In September 1939, thousands of German soldiers wereturned loose on Poland. In 1940, they descended onHolland, Belgium and France. In 1941 they went to theBalkans, and then to the USSR. Armed with Leica andRolleiflex cameras, some of these soldiers were officiallycommissioned as photographers, while others were askedby their commanders to snap records of events. Amongthem were trainees who knew about the Bauhaus, andother, older men who could remember Weimar. Someexcelled at formal portraiture, others were storytellers,stylists or humanists who wept at what they saw. Thestyle and content of their work changed along with thecollective mood after 1942, a change that is discernible inthe photographs themselves.Celebrated author and art historian Ian Jeffrey author of How to Read a Photograph and The PhotographyBook has trawled through these albums, picking out themost compelling of these works to create an intimate recordof anonymous lives experiencing the unprecedented.