May 9, 1945, is moving further and further away from us, but we still remember at what cost our fathers and grandfathers got that day and every year we celebrate this wonderful and tragic holiday together with the veterans. The photographs capture the last moments of the war, happy moments and joyful faces of the soldiers.
2. Soviet soldiers in a Berlin tram car.
3. Maria Timofeevna Shalneva, corporal of the 87th separate road maintenance battalion, regulates the movement of military equipment near the Reichstag in Berlin on May 2, 1945.
4. Soviet soldiers with accordion on one of the streets of Berlin.
5. Soviet soldier in Goebbels' apartment in Hitler's bunker under the Reich Chancellery.
6. Soviet mortar soldier Sergei Ivanovich Platov leaves his autograph on the Reichstag column.
7. A British soldier leaves his autograph among the autographs of Soviet soldiers inside the Reichstag.
8. Lydia Ruslanova performs "Katyusha" against the background of the destroyed Reichstag. May 1945.
9. Return from the front of the pilot, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Mikhailovich Skomorokhov (1920-1994). He flew 605 combat missions, conducted more than 130 air battles, shot down 46 enemy aircraft personally and 8 in a group, 7th in the list of Soviet fighter aces. Skomorokhov himself was never wounded during the entire war, never was shot down.
10. 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 "Combat" photograph. This is one of a series of pictures taken by Evgeny Khaldey 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 the resident of Kiev Aleksey Kovalev, who was tying the flag. I photographed him for a long time. In different poses. I remember that we were all very chilled then … He and I were helped by the foreman of the reconnaissance company of the Guards Red Banner Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky of the Zaporozhye rifle division Abdulhakim Ismailov from Dagestan and Leonid Gorychev from Minsk. " 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 of the compass), which could give rise to accusations of looting of Soviet servicemen.
11. Official, retouched version.
12. One more options.
13. Residents of Leningrad at the salute in honor of the Victory.
14. Soviet soldiers drink to Victory - on the general formation of the unit, Victory over Nazi Germany was announced on May 9, 1945.
15. A Soviet cavalryman talks to a Russian girl who was hijacked to work in Germany and is now returning home.
16. German unit on bicycles moves to the place of surrender.
17. The British disarm the capitulating Germans in the city of Sost. May 10, 1945.
18 Meeting of Soviet marshals G. K. Zhukov and K. K. Rokossovsky with British Field Marshal B. Montgomery at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
19. Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, General of the Infantry Krebs (left), who arrived at the location of the Soviet troops on May 1 in order to involve the High Command in the negotiation process. On the same day, the general shot himself.
20. The soldiers who stormed the Reichstag. The reconnaissance platoon of the 674th Infantry Regiment of the 150th Idritsa Infantry 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, a version has spread that the first were the now famous Mikhail Egorov and Meliton Kantaria.
21. Mikhail Egorov and Meliton Kantaria go out on the roof of the Reichstag on May 1 to hoist the Victory Banner there.
22. Poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky with the sculptural head of Hitler in Berlin. May 1945
23. Evgeny Dolmatovsky reads poetry at the Brandenburg Gate.
24. Soviet soldiers, resting on the steps of the Reich Chancellery, consider the German awards, which were never presented. Berlin. May 2, 1945.
25. The red banner on the Brandenburg Gate quadriga.
26. Salute in honor of the Victory on the roof of the Reichstag. Soldiers of the battalion under the command of the Hero of the Soviet Union S. Neustroev.
27. Courtyard of the Reich Chancellery shortly after the end of the fighting for Berlin. This photo is interesting because it shows a rare armored car. In 1933, Wilton-Fijenoord manufactured three armored vehicles for the Dutch East Indies.
28. General photo of the Soviet delegation during the signing of the Act of unconditional surrender of all the armed forces of Germany. Marshal Zhukov is in the center. May 8, 1945.
29. Echelon "We are from Berlin!", On which Soviet soldiers return from Berlin to Moscow.
30. Rest at the echelon "We are from Berlin!" with Soviet servicemen.
31. Female snipers.
32. Meeting of the victorious soldiers at the Belorussky railway station in Moscow.
33. Officers of the 3rd Belorussian Front take the Germans surrendering together with armored vehicles, including those from the 4th Panzer Division, who are surrendering. Spit Frisch-Nerung, May 9, 1945.
34. Soviet soldiers on the T-34-85 in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The tank is covered with mesh screens that protected it from hits from "faust cartridges".
35. Capitulation of the Germans on the Frisch-Nerung Spit, East Prussia. German officers accept from the Soviet officer the terms of surrender and the order of surrender.
36.9 May 1945 on Red Square.
37. Soviet tankers on the IS-2 and T-34 rejoice at the Victory. Berlin, May 9, 1945.
38. Soviet sailors, heroes of the storming of Berlin, pose for an American war correspondent.
39. A soldier returning from the front kisses his son.
40 Artillerymen of the 144th Rifle Regiment of the 49th Guards Rifle Division in German helmets.
41 The fellow soldiers of the 88th separate heavy tank regiment near the Reichstag.
42 American soldiers who came to Berlin's Tiergarten garden to exchange wristwatches chat with German girls. In the background, a group of Soviet servicemen. In the early days after the end of the war, the Tiergarten garden became a place for the barter exchange of goods.
43 American service girls salute a Soviet traffic controller in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate.
44 Polish citizens who survived the war (residents of the city of Lodz who were driven to forced labor in Germany) huddle along the railway tracks in Berlin, hoping that the British military will pick them up with them.
45. The son of the regiment, Volodya Tarnovsky, signs an autograph on a column of the Reichstag.
46. Soviet artillerymen are fighting on the streets of Berlin. April 1945.
47. Soviet assault group moves to the Reichstag.
48 Soviet soldiers flee to a new position in battle in Berlin. In the foreground is a killed German sergeant from the RAD (Reichs Arbeit Dienst, pre-conscription labor service).
49. Ivan Aleksandrovich Kichigin at the grave of his friend Grigory Afanasyevich Kozlov in Berlin in early May 1945.
50 A captured German soldier at the Reichstag. A famous photograph that was often published in books and on posters in the USSR under the name "End" (German for "The End").
51. German prisoners of war on the streets of Berlin, captured by Soviet troops.
52. A column of prisoners on a Berlin street. In the foreground are the "last hope of Germany" boys from the Hitler Youth and Volkssturm.
53 The captured German is crying.
54 Soviet fighters and the head of the medical service of the Berlin police, Major General of the Medical Service Karl Emil Wrobel. Captured on May 2, 1945.
55 German children playing with abandoned weapons (rifles, submachine guns) on a Berlin street.
56 Soviet T-34 medium tanks in captured Berlin.
57. Soviet wagon train on the streets of Berlin.
58 Soldiers distribute food to the people of Berlin. April 1945.
59 Aerial view of the Brandenburg Gate in captured Berlin.
60. German police officers of the post-war administration in Berlin.
61. Victory Parade. Soviet soldiers with the defeated standards of the Nazi troops. June 24, 1945.
62. Victory Parade. Marshal Zhukov in front of the troops. June 24, 1945.
63. Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General A. V. Gladkov with his wife at the end of the Victory Parade.
64. Victory Parade of the Allied Forces on September 7, 1945 in Berlin. Soviet servicemen on the spectator tribune.
65 Victory Parade of the Allied Forces on September 7, 1945. Marshal Georgy Zhukov is touring the troops.
66 Victory Parade of the Allied Forces on September 7, 1945. Column of Soviet tanks IS-3.
