I have seen a lot of pictures and such of German soldiers during world war two using russian PPSh-41 machine guns, particularly during the battle of stalingrad. I was wondering if this came down to whether these guns were better than the german equivalent or were there shortages in supplies to the german front, so that they had to steal and use them? Thank you for any and all information in response.
It comes down to a handful of factors; massive capture of enemy arms in the summer of 1941 meant that quite a few weapons were standardized for German service. PPSH-41s, The "Pak-76(r)" in reality a captured and converted Soviet field gun, Mosin-Nagants (often issued to 2nd line troops in security details out west), the list goes on.
PPSH-41s in particular were admired by infantry NCOs for their ever important ability to add to the volume of fire in the attack. There was vast quantities of them both captured and still in enemy service so it was never implausible to capture one and keep it supplied. Whether they were objectively "better" than the German equivalent is neither here nor there; it just so happened to be a preference for many fighting men in the Wehrmacht. It also had a status as a bit of a trophy weapon.