During the Battle of Moscow on the Eastern Front of World War II, in January 1942, the body of an unidentified German soldier lay in the snow-covered wasteland outside Moscow, as a Soviet T-34/76 tank passed by.

　　During the Battle of Moscow on the Eastern Front of World War II, in January 1942, the body of an unidentified German soldier lay in the snow-covered wasteland outside Moscow, as a Soviet T-34/76 tank passed by. This was a Soviet propaganda photograph showing a Soviet T-34/76 tank crossing the snowy wilderness beside the body of a German senior sergeant who had been killed in action.

　　The frozen corpse of the German soldier lay there. Completely stiff and flat as a board, an expressionless face, lying by the roadside, where crows, dogs, wolves, or other animals waiting to devour him lay in wait. A mass of corpses, utterly unwanted by anyone, lay frozen to death, nameless, beside what Russians called the “road” and Germans called merely the “direction” – the same road the superhuman German soldier had marched thousands of kilometers to reach. 

　　The Battle of Moscow raged from October 1941 to January 1942. The German army could only advance to within 20 kilometers of Moscow, suffering over 300,000 casualties. From the start of the war in June 1941, approximately 2.5 million Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner within six months, with nearly 700,000 captured during the first few weeks of the Battle of Moscow. By year's end, approximately 2 million prisoners had died due to German negligence. Beginning in December 1941, the Soviet forces counterattacked, inflicting a major defeat on the German army.