The Nazi Propaganda! on the back of the image reads: "Three Olympic champions- three fighters at the Don. During the defense battle on the Don river, the three Olympic champions have met on the command post: The horse rider, the javelin thrower, and the parallel bar gymnast (Knight's Cross bearer Colonel Freiherr von Oppeln, Lieutenant Stöck, and Corporal Steffens). In the happy hour of the reunification, old memories of glamorous sport victories resurface, and everything is forgotten for a short time; that's when they are only sports comrades (r-l Stock, v. Oppeln, Steffens)." Image from the Eastern Front/Russia, 3 April 1943. The attack on the Soviet Union by the German Reich was agreed on in July 1940 and prepared as the "Operation Barbarossa" since December 1940. On 22 June 1941, the invasion by the German Wehrmacht began. Photo: Fotoarchiv für Zeitgeschichte/Archiv