Volkhov: Feldwebel Traber of the 7th Company firing propaganda ammunition, July 1942.
The device Sergeant Traber is striking here is a so-called propaganda canister (or leaflet-launching tube).
The Soviet 2nd Shock Army, which had breached German lines along the Volkhov River starting in January, was encircled in June 1942 and largely destroyed. In all likelihood, the leaflets fired from this device were rained down upon the remnants of these units to induce them to surrender.
The tube embedded in the ground serves as a mortar; it was typically a simple, smooth-bore metal pipe.
A special leaflet-carrying shell was loaded into this tube. This shell had no explosive effect in the conventional sense; instead, it contained a propellant charge designed to blow off the shell’s nose cone at a specific altitude—triggered by a time fuse—allowing the leaflets to scatter over the target area.
These improvised launchers were often designed to be fired by striking a firing pin or a mechanical mechanism at the base of the tube (or, in this instance, possibly by manual activation at the top rim, if it was a very primitive model). In the photograph, it appears as though he is manually actuating the firing pin using a heavy object or a specialized tool.
The visually distinct text was created in July 2026 with the help of the AI Gemini. - Page translated with Google.
