Kombat (photograph)
World War II photograph
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Through World War II
History
Over the years, Alpert gave several contradictory versions of the event, with its time ranging from autumn 1941 to 1943. Alpert was consistent in that he did not know the officer's name and that the photograph's title Kombat ('commander of a battalion') was likely inaccurate since after he took it, he overheard that "the kombat is killed" and tentatively associated the message with the subject of the photograph. After the war, Alpert received numerous letters claiming identification of the officer, but only one was confirmed by a joint investigation by Komsomolskaya Pravda and that administration of Luhansk Oblast, which was undertaken in the 1970s. According to the reconstructed version, Yeryomenko was the political commissar in his unit. When the commander was wounded, he took command and raised the unit for a counterattack against the German offensive. He then died within minutes.
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Legacy
The photograph was reused in numerous publications, sculptures, artworks, and commercial products, both in the Soviet Union and abroad.
- Relief on the Alley of Military Glory in Zaporizhzhia, created based on the famous photograph.
- An image of a political instructor, based on the photo, was the emblem of Donetsk Higher Military-Political School of Engineering and Signal Corps and other military and political schools of the Soviet Union.
- The image was used on a postage stamp of the Republic of Congo in 1985, dedicated to the 40th anniversary of Victory Day.
- In Chelyabinsk, the image was used to create metal bas-relief in memory of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The bas-relief is located at the end of a nine-story residential building at Molodogvardeytsev Street, House 48; at the intersection of Molodogvardeytsev and Victory Avenue. During the construction of additional buildings to the complex in the late 1990s, the bas was dismantled and in its place a new, slightly different one was installed.
- The image was used on the cover of the board game Cross of Iron, published by Avalon Hill in 1979, which covers small-unit combat on the Eastern Front in World War II.