On May 8, 1949, 60 years ago, the "Monument to the soldiers of the Soviet Army who fell in battles against fascism" was opened on the territory of Treptow Park in Berlin.
World famous Soviet memorial Complex in Treptow Park, where about five thousand Soviet soldiers are buried, is the figure of a Soviet soldier, in one hand of which is a sword that cuts the Nazi swastika, on the other is a little German girl rescued from the ruins of defeated Berlin. At the base of the monument is a mausoleum.
Taking into account the height of the hill and the plinth of the base overall height the monument is approximately 30 meters.
The memorial took three years to build and was officially opened on May 8, 1949. The group of authors was headed by architect Yakov Belopolsky and sculptor Evgeny Vuchetich.
It is believed that the prototype for the sculptor was a Soviet soldier, a native of the village of Voznesenka, Tisulsky district. Kemerovo region Nikolai Masalov, who saved a German girl during the storming of Berlin in April 1945. According to historians, on April 30, 1945, a participant in the Battle of Stalingrad and the battle on Kursk Bulge Sergeant Masalov, during the battle, a few kilometers from the Reichstag on the street adjacent to the Landwehrkanal, heard a child's cry. Moving towards him, the soldier found a three-year-old girl in a dilapidated building and, covering her with his body, carried the baby out under bullets into safe place. Marshal Chuikov was the first to tell about the feat of Masalov, later the researchers managed to document this.
After the war, Yevgeny Vuchetich met with Nikolai Masalov, whose feat prompted him the key idea of the monument in Treptow Park: saving a girl, a soldier protects peace and life.
As the prototype of the bronze soldier, the names of two Soviet fighters, Ivan Odarchenko and Viktor Gunaz, are most often mentioned. Vuchetich met with both, both posed for him.
First, Vuchetich molded a plaster model of the "Liberator Warrior" 2.5 meters high, and then a 13-meter bronze monument weighing 72 tons was cast from it in Leningrad. It was transported to Berlin in parts by sea.
According to the memoirs of Ivan Odarchenko, at first a German girl really sat in his arms, and then a Russian - 3-year-old Sveta - the daughter of the commandant of Berlin, General Kotikov.
Many believed that the sword was out of place in the statue of the Liberator Warrior, and advised the sculptor to change it to some modern weapon, for example, to a machine gun. But Vuchetich insisted on the sword. In addition, he did not make a sword at all, but accurately copied the sword of the Pskov prince Gabriel, who, together with Alexander Nevsky, fought for Russia against the "knight dogs".
According to the state agreement between the USSR and the FRG of 1990, the Federal Republic assumed obligations for the care and necessary restoration of monuments and other burial places of Soviet soldiers in Germany. In this case, funding comes from the German government, and the Berlin Senate is responsible for organizing the work.
In the autumn of October 1, 2003, the sculpture of the warrior was dismantled and sent for restoration. In the spring of 2004, the monument to the soldiers of the Soviet Army who fell in the battles against fascism in Berlin was returned to its original place.
The author of the monument is Yevgeny Viktorovich Vuchetich, an outstanding Soviet monumental sculptor. She is the author of a grandiose memorial on Mamaev Kurgan in Volgograd. Among his other works is a monument to Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka Square in Moscow (1958, today located in the Muzeon Park of Arts next to the building central house artist on Krymsky Val) and the figure "Let's Forge Swords into Plowshares" (1957), one of the castings of which was presented by the Soviet government as a gift to the UN.
It was created in May 1949 by order of the Soviet military administration to perpetuate the memory of the Red Army soldiers who died during World War II. About 7,000 Soviet soldiers who died during the Battle of Berlin are buried here. The Monument to the Liberator Warrior, also belonging to the memorial complex, together with a hill and a pedestal, has a total height of 30 meters.
After the end of World War II, the Red Army built four Soviet memorial complexes in Berlin. They not only serve as a reminder of the 80,000 Soviet soldiers who died during the Battle of Berlin, but are also the site of Soviet war graves. The central memorial is the building in. The other three memorial complexes in Berlin are the Soviet War Memorial in the Schoenholzer Heide Park in Pankow, the War Memorial in the Buch Palace Park.
