Hauptmann Friedrich Konrad Winkler was the Kompanieführer (Company Commander) of the 6. Kompanie / Grenadier-Regiment 577 during the battles at Barrikady Gun Factory in Stalingrad. In January 1943, his regiment was destroyed. Winkler was captured in February and he died shortly after his capture, at the age of 34 in POW camp Beketowka.
In the image below you can clearly see that he was wearing a broken Infantry Assault Badge. Breaking the assault badge was commonly done by the Stalingrad veterans as an indication that earning the assault badge in Stalingrad was a different level of achievement than earning it somewhere else.
Read the full story about Friedrich Winkler here: http://argunners.com/story-behind-famous-stalingrad-photograph/
Friedrich is one of two miniatures that we are creating for Huzzah Con in the US and their Battle of Stalingrad theme for 2017. They will be first launched at the event and will become available afterwards in our online store and at our resellers.
In the meantime, join the Stoessi’s Heroes group on Facebook and possibly also our Facebook page, so that you don’t miss any announcements for new releases. Also don’t forget to check out Huzzah Con’s Facebook page.
Irgendwas stimmt mit der “Helmkrempe” hinten nicht, die scheint sich wie Stoff zu verhalten und an der Schulter mit zu biegen. Kann aber auch sein,dass das nur auf dem Render so aussieht. Ansonsten sehr schicke Figur.
[…] Meet the Heroes: German Hauptmann Friedrich Konrad Winkler […]
Heartbreakingly sad. Hauptmann Friedrich Konrad Winkler, a hero of the Third Reich and the thousands of soldiers who served with him. 34 is too young to die and I wonder about his family in Germany and whether they survived the war. There are no war crimes; war is a crime in itself.
The German Wehrmacht was the greatest fighting machine the world has ever seen and the most honourable.
Hauptmann Winkler and all the gallant German soldiers who died at Stalingrad are at peace and will never be forgotten.
I lost my entire family for being Jewish. Your post is offensive. Genocide and attempting to destroy my culture only makes your rationalizations a major lie. Hope what happened to the Jews happens to you anti semite. There was no excuse for murdering a 3 year old. Germans who wore a uniform and the people who supported them ate no heroes they are killers
You both generalise too much. Wearing a German uniform didn’t make you a hero or a killer by default. Millions of men were conscripted. Farm hands, old men, young men. Many good men too, clear of any war crimes. The holocaust was indefinitely evil. But regarding conscripted soldiers, lots of them were better or worse persons than you or me. Times were different and you couldn’t just say “no” in these times, you also weren’t so informed in those days and nor in the wars before that.
Aw poor Chris
I think Friedrich konrad Winkler is the face of Stalingrad for the German army hundreds of thousands of German troops were killed in Russia not much is known about any of them Friedrich Conrad Winkler has history & a background that you can identify with when you look at the pics and his history you realize he was a person he was 34 years old when he died from what I read he was never guilty of any war crimes he was a professional soldier
Au hasard je suis tombé sur Friedrich Winkler. Le personnage m’a intéressé c’était un officier courageux, mort en captivité. Je ne le confond pas les dirigeants nazis, qui étaient des monstres a l’image du nazisme. Et bien que je regrette la mort du soldat Winkler, je salue la victoire des russes a Stalingrad, et le début de la fin de Hitler et de ses sbires