40+ PHOTOS of WWII by the legendary Yevgeny Khaldei

Yevgeny Khaldei/MAMM/MDF
How the Soviet Union's greatest photoreporter captured the tragic war, the common soldier and the senseless destruction.

The most famous military photoreporter of the USSR, Yevgeny Khaldei (1917-1997), photographed pilots, paratroopers, infantrymen and submariners — he was there by their side throughout WWII. He visited the Northern Fleet and documented battles on the Black Sea coast. Together with Soviet troops, he entered Berlin and took one of the most iconic images in history: the hoisting of the Soviet flag over the Reichstag. We put together a retrospective of the photographer’s war period.  

Warning: some images contain scenes of violence. 18+ 

1. Searchlight operators G.I. Troyan and I.A. Ladkin from the Northern Fleet's anti-aircraft battery prepare for the night watch, 1941

2. Infantrymen on the Kola Peninsula, 1941 

3. Reconnaissance scouts on the Northern Front, 1941

4. K-21 submarine

5. Red Army soldiers operate a 45-mm anti-tank gun, 1941

6. Sea shanty. The Red Banner Baltic Fleet, 1942

7. Farewell to a fallen comrade, 1941

8. Aviation torpedo, 1941, Murmansk

9. A downed German Messerschmitt

10. A squadron commander with his crew by an Il-4 plane, 1941

11. Inside the Arctic Circle. Yasha the reindeer, 1941

12. Aircraft inspection, 1941

13. Machine-gunner. The Northern Fleet, 1941

14. Heading to Murmansk, 1941

15. Twice Hero of the USSR Alexander Shabalin of the Northern Fleet, 1941

16. German prisoners of war on the Northern front, 1942

17. 17-year-old nurse Nina Burakova bandages the wounded. She saved the lives of 150 soldiers

18. Refugees fleeing Murmansk after a German air raid, 1941

19. Vitya Cherevichkin. Shot by the Germans in occupied Rostov-on-Don for hiding pigeons ordered to be destroyed, 1941

20. Between battles. Novorossiysk, 1943

21. Female pilots at a frontline dugout, 1943

22. The cruiser Molotov on a campaign, Crimea, 1942

23. The main gun of the cruiser Molotov, 1942

24. Germans prisoners of war in Kerch, Crimea. Winter 1941-42

25. A moment of relaxation. Pilots of the 46th Women's Aviation Regiment of the Taman Division, 1943. Novorossiysk, southern Russia

26. On the frontline, 1943

27. Yak-9D aircraft in the sky, 1944

28. Volley salute in the liberated Sevastopol, Crimea, 1944

29. Diver, 1944

30. Battle in the city. The liberation of Kerch. Crimea, 1944

31. Soviet soldiers tear down the swastika from the gates of the Voikov plant in Kerch. Crimea, 1944

32. Children play at soldiers. Crimea, 1944

33. Hero of the Soviet Union navigator Sergey Dupliy, 1944

34. German prisoners of war, 1944

35. “How wars end”, 1944

36. German-abandoned equipment, 1944

37. Prisoner interrogation, 1944

38. On the Polish-Czech border, 1945

39. A German glider with provisions crashed into a building. Budapest, 1945

40. Comrades are not abandoned. Vienna, 1945 

41. “Why war?” A blind man with guide in Berlin, 1945

42. The Victory Banner over the Reichstag. Berlin, 1945

43. Cigarette break outside the Reichstag. Berlin, 1945

44. Liberated Berlin, 1945

45. “We’ve come from Berlin!” Soldiers return home, 1945

46. Victory Parade, June 24, 1945. Soldiers cast down Nazi banners

47. Disarmament of the Kwantung Army in Chinese Harbin, August-September 1945

48. Flag over Port Arthur, September 1945 

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