For the design of the memorial complex in Treptow Park, the Soviet commandant's office organized a competition, as a result of which 33 projects were received. Since June 1946, the project was approved, presented by the Soviet team, namely, the sculptor E. V. Vuchetich, the architect Ya. B. Belopolsky, the artist A. V. Gorpenko, the engineer S. S. Valerius.
The complex was built on the site of the former sports playground in and opened in May 1949.
The dominant element of the memorial complex is the monument to the Liberator Soldier, created by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich. The figure represents a soldier who right hand holds a sword, and in the left - a rescued German girl. A swastika has been destroyed under the warrior's boots. The sculpture itself is 12 meters high and weighs 70 tons.
The statue towers over a pavilion built on a hill. A staircase leads to the pavilion. The walls of the pavilion are decorated with mosaics with Russian inscriptions and German translation. The hill with the pavilion is a reproduction of Kurgan, a medieval Slavic grave.
Address: Treptow Park, Puschkinallee, 12435 Berlin, Germany.
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IN APRIL 1945, advanced units Soviet troops went to Berlin. The city was in the ring of fire encirclement. The 220th Guards Rifle Regiment advanced along the right bank of the Spree River, advancing from house to house towards the Imperial Chancellery. Street fighting went on day and night.
An hour before the start of artillery preparation, Nikolai Masalov, accompanied by two assistants, brought the banner of the regiment to the Landwehr Canal. The guards knew that here, in the Tiergarten, in front of them was the main bastion of the military garrison of the German capital. The fighters advanced to the line of attack in small groups and one by one. Someone had to cross the canal by swimming on improvised means, someone had to break through a flurry of fire through a mined bridge.
There were 50 minutes left before the attack began. Silence fell, unsettling and tense. Suddenly, through this ghostly silence, mixed with smoke and settling dust, a child's cry was heard. It seemed to come from somewhere underground, muffled and inviting. A child crying uttered one word understandable to everyone: “Mutter, mutter ...”, because all children cry in the same language. Sergeant Masalov caught the child's voice earlier than others. Leaving his assistants at the banner, he rose almost to his full height and ran straight to the headquarters - to the general.
- Let me save the child, I know where he is ...
The general silently looked at the soldier who had come from nowhere.
“Just be sure to come back. We must return, because this battle is the last, - the general warmly admonished him in a paternal way.
“I'll be back,” the guardsman said and took the first step towards the canal.
The area in front of the bridge was shot through by machine guns and automatic cannons, not to mention the mines and land mines that densely dotted all the approaches. Sergeant Masalov crawled, clinging to the pavement, carefully passing the barely noticeable tubercles of mines, feeling each crack with his hands. Very close, knocking out the stony crumbs, machine-gun bursts rushed by. Death from above, death from below - and there is nowhere to hide from it. Dodging the deadly lead, Nikolai dived into the funnel from the shell, as if into the waters of his native Siberian Barandatka.
In Berlin, Nikolai Masalov had seen enough of the suffering of German children. In clean suits, they approached the soldiers and silently held out an empty tin can or just an emaciated palm. And Russian soldiers
thrust bread, lumps of sugar into these little hands, or seated a thin company around their bowlers ...
Nikolai Masalov, span by span, approached the canal. Here he is, pressing the machine gun, has already rolled to the concrete parapet. Fiery lead jets immediately lashed out, but the soldier had already managed to slide under the bridge.
The former commissar of the 220th regiment of the 79th Guards Division I. Paderin recalls: “And our Nikolai Ivanovich disappeared. He enjoyed great authority in the regiment, and I was afraid of a spontaneous attack. And an elemental attack, as a rule, is extra blood, and even at the very end of the war. And now Masalov seemed to feel our anxiety. Suddenly he gives a voice: “I am with a child. Machine gun on the right, a house with balconies, shut his throat. And the regiment, without any command, opened such a furious fire that I, in my opinion, have not seen such tension throughout the war. Under the cover of this fire, Nikolai Ivanovich went out with the girl. He was wounded in the leg, but did not say ... "
N. I. Masalov recalls: “Under the bridge, I saw a three-year-old girl sitting next to her murdered mother. The baby had blond hair, slightly curled at the forehead. She kept fiddling with her mother's belt and calling: "Mutter, mutter!" No time to think here. I am a girl in an armful - and back. And how she sounds! I'm on the go and so and so I persuade: shut up, they say, otherwise you will open me. Here, indeed, the Nazis began to shoot. Thanks to our people - they helped us out, opened fire from all trunks.
