The Great Victory in photos

May 9, 1945 is moving further and further away from us, but we still remember at what price our fathers and grandfathers got that day and every year we celebrate this beautiful and tragic holiday together with veterans.
The photographs depict the last moments of the war, happy moments and joyful faces of soldiers.





Soviet soldiers in a Berlin tram car



Maria Timofeevna Shalneva, corporal of the 87th Separate Road Maintenance Battalion, regulates the movement of military equipment near the Reichstag in Berlin. May 2, 1945



Soviet soldiers with an accordion on one of the streets of Berlin



A Soviet soldier in Goebbels' apartments in Hitler's bunker under the Reich Chancellery



Soviet mortar soldier Sergei Ivanovich Platov leaves his autograph on the column of the Reichstag



A British soldier leaves his autograph among the autographs of Soviet soldiers inside the Reichstag



Lydia Ruslanova performs "Katyusha" against the backdrop of the destroyed Reichstag. May 1945



Return from the front of the pilot, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Mikhailovich Skomorokhov (1920-1994). He made 605 sorties, conducted more than 130 air battles, shot down 46 enemy aircraft personally and 8 in a group, the 7th result in the list of Soviet fighter aces. Skomorokhov himself was never wounded during the entire war, never shot down.



A photo of a Soviet soldier hoisting a red banner over the captured Reichstag on May 2, 1945, which later became known as the Victory Banner - one of the symbols of the Great Patriotic War along with the famous "Battalion Commander" picture. This is one of a series of pictures taken by Yevgeny Khaldei on the roof of the Reichstag. Yevgeny Khaldei said: "There were four of us there [on the roof of the Reichstag], but I remember well Alexei Kovalev from Kyiv, who tied the flag. I photographed him for a long time. In different poses. I remember that we were all very cold then... He and I were helped by the sergeant major of the reconnaissance company of the Guards Red Banner Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky Zaporozhye Rifle Division Abdulkhakim Ismailov from Dagestan and Minsk resident Leonid Gorychev." This version was published in official Soviet sources in a retouched form: the contrast of the picture was increased and the watch was removed from the officer's right hand (according to another version, the compass), which could give rise to accusations of Soviet servicemen of looting.



Official, retouched version.





Another option



Residents of Leningrad at the fireworks in honor of the Victory



Soviet soldiers drink to Victory - at the general formation of the unit, the Victory over Nazi Germany was announced on May 9, 1945



A Soviet cavalryman talks to a Russian girl who was hijacked to work in Germany, and now returns home



A German unit on bicycles moves to the place of surrender



The British disarm the capitulating Germans in the city of Soest. May 10, 1945



Meeting of Soviet Marshals G.K. Zhukov and K.K. Rokossovsky with British Field Marshal B. Montgomery at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin



Chief of the General Staff of the German Army, General of Infantry Krebs (left), who arrived on May 1 at the location of the Soviet troops in order to draw the Supreme Command into the negotiation process. On the same day, the general shot himself.



Soldiers who stormed the Reichstag. Reconnaissance platoon of the 674th Rifle Regiment of the 150th Idritsa Rifle Division. In the foreground is Private Grigory Bulatov. It is believed that it was he who first hoisted the red banner on the Reichstag. However, the version that the first were the now famous Mikhail Egorov and Meliton Kantaria became widespread.



Mikhail Egorov and Meliton Kantaria go to the roof of the Reichstag on May 1 to hoist the Victory Banner there.



Poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky with a sculptural head of Hitler in Berlin. May 1945



Evgeny Dolmatovsky reads poetry at the Brandenburg Gate



Soviet soldiers, resting on the steps of the Reich Chancellery, look at the German awards, which were never presented. Berlin. May 2, 1945



Red banner on the quadriga of the Brandenburg Gate



Fireworks in honor of the Victory on the roof of the Reichstag. Soldiers of the battalion under the command of Hero of the Soviet Union S. Neustroev



The courtyard of the Reich Chancellery shortly after the end of the battles for Berlin. This photo is interesting because it depicts a rare armored car. In 1933, Wilton-Fijenoord produced three armored cars for the Dutch East Indies.



