r/wwiipics • • 13h ago

Some unique photos of Finnish soldiers and military personnel in heavy winter clothing during the Soviet-Finnish Winter War (1939-1940)

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63 Upvotes

The Winter War was one of the coldest battles in the entire military history, and the conditions were comparable to Moscow and Stalingrad on the Eastern Front. The winter of 1940 was one of the harshest ones of the entire 20th century in Finland, with temperatures dropping as low as -43 degrees Celsius (-45 Fahrenheit) in Eastern Finland where the battles were fought. Still, thanks to heavy pre-war cuts to defense spending, the Finnish army was able to issue only the basic field uniforms to most of its soldiers. This forced the men at the front lines to bring all sorts of civilian coats and winter clothing from home to help survive the freezing cold, leading to a very irregular look, sarcastically nicknamed ”the model Cajander” by the troops. (After the pre-war Finnish defense minister.) 


r/wwiipics • • 3h ago

Old unknown ceremony

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2 Upvotes

Hey

I was going through a photoalbum with old old pictures. This is apperently a picture of my grandmas dad (on the far right)

Im trying to find out what kinda ceremony this might be and what it meant. AI gives alot of different answers so i figured i might ask here and see if anyone could give my any clues?

The back of the photo has a text

"Ferd. Urbahns

Hofphotograph

Kiel"