He Died Saving Horses. Veterinarians of the Wehrmacht. Memories Of A German Soldier.

One of the widely spread stereotypes about the German army is that it is totally mechanized. Actually, this is a misconception. There is no doubt that in the Wehrmacht's advanced troops were concentrated a lot of wheeled, tracked and half-tracked vehicles. But the point is that the core of the German army were the infantry divisions. And there the situation with motorization was completely different. Certainly, the German leadership applied a lot of efforts for motorization of the units. At any opportunity the German infantry divisions were getting any trophy vehicles, including those of civilian origin. Such efforts, nevertheless, made no difference to the whole situation. Up to the end of the war, the typical means of transportation of German infantry divisions was still the horse-drawn vehicles. By September 1, 1939 there were 514 thousand horses for 183 thousand vehicles in the German army. In accordance with the staff of the German infantry division, it was entitled to 6 thousand horses. And as the war continued, the more horses appeared in the Wehrmacht. By 1943, there were more than 1.3 million of them. Obviously, all these horses were in need of treatment, maintenance and everything else...

You can watch this video on YouTube as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfQup3mSncA

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