11 May 2014 | 13:14

Victory Day. Berlin

Photo courtesy of martinmilinski wordpress blog

Berlin. April 16, 1945. The Berlin Operation starts. It was later called the pinnacle of the Soviet military achievement. The battle for the Reichstag, then citadel of fascism, lasted from April 28 to May 2. The walls of the building remember the bitter joy of the victory.

Berlin. April 16, 1945. The Berlin Operation starts. It was later called the pinnacle of the Soviet military achievement. The battle for the Reichstag, then citadel of fascism, lasted from April 28 to May 2. The walls of the building remember the bitter joy of the victory.

reichstag war

More than 20 flags were placed on the Reichstag during its storming. The first red banner over the main entrance of the Reichstag was hoisted by Rakhimzhan Koshkarbayev, a Kazakh, and Gregory Bulatov, a Russian. According to the battle book of the 150th Infantry Division, at 14:25 on April 30th, 1945 Lieutenant Koshkarbaev and Private Bulatov "crept on their bellies to the central part of the building and put a red flag on the stairs of the main entrance". Koshkarbayev later remembered that it took them more than 7 hours of crawling under heavy fire to cross the 260 meters of open space to get to the building.

Guards ribbon reichstag

There was a bloody battle in 1945 in this place that is now the Central Park in Berlin

central park berlin

Brandenburg Gates: in 2014 and back in 1945 after heavy fighting. The monument was seriously damaged and its quadriga was destroyed completely.

branderburg gates

branderburg gates 1945

Berlin remembers the Soviet soldiers. In memory of the 75 thousand Soviet soldiers killed in the storming of Berlin at the end of the World War II, three monuments were erected in the German capital.

On May 9 there are people at the Memorial to the Fallen Soviet Soldiers near the Reichstag.

The Memorial to the fallen Soviet soldiers in Tiergarten is located in Berlin's Tiergarten Groß [Grand] (district of Mitte, Tiergarten). It was erected in 1945 in memory of the Soviet soldiers who died in the battles of the Second World War. Behind the soldier, remnants of some of the fallen lay in a small park. The exact number of the buried here is unknown. According to various sources it ranges from 2000 to 2500.

The decision to build the monument was taken by the Military Council of the 1st Byelorussian Front. The design was made by sculptors Kerbel and Tsigal and architect Sergievski. The monument was opened by a parade of the allied forces on November 11, 1945. The memorial was completed in 1948.

The central part of the memorial is a concave series of columns with a larger central column that serves as a pedestal for the eight-meter bronze statue of a Soviet soldier.The rifle on his shoulder proclaims the end of the war. Inscriptions on the columns tell about ifferent branches of the military and contain lists of dead soldiers.

On the right and left of the main path there are graves of the fallen Soviet officers. The dead are guarded on both sides by two T-34 tanks and two guns, which were used in the Battle for Berlin.

Den Treptower Park. Berlin. 9 May 2014. Monument “Warrior-Liberator”.

Here lay from 5 to 7 thousand Soviet soldiers out of the 75 thousand killed during the storming of Berlin.

The Soviet soldier holds a sword in one hand cutting a swastika and a rescued German girl in the other hand. The total height of the monument is about 30 meters. The height of the sculpture itself is 12 meters.

warrior-liberator berlin

Carnation is the flower symbolizing the victory.

The carnations are a tribute to the great heroes...

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