Guns, mortars, machine guns, carbines covered Masalov with heavy fire. The guards aimed at the firing points of the enemy. The Russian soldier stood over the concrete parapet, shielding the German girl from the bullets. At that moment, a dazzling disk of the sun rose above the roof of the house with columns cut by fragments. Its rays hit the enemy shore, blinding the shooters for a while. At the same time, the cannons hit, artillery preparation began. It seemed that the whole front was saluting the feat of the Russian soldier, his humanity, which he did not lose on the roads of war.
N.I. Masalov recalls: “I crossed over the neutral zone. I look into one, another entrance of houses - that means, to hand over the child to the Germans, civilians. And there is empty - not a soul. Then I'll go straight to my headquarters. The comrades surrounded, laughing: “Show me what kind of “language I got.” And they themselves who are biscuits, who put sugar to the girl, calm her down. I passed her from hand to hand to the captain in a cloak thrown over him, who gave her water from a flask. And then I returned to the banner.
A few days later, the sculptor E.V. Vuchetich arrived at the regiment and immediately sought out Masalov. Having made several sketches, he said goodbye, and it is unlikely that Nikolai Ivanovich at that moment had any idea why the artist needed it. It was no coincidence that Vuchetich drew attention to the Siberian warrior. The sculptor carried out the task of a front-line newspaper, looking for a type for a poster dedicated to the Victory of the Soviet people in Patriotic war. These sketches and sketches were useful to Vuchetich later, when he began work on the project of the famous monument ensemble. After the Potsdam Conference of the Heads of the Allied Powers, Vuchetich was summoned by Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov and offered to start preparing a sculptural ensemble-monument dedicated to the Victory of the Soviet people over Nazi Germany. It was originally intended to be placed in the center of the composition
the majestic bronze figure of Stalin with the image of Europe or a globe hemisphere in his hands.
Sculptor E.V. Vuchetich: “Artists and sculptors looked at the main figure of the ensemble. Praised, admired. But I was dissatisfied. We must look for another solution.
And then I remembered the Soviet soldiers who, during the days of the storming of Berlin, carried German children out of the fire zone. I rushed to Berlin, visited Soviet soldiers, met with heroes, made sketches and hundreds of photographs - and a new, my own solution matured: a soldier with a baby on his chest. He sculpted the figure of a meter-high warrior. Under his feet is a fascist swastika, in his right hand is a machine gun, the left is holding a three-year-old girl.
The time has come to demonstrate both projects under the light of the Kremlin chandeliers. In the foreground is the monument to the leader ...
- Listen, Vuchetich, aren't you tired of this one with a mustache?
Stalin pointed with the mouthpiece of the pipe towards the one and a half meter figure.
“This is still a sketch,” someone tried to intercede.
“The author was shell-shocked, but not devoid of language,” Stalin snapped and fixed his eyes on the second sculpture. - And what's that?
Vuchetich hurriedly removed the parchment from the figure of a soldier. Stalin examined him from all sides, smiled sparingly and said:
“We’ll place this soldier in the center of Berlin, on a high grave hill ... Just know, Vuchetich, the machine gun in the soldier’s hand must be replaced with something else. The machine gun is a utilitarian object of our time, and the monument will stand for centuries. Give him something more symbolic in his hand. Well, let's say a sword. Weighty, solid. With this sword, the soldier cut the fascist swastika. The sword is lowered, but woe will be to the one who forces the hero to raise this sword. Do you agree?
Ivan Stepanovich Odarchenko recalls: “After the war, I served in the Weissensee commandant's office for three more years. For a year and a half, he performed an unusual task for a soldier - he posed for the creation of a monument in Treptow Park. Professor Vuchetich was looking for a sitter for a long time. I was introduced to Vuchetich at one of sports holidays. He approved my candidacy, and a month later I was seconded to pose for a sculptor.”
