Three photographs of Jewish Brigade soldiers beside fragments of the infamous Nazi Stuka plane, marked with a swastika, Holding Nazi shoulder-fired missiles that fell to the loot, at the end of the war, after the Allied victory. c. 1945.
The Nazi 'Stuka' plane [short for 'Sturzkampfplugzeig' - "dive bomber" in German], was designed to dive while playing a blood-curdling scream, which became the sound most identified with World War II. Many tools and symbols were developed by German engineers just to intimidate their enemies and victims, One of these tools was the 'Stuka' plane which was designed in a particularly cruel way - while diving it makes a terrifying noise. The plane was designed by Herman Pullman in Dessau, Germany. The plane was considered at the time to be the most advanced diving bomber in the world. It is designed to attack with a direct dive to its target, thus allowing a much more accurate hit than just going over the target and dropping bombs in the hope that one will hit. The Nazis did not have enough, however, and Hitler himself thought of a particularly cruel development - to add to the plane the so-called "Jericho Trumpets" - two large horns that work on small propellers and sit close to the wings. Anyone who fell in the goal of the Stuka would hear the siren's scream approaching, faster and faster, until the sound hit the whole body - and he will be afraid that in another moment the bomb would hit. From attack to attack, the enemy learned to link the scream to death, to the level of cognitive conditioning: when the siren sounds, soldiers will freeze in place even in the middle of an assault and be run over for their lives. When the conditioning intensifies, soldiers will flee to the shelter even if they hear a Stuka in a nearby area or even just a similar horn - a physical and psychological weapon in one plane. In the invasion of Poland by the German armies at the beginning of the war, it was the Stuka planes that led the attack. Residents of the Polish city of Wieluń woke up to the sound of death sirens, and were horrified to hear a chain of explosions. About 290 Stuka planes participated in the invasion of Poland, and proved to be a huge success; Every country the Germans entered heard the sirens screaming - both at the front and at the rear. From Poland to France and England, from North Africa to Russia - all the enemies of the Nazis learned to recognize and curse the death siren. It was a proud symbol of the Nazi Air Force. Therefore the soldiers of the jewish brigade chose to be photographed in a group photo right next to the remains of this plane which symbolized most of all the end of the Nazi era.
Photographs of the same size: 9x7 cm. Good condition.
