Does the Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen Photograph show German Schutzpolizei?

When I published my recent article concerning the famous Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen Photograph (1) arguing that it:

A) Has little to no historical provenance.

B) Shows clear signs of photographic tampering/editing.

C) Showed (probably post-war) Yugoslavian troops not German ones.

I received a counterargument to point C that the photo shows German Schutzpolizei – basically a branch of the regular German police who were recruited into the Einsatzgruppen in the Second World War - using Czech Vz. 24 rifles – which the Germans had captured from Czechoslovakian army stocks in 1938/1939, and which were used by the Germans under the designation of G24(t) (or Gewehr 24(t)) – so I wanted to address and debunk that argument in this article.

Firstly, let’s remind ourselves of what the Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen Photograph looks like:

Now let’s zoom in on the shooter:

So now let’s look at what at what German Schutzpolizei uniforms of the time look like:

Now clearly the shooter in the Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen Photograph has a passing resemblance to a Schutzpolizei uniform, but there are also clear problems with this identification:

A) If the field cap worn by the shooter is a Schutzpolizei one, it doesn’t have the large quite distinctive Schutzpolizei badge on it we can see in the other photos of the Schutzpolizei during the Second World War.

B) The shooter is missing the distinctive German epaulettes (aka shoulder boards) that are universal on German uniforms and are often used as a quick way to identify a German soldier.

C) The shooter’s trousers could be Schutzpolizei jodhpurs (cavalry trousers; normally only worn by officers) but also look wrong because German jodhpurs – for lack of a better way of putting it – were fluffed out wide while the shooter’s jodhpurs are only narrowly fluffed out and look more like baggy trouser.

Further we have also seen from the photos above that German Schutzpolizei on the Eastern front often didn’t wear their jodhpurs preferring the more practical standard military trousers used by regular German troops and which were part of the field variant of their own uniform.

Thus, it would be odd if the photo did show a member of the German Schutzpolizei in jodhpurs, but not impossible.

D) If you look carefully at the shooter, you’ll notice he has a cross belt across his body – which is not a shadow from his rifle’s strap as that is behind is arm and is on the wrong side to be casting that shadow and nor is it a shadow of his rifle as the shadow is falling wrong for that to be the case - which is not part of the German Schutzpolizei field uniform at all.

E) The distinctive German military collar tabs are not visible at all in the photograph which while it is perfectly possible the shooter’s firing position is blocked us seeing them. They are both large and distinctive as we can see from the photographs of the German Schutzpolizei above so it is odd that we cannot see any trace of them at all on the shooter’s form.

Now for contrast let’s look at what Yugoslavian uniforms looked like before, during and immediately after the Second World War:

We can see that unlike the German Schutzpolizei uniform:

A) The Yugoslavian field cap is much more closer to the shooter’s cap in the photograph and like it has a small obscure badge not the large prominent – and usually easily recognizable - one of the German Schutzpolizei.

B) The shooter’s non-decorative plain epaulettes (aka shoulder boards) are completely in line with the much plainer Yugoslavian epaulettes compared to the quite decorative and highly distinctive German ones.

C) The shooter’s trousers fit much better with the loose trouser style jodhpurs worn by all ranks in the Yugoslavian armed forces than the fluffed out rather distinctive ones worn by the German Schutzpolizei.

D) The shooter’s cross belt presents no issue because the Yugoslavian Armed Forces regularly wore cross belts in the field, while the German Schutzpolizei did not.

E) The shooter’s military collar tabs are not visible at all in the photograph which makes sense if the shooter is in a Yugoslavian uniform not a German one, because Yugoslavian military collar tabs are plain and if extant at all are small and rather plain while the German military collar tabs – especially for the Schutzpolizei – were large and very distinctive.

Thus, we can see that despite claims to the contrary the Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen Photograph better fits the shooter being in a Yugoslavian army uniform rather than a German Schutzpolizei uniform.

However, what about the claim that the rifle is a Czech Vz. 24?

Well let’s remind ourselves once again what the rifle in the photograph looks like:

Now this is the Czech Vz. 24 which the Germans re-classified as the Gewehr 24(t):

Compare this to the original Yugoslavian M24 that the Royal Yugoslavian Army were using widely before and during the Second World War:

Now this is the Yugoslavian M24/47 which was first produced in 1947:

Looking at this we can see that the Czech Vz. 24, the Yugoslavian M24 and the Yugoslavian M24/47 rifle are very similar weapons as they all use the German Mauser as their base and their profile is similar.

However, there are two significant differences we can see between the rifles which is the length of the thin cleaning rod relative to the barrel sight and the size and shape of the barrel sight itself.

If we compare them to the rifle in the Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen Photograph we can see that the rifle in the photo has its cleaning rod ending around the start of the barrel sight unlike the Czech Vz. 24 whose cleaning rod ends at the end of the barrel sight as does the Yugoslavian M24, while the Yugoslavian M24/47 fits the bill perfectly.

Further the size of the barrel sight on the rifle is very large relative to the barrel in the photo which simply doesn’t fit the smaller barrel sight on the Czech Vz. 24 and the Yugoslavian M24 but does closely mirror the oversized barrel sight on the Yugoslavian M24/47.

Now based on the above we can see that the likeliest candidate for the rifle in the photo is actually the Yugoslavian M24/47 that was first produced in 1947 which would date the Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen Photograph to after 1947 and means that it cannot possibly show German soldiers in Ivanhorod in the Ukraine in 1942.

In addition, the identification of the rifle being a Czech Vz. 24 by those desperate to rehabilitate the Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen Photograph is not evidence for a German identification given that it was also widely used by the Yugoslavian armed forces at the time! (2)

Thus we can see that the case for the Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen Photograph showing German Schutzpolizei circa 1942 rather than Yugoslavian army troops from sometime around 1947 is weak at best and heavily relies on blithe claims that it ‘looks like’ a German soldier - when it really doesn’t - rather than on the (near non-existent) providence of the photograph which would normally be the means by which such photographs would be authenticated.

References

(1) See my articles: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-myth-and-reality-of-the-ivanhorod and https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/an-english-translation-of-professor

(2) Robert Ball, 2011, ‘Mauser Military Rifles of the World’, 1st Edition, Gun Digest Books: Appleton, p. 121