The construction of a monument in Berlin was equated with a task of extreme importance. A special construction department was created. By the end of 1946, there were 39 competitive projects. Before their consideration, Vuchetich arrived in Berlin. The idea of the monument completely captured the sculptor's imagination... Work on the construction of the monument to the liberator soldier began in 1947 and continued for more than three years. A whole army of specialists was involved here - 7 thousand people. The memorial occupies a huge area of 280 thousand square meters. The request for materials puzzled even Moscow - ferrous and non-ferrous metals, thousands of cubic meters of granite and marble. An extremely difficult situation developed. A lucky break helped.
Honored builder of the RSFSR G. Kravtsov recalls: “An exhausted German, a former prisoner of the Gestapo, came to me. He saw how our soldiers were picking out pieces of marble from the ruins of buildings, and he hastened with a joyful statement: he knew a secret warehouse of granite a hundred kilometers from Berlin, on the banks of the Oder. He himself unloaded the stone and miraculously escaped execution... And these piles of marble, it turns out, on Hitler's orders, were stored up for the construction of a monument to the victory... over Russia. Here's how it turned out...
During the storming of Berlin, 20 thousand Soviet soldiers were killed. In the mass graves of the memorial in Treptow Park, under the old plane trees and under the barrow of the main monument, more than 5 thousand soldiers are buried. Former gardener Frieda Holzapfel recalls: “Our first task was to remove bushes and trees from the site intended for the monument; mass graves were supposed to be dug in this place ... And then cars with the mortal remains of dead soldiers began to drive up. I just couldn't move. A sharp pain seemed to pierce me all over, I burst into tears and could not help myself. In my mind, at that moment, I imagined a Russian woman-mother, from whom the most precious thing that she had was taken away, and now they are lowering her into a foreign German land. Involuntarily, I remembered my son and husband, who were considered missing. Perhaps the same fate befell them. Suddenly a young Russian soldier came up to me and said in broken German: “Crying is not good. The German camouflage sleeps in Russia, the Russian camouflage sleeps here. It doesn't matter where they sleep. The main thing is to have peace. Russian mothers also cry. War is not good for people!” Then he came up to me again and thrust a bundle into my hands. At home, I unfolded it - there were half a loaf of soldier's bread and two pears ... ".
N.I.Masalov recalls: “I learned about the monument in Treptow Park by accident. I bought matches in the store, looked at the label. Monument to the soldier-liberator in Berlin by Vuchetich. I remembered how he made a sketch of me. I never thought that this battle for the Reichstag was depicted in this monument. Then I found out: Marshal told the sculptor about the incident on the Landwehr Canal Soviet Union Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov.
The monument gained more and more popularity among people from many countries and gave rise to various legends. So, in particular, it was believed that a really Soviet soldier carried a German girl from the battlefield during a firefight, but at the same time he was seriously wounded and died in the hospital. At the same time, individual enthusiasts, who were not satisfied with this legend, undertook repeated, but for the time being unsuccessful searches for an unknown hero.
The most peaceful monument to a warrior. Sword dropped. A girl clung to the soldier's shoulder. The majestic monument to the Soldier-Liberator rises on a hill in Berlin's Treptow Park. At this place, where today only the rustle of leaves breaks the silence, explosions thundered 70 years ago. On April 30, 1945, a young soldier, risking his life, carried a three-year-old German girl out of the fire. Soldier - Nikolai Masalov. Siberian from a peasant family. When he got to the front, he was barely eighteen.
It was in May, at dawn,
The battle grew near the walls of the Reichstag.
I noticed a German girl
Our soldier on the dusty pavement.
He fought as a mortar gunner on the Bryansk Front, as part of the 62nd Army, he held the defense on Mamaev Kurgan. "Stalingrad I from the first to last day defended. The city from the bombing turned into ashes, we fought in this ashes. Shells and bombs plowed all around. Our dugout was covered with earth during the bombing. So we were buried alive,” recalls Nikolai Masalov. - Nothing to breathe. We wouldn’t get out on our own - a mountain was poured from above. From the last forces we shout: “Combat, dig it out!”
They were dug out twice. For the battles in Stalingrad, the 220th regiment received the Guards banner. And Nikolai Masalov carried this battle flag to Berlin. Along the front roads and forcing almost all the rivers of Europe. The Don, the Northern Donets, the Dnieper, the Dniester, the Vistula and the Oder were left behind ... two of the first regiment reached Berlin: Captain Stefanenko and the regiment's denominator Sergeant Masalov.
