Weapons Captured from the

Soviet Union

The German army was exceedingly frugal when it came to equipping troops with firearms and other equipment. Huge stores of foreign war material were captured as countries were annexed, conquered, or as enemy troops were defeated. Some of these weapons were reissued to German soldiers as substitute standards. Soviet arms were captured in such huge numbers that the German military made extensive use of them. They were particularly well suited to use during the harsh Russian winters as they were designed with that purpose in mind. The PPSh submachine gun was exceedingly popular with German soldiers and an adapter was even made to allow the use of MP40 stick magazines in lieu of soviet drum magazines. DP28 machine guns and SVT40 semi-automatic rifles were also quite common and appear frequently in photographs.

In the case of these photos, it is impossible to tell without more context if the soldiers were issued these guns, using them without orders, posing with them as curiosities, collecting them for disposal, or anything else. We cannot merely assume that the fact that we see a soldier holding a foreign gun the German soldier pictures was actually issued it or even using it for any prolonged period of time.