Timeline for Did the Soviets learn about the SS tattoos only in late 1945 (and why so late)?

5 events

when toggle format	what		by	license	comment
Jun 26 at 11:22	comment	added	quarague		@BrianZ Well, quite a number of people in Germany knew about it and it seems to me that any individual deserter to the allies who knew this should have realized that this is powerful information in the hands of the allies. Once the allies have the idea, even if coming from a not entirely trustworthy source, it is relatively straightforward to check for its truth.
Jun 23 at 16:35	comment	added	o.m.		There is also the usual question of "who knew what when?" Some Soviet intelligence officer learns of the pattern (by his own observation or foreign liaison), the information is submitted to his superiors, the superiors think about it, they decide to disseminate it down the chain of command, until it arrives at a frontline unit screening POWs (and there were many POWs by then).
Jun 22 at 11:54	comment	added	Brian Z		a) GARF is the archive of the Russian Federation, so you probably can't access that source if you're not in Russia. b) It doesn't look to me like that source itself is likely to tell you anything new. It's unsurprising that Russians weren't systematically documenting what they saw in soldiers armpits and unlikely that Beria would have told Stalin how they found out. So the question becomes how the US managed to figure it out so much faster.
Jun 22 at 3:06	history	edited	user103496	CC BY-SA 4.0	added 267 characters in body
Jun 22 at 3:01	history	asked	user103496	CC BY-SA 4.0