In Volgodonsk, elementary school students of school No. 18 were given a letter to fill out by February 23 to Russian servicemen in Ukraine, while in the lower right corner of the sheet the teacher placed a mirror image of an SS man's photograph. This was reported by Notepad. Volgodonsk” referring to the mother of one of the students.
The editors of the publication reported on a letter with a German soldier to the director of school No. 18 Dmitry Shlyakov. Commenting on the teacher's act, he stated that she downloaded the picture from the Internet and did not identify that it was a soldier "not of the Russian army." According to him, the teacher sincerely wanted to congratulate the defenders of the Fatherland and regrets that it happened. The director apologized on behalf of the teacher and the school administration for "the mistake made by the teacher."
When searching for images on Google with the query “German soldier”, this photo was highlighted one of the first by several correspondents of The Insider. At the same time, the media claim that the man in the picture is a soldier named Arno Funk (Arno Funk) or Funke (Funke), Panzergrenadier of the 1st Panzer Division "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler." On Russian military forums , this picture also appears with the caption “German soldier, battle in the Ardennes”, it is noted that the photo could have been taken on December 18, 1944 on the border of Belgium and France.
The Insider was unable to confirm the identity of the German soldier or find authoritative sources that mention the name. However, the uniform indicates that this is indeed an SS soldier. The Russian portal Voenkhronika claims that a German correspondent took photos and videos with a soldier in 1944, immediately after the battle, then was taken prisoner, where these materials were taken from him.
Probably, the soldier could be confused with a navigator with a similar name – Otto Funk from the 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth". In 1944, he was 18 years old, in a photo that looks like a photo of a German soldier from the network, he was captured in Normandy on June 9, 1944. On May 8, 1945, Funk surrendered to American soldiers of the 65th Infantry Division in Austria. He died on September 11, 2011.
