Late in January 1945 a captured German medic is about to be frisked by American soldiers in the freezing temperatures of the Belgian Ardennes. This picture is said to have been taken in the Bütgenbach area, a sector that the veteran 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, bitterly fought over from 16 December 1944 until 7 February 1945. The large red crosses that German medics wore over their uniforms occasionally reminded GIs of medieval knights. But for this POW Hitler’s European ‘crusade’ has come to an end.