“Mutter, mutter...” – the soldier heard a weak voice just before the artillery preparation near the Landwehr Canal. Through mines and machine-gun bursts, the sergeant crawled to the children's cry.
“Under the bridge, I saw a three-year-old girl sitting next to her murdered mother. The baby had blond hair, slightly curled at the forehead. She kept fiddling with her mother's belt and calling: "Mutter, mutter!" No time to think here. I am a girl in an armful - and back. And how she sounds! I'm on the go and so and so I persuade: shut up, they say, otherwise you will open me. Here, indeed, the Nazis began to shoot. Thanks to our people - they helped us out, opened fire from all trunks.
No one counts the number of lives saved in the war. And you can't immortalize every feat in bronze. But a soldier with a little girl in his arms has become a symbol of humanity...
But now, in Berlin, under fire,
A fighter crawled and, shielding his body,
Girl in a short white dress
Carefully removed from the fire.
It stands as a symbol of our glory,
Like a beacon glowing in the dark.
It is he, a soldier of my state,
Protects peace throughout the earth.
(Poem by Georgy Rublev, 1916–1955)
The figure of the Liberator Warrior, standing with a sword on the fragments of a swastika, is the work of Evgeny Vuchetich. His Soldier was chosen from 33 projects. More than three years of the sculptor's work on the monument. A whole army of specialists - 7 thousand people built a memorial in Treptow Park. And the granite used for the pedestal is trophy. On the banks of the Oder there was a warehouse of stone prepared by order of Hitler for the construction of a monument to the victory over ... the Soviet Union.
Now it is part of the memorial of Soviet military glory and the liberation of Europe from fascism. The monument rises on the mound. At the foot, in mass graves, about seven thousand Soviet soldiers are buried. In total, during the storming of Berlin, more than 75 thousand fighters were killed. Memorial, according to the agreement of the countries - winners in
April 15th, 2015
... And in Berlin on a festive date
Was erected to stand for centuries,
Monument to the Soviet soldier
With a rescued girl in her arms.
It stands as a symbol of our glory,
Like a beacon glowing in the dark.
He is a soldier of my state -
Keeping peace throughout the world!
G. Rublev
On May 8, 1950, one of the most majestic symbols of Great Victory. A warrior-liberator with a German girl in his hands climbed to a multi-meter height. This 13-meter monument has become epochal in its own way.
Millions of people visiting Berlin try to visit this place in order to bow to the great feat of the Soviet people. Not everyone knows that according to the original idea, in Treptow Park, where the ashes of more than 5 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers are buried, there should have been a majestic figure of Comrade. Stalin. And in the hands of this bronze idol was supposed to hold a globe. Like, "the whole world is in our hands."
This was exactly the idea that the first Soviet marshal, Kliment Voroshilov, imagined when he called the sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich to himself immediately after the end of the Potsdam Conference of the Heads of the Allied Powers. But the front-line soldier, the sculptor Vuchetich, just in case, prepared another option - an ordinary Russian soldier, who stomped from the walls of Moscow to Berlin, who saved a German girl, should pose. They say that the leader of all times and peoples, having looked at both proposed options, chose the second one. And he only asked to replace the machine gun in the hands of a soldier with something more symbolic, for example, a sword. And for him to cut the fascist swastika...
Why a warrior and a girl? Evgeny Vuchetich was familiar with the story of the feat of Sergeant Nikolai Masalov ...
A few minutes before the start of a furious attack on German positions, he suddenly heard, as if from under the ground, a child's cry. Nikolai rushed to the commander: “I know how to find a child! Permit! And a second later he rushed in search. Weeping was heard from under the bridge. However, it is better to give the floor to Masalov himself. Nikolai Ivanovich recalled this: “Under the bridge, I saw a three-year-old girl sitting next to her murdered mother. The baby had blond hair, slightly curled at the forehead. She kept fiddling with her mother's belt and calling: "Mutter, mutter!" No time to think here. I am a girl in an armful - and back. And how she sounds! I'm on the go and so and so I persuade: shut up, they say, otherwise you will open me. Here, indeed, the Nazis began to shoot. Thanks to our people - they helped us out, opened fire from all trunks.
