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Comment by Hikikomori | Hacker News Reader

Looks more Soviet.

It should also be noted that if this was any time after 1943 or even after WWII, young men were in short supply in Soviet states. The young women's eagerness is what makes the photo interesting for modern eyes, but period eyes would understand that her eagerness is a nationwide phenomenon and a symptom of losing almost 10 million young men (10 million in uniform, in addition to the 15 million civilians dead which presumably affected men and women equally).

I think the Russians drafted a hell of a lot of young women into the Red Army, as well. They had women on the frontlines, getting shot up, as bad as the guys.

I had absolutely no idea!

Any old Russian woman (I mostly know Russians, not many from other Soviet states) will tell of the shortage of men. I never heard of the women on the front lines, I'll ask about that. I'm afraid we don't have much time to learn these things any more.

This is not something that I have studied (thus the “I think”), but Stalin did “meat wave” attacks, long before Putin. It worked, but at terrible cost. I think he grabbed everyone he could, but mostly men, I would imagine. Maybe women volunteered, but weren't drafted. I do know they had them in the frontlines. You actually see them, in old footage.

I do know that he had women combat pilots. I think there was a movie, made about that.

I will definitely look into this, thank you very much.

The grey tunic looks German WW1 (Bavarian Artillery?) but the insignia on the hat looks like the Panzer division.

The logo looks like the bottom part of the Heer Panzer insignia (without the Nazi eagle, above).

I note that the guy in the foreground is wearing a gray suit, but the hat is green.

Definitely prop stuff.

One of the things that I find amusing about Internet "found historical photos," is that women are usually made up with modern styles. I would not be surprised if they were originally done as fashion shoots, like this one.

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