A group photo of the Soviet delegation during the signing of the Act of Unconditional Surrender of all German armed forces. In the center is Marshal Zhukov. May 8, 1945



The "We are from Berlin!" echelon, on which Soviet soldiers return from Berlin to Moscow



Rest at the echelon "We are from Berlin!" with Soviet servicemen



Sniper girls



Meeting of victorious soldiers at the Belorussky Railway Station in Moscow





Officers of the 3rd Belorussian Front receive Germans who surrender along with armored vehicles, including those from the 4th Tank Division. Frisch-Nerung Spit, May 9, 1945



Soviet soldiers on a T-34-85 against the background of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The tank was covered with mesh screens that protected against hits from "Faustpatrones"



Surrender of the Germans on the Frisch-Nerung Spit, East Prussia. German officers accept from the Soviet officer the terms of surrender and the procedure for surrender



May 9, 1945 on Red Square



Soviet tankers on the IS-2 and T-34 rejoice at the Victory. Berlin, May 9, 1945



Soviet sailors, heroes of the storming of Berlin, pose for an American war correspondent



A soldier returning from the front kisses his son



Artillerymen of the 144th Rifle Regiment of the 49th Guards Rifle Division in German helmets



Fellow soldiers of the 88th Separate Heavy Tank Regiment near the Reichstag



American soldiers, who came to Berlin's Tiergarten garden to exchange wristwatches, communicate with German girls. In the background is a group of Soviet servicemen. In the first days after the end of the war, the Tiergarten garden became a place for the barter exchange of goods.



American military girls salute a Soviet traffic controller in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate



Polish citizens who survived the war (residents of the city of Lodz, who were forced to work in Germany) huddle near the railway tracks in Berlin, hoping that the British military will take them with them.



The son of the regiment, Volodya Tarnovsky, autographs the column of the Reichstag



Soviet artillerymen are fighting on the streets of Berlin. April 1945



Soviet assault group moves towards the Reichstag



Soviet soldiers run to a new position in the battle in Berlin. In the foreground is a murdered German sergeant from the RAD (Reichs Arbeit Dienst, pre-conscription labor service)



Ivan Alexandrovich Kichigin at the grave of his friend Grigory Afanasievich Kozlov in Berlin in early May 1945



A captured German soldier at the Reichstag. A famous photograph often published in books and posters in the USSR under the name "Ende" (German "The End").



German prisoners of war on the streets of Berlin, captured by Soviet troops



A column of prisoners on the street of Berlin. In the foreground are the "last hope of Germany" boys from the Hitler Youth and the Volkssturm



A captured German sobs



Soviet soldiers and the head of the medical service of the Berlin police, Major General of the Medical Service Karl Emil Wrobel. He was taken prisoner on May 2, 1945



German children playing with abandoned weapons (rifles, submachine guns) on a Berlin street



Soviet T-34 medium tanks in Berlin



Soviet convoy on the street of Berlin



The fighters distribute food to the residents of Berlin. April 1945



Aerial view of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin



German police officers of the post-war administration in Berlin



Victory Parade. Soviet soldiers with the defeated standards of Hitler's troops. June 24, 1945



Victory Parade. Marshal Zhukov in front of the troops. June 24, 1945



Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General A.V. Gladkov with his wife at the end of the Victory Parade. Original title "Joy and Pain of Victory"



The Victory Parade of the Allied Forces on September 7, 1945 in Berlin. Soviet servicemen on the spectator podium



The Victory Parade of the Allied Forces on September 7, 1945. Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov tours the troops



The Victory Parade of the Allied Forces on September 7, 1945. Column of Soviet IS-3 tanks



Victory Monument in Berlin. July 1945



Soviet soldiers and officers drink with the Americans for the Victory



Children of war.





























































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