forcing Jewish prisoners to march through the streets before being made to work
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'Capture of Bolshevik women': Officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans
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Russian prisoners are forced to march along the road with their hands above their heads - but the onset of the Russian winter of 1941 which proved a significant turning point of the war
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Richthofen and his fellow officers killed time and amused themselves by using hand grenades to go fishing
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The Russian prisoners were forced to live in squalid, cramped conditions. More than a million Soviet Jews were murdered by death squads and gassing as part of the Holocaust
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A destroyed tank near Kuznio in Russia - The Russians hit back on the Eastern Front and pushed the enemy back towards Germany. In 1944 the Allies invaded France and forced the Germans to retreat from the west