At this moment, Nikolai was wounded in the leg. But he didn’t leave the girl, he informed his friends ... And a few days later the sculptor Vuchetich appeared in the regiment, who made several sketches for his future sculpture ...
This is the most common version that the soldier Nikolai Masalov (1921-2001) was the historical prototype for the monument. In 2003, a plaque was installed on the Potsdamer Bridge (Potsdamer Brücke) in Berlin in memory of the feat accomplished in this place.
The story is based primarily on the memoirs of Marshal Vasily Chuikov. The very fact of Masalov's feat is confirmed, but during the GDR, eyewitness accounts were collected about other similar cases throughout Berlin. There were several dozen of them. Before the assault, many inhabitants remained in the city. The National Socialists did not allow the civilian population to leave it, intending to defend the capital of the "Third Reich" to the last.
The names of the soldiers who posed for Vuchetich after the war are precisely known: Ivan Odarchenko and Viktor Gunaz. Odarchenko served in the Berlin commandant's office. The sculptor noticed him during sports competitions. After the opening of the Odarchenko memorial, it happened to be on duty near the monument, and many visitors, who did not suspect anything, were surprised at the obvious portrait resemblance. By the way, at the beginning of the work on the sculpture, he held a German girl in his arms, but then she was replaced by the little daughter of the commandant of Berlin.
Interestingly, after the opening of the monument in Treptow Park, Ivan Odarchenko, who served in the Berlin commandant's office, guarded the "bronze soldier" several times. People approached him, marveling at his resemblance to a warrior-liberator. But modest Ivan never told that it was he who posed for the sculptor. And the fact that the original idea to hold a German girl in her arms, in the end, had to be abandoned.
The prototype of the child was 3-year-old Svetochka, the daughter of the commandant of Berlin, General Kotikov. By the way, the sword was not at all far-fetched, but an exact copy of the sword of the Pskov prince Gabriel, who, together with Alexander Nevsky, fought against the “knight dogs”.
It is interesting that the sword in the hands of the "Warrior-Liberator" has a connection with other famous monuments: it is understood that the sword in the hands of the soldier is the same sword that the worker passes to the warrior depicted on the monument "Rear to the Front" (Magnitogorsk), and which then raises the Motherland on Mamaev Kurgan in Volgograd.
The "Supreme Commander" is reminded of his numerous quotes carved on symbolic sarcophagi in Russian and German. After the unification of Germany, some German politicians demanded their removal, referring to the crimes committed during the Stalinist dictatorship, but the entire complex, according to interstate agreements, is under state protection. No changes without the consent of Russia are unacceptable here.
Reading Stalin's quotes today evokes ambiguous sensations and emotions, makes us remember and think about the fate of millions of people in Germany and the former Soviet Union who died in Stalin's time. But in this case, the quotations should not be taken out of the general context, they are a document of history, necessary for its comprehension.
After the Battle of Berlin, the sports park near Treptower Allee became a military cemetery. The mass graves are located under the alleys of the memory park.
The work began when the Berliners, not yet separated by a wall, were rebuilding their city from the ruins brick by brick. Vuchetich was assisted by German engineers. The widow of one of them, Helga Köpfstein, recalls that many things about this project seemed unusual to them.
Helga Köpfstein, tour guide: “We asked why a soldier does not have a machine gun in his hands, but a sword? We were told that the sword is a symbol. A Russian soldier defeated the Teutonic Knights on Lake Peipsi, and a few centuries later he reached Berlin and defeated Hitler.
60 German sculptors and 200 masons were involved in the manufacture of sculptural elements according to Vuchetich's sketches, and in total 1,200 workers participated in the construction of the memorial. All of them received additional allowances and food. The German workshops also made bowls for the eternal flame and a mosaic in the mausoleum under the sculpture of the warrior-liberator.
Work on the memorial was carried out for 3 years by the architect Y. Belopolsky and the sculptor E. Vuchetich. Interestingly, granite from the Reich Chancellery of Hitler was used for the construction. 13 meter figure Warrior Liberator was made in St. Petersburg and weighed 72 tons. She was transported to Berlin in parts by water. According to Vuchetich, after one of the best German foundry workers in the most accurate way examined the sculpture made in Leningrad and made sure that everything was done flawlessly, he approached the sculpture, kissed its base and said: “Yes, this is a Russian miracle!”
