This photo is often seen with the caption "A Soviet soldier takes away a bicycle from a German woman in 1945". In the original publication of LIFE magazine, the caption under the photo reads: "There was a misunderstanding between a Russian soldier and a German woman in Berlin over a bicycle he wanted to buy from her". But a careful parsing leads to the conclusion that this photo is a staged fake. The location of the photo is on the border of the Soviet and British zones of occupation, near Tiergarten Park, right by the Brandenburg Gate, where at that time there was a Red Army regulation post.
When examining the photo, virtually everyone standing nearby shows complete indifference to the situation. In addition, there is a US Army soldier in the background, also acting indifferently. The photo itself raises a lot of questions.
The soldier is alone and unarmed (he is a "looter" in an occupied city!), his uniform is not up to his size, with a clear violation of the uniform and the use of elements of someone else's uniform. He is wearing a Yugoslavian cap, his trench coat is worn in a different way than was customary in the Red Army, and the material of the trench coat is also not Soviet. Soviet turtlenecks were made of first-class felt and did not wrinkle as it can be seen in the photo. He looted openly, in the center of the city, near the post, and even on the border with the foreign occupation sector, that is, in a place that initially enjoys increased attention.
He does not react at all to the people around him (the American, the photographer), although by all the rules of the genre he should have given up by now. Instead, he continues to pull the wheel, and does it for so long that he has time to be photographed, the quality of the photo is almost studio quality.
The conclusion is simple: to discredit the former allies it was decided to produce a "photo-fact" confirming the "crimes of the Red Army" in the occupied territory. The actor portraying a Russian soldier was dressed in elements of various military uniforms, trying to get as close as possible to the image of a "Soviet soldier".
To avoid conflict with Soviet soldiers, the authentic elements of uniforms, such as epaulettes, emblems and insignia, are not used. For the same purpose, they refused to use weapons. It turned out unarmed "soldier" in the cap of the "Balkan" army, with an incomprehensible cloak or a piece of tarpaulin instead of rolling pin and in German boots. When creating the composition, the actor was deployed in such a way as to hide from the camera the absence of cockades, awards, badges and patches; the absence of epaulettes was concealed by an imitation of a cape, which had to be worn in violation of the statute, which they, quite possibly, did not even suspect.
source:
https://aftershock.news/?q=node%2F1265949#
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