In addition to the memorial in Treptow Park, monuments Soviet soldiers Immediately after the war, they installed in two more places. Around 2,000 fallen soldiers are buried in the Tiergarten park in central Berlin. There are over 13,000 in the Schönholzer Heide park in Berlin's Pankow district.
During the GDR, the memorial complex in Treptow Park served as a venue for various kinds of official events and had the status of one of the most important state monuments. On August 31, 1994, a thousand Russian and six hundred German soldiers participated in a solemn verification dedicated to the memory of the fallen and the withdrawal of Russian troops from united Germany, and Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Russian President Boris Yeltsin took part in the parade.
The status of the monument and all Soviet military cemeteries is enshrined in a separate chapter of the agreement concluded between the FRG, the GDR and the victorious powers in World War II. According to this document, the memorial is guaranteed an eternal status, and the German authorities are obliged to finance its maintenance, ensure integrity and safety. Which is done in the best way.
It is impossible not to tell about the further fate of Nikolai Masalov and Ivan Odarchenko. Nikolai Ivanovich, after demobilization, returned to his native village of Voznesenka, Tisulsky district, Kemerovo region. Unique case- his parents escorted four sons to the front and all four returned home with a victory. Nikolai Ivanovich could not work on a tractor due to shell shocks, and after moving to the city of Tyazhin, he got a job as a supply manager in Kindergarten. This is where the journalists found him. 20 years after the end of the war, fame fell upon Masalov, which, however, he treated with his usual modesty.
In 1969 he was awarded the title Honorable Sir Berlin. But talking about his heroic deed, Nikolai Ivanovich did not get tired of emphasizing: what he accomplished was no feat, many would have done the same in his place. So it was in life. When the German Komsomol decided to find out about the fate of the rescued girl, they received hundreds of letters describing such cases. And the rescue of at least 45 boys and girls by Soviet soldiers was documented. Today Nikolai Ivanovich Masalov is no longer alive ...
But Ivan Odarchenko still lives in the city of Tambov (information for 2007). He worked in a factory and then retired. He buried his wife, but the veteran has frequent guests - his daughter and granddaughter. And Ivan Stepanovich was often invited to parades dedicated to the Great Victory to portray a liberator with a girl in his arms ... And on the 60th anniversary of the Victory, the Memory Train even brought an 80-year-old veteran and his comrades to Berlin.
Last year, a scandal erupted in Germany around the monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators, installed in Berlin's Treptow Park and Tiergarten. In connection with the recent events in Ukraine, journalists from popular German publications sent letters to the Bundestag demanding that the legendary monuments be dismantled.
One of the publications that signed the frankly provocative petition was the Bild newspaper. Journalists write that Russian tanks have no place near the famous Brandenburg Gate. “As long as Russian troops threaten the security of a free and democratic Europe, we do not want to see a single Russian tank in the center of Berlin,” angry media workers write. In addition to the authors of Bild, this document was also signed by representatives of the Berliner Tageszeitung.
German journalists believe that Russian military units located near the Ukrainian border threaten the independence of a sovereign state. “For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Russia is trying by force to suppress a peaceful revolution in Eastern Europe", - write German journalists.
The scandalous document was sent to the Bundestag. By law, the German authorities must consider it within two weeks.
This statement by German journalists caused a storm of indignation among the readers of Bild and Berliner Tageszeitung. Many believe that the newspapermen deliberately escalate the situation around the Ukrainian issue.
For sixty years, this monument has truly become accustomed to Berlin. It was on postage stamps and coins, in the days of the GDR here, probably, half of the population of East Berlin was accepted as pioneers. In the nineties, after the unification of the country, Berliners from the west and east held anti-fascist rallies here.
And neo-Nazis have repeatedly beaten marble slabs and painted swastikas on obelisks. But every time the walls were washed, and the broken slabs were replaced with new ones. The Soviet soldier in Treptover Park is one of the most well-kept monuments in Berlin. Germany spent about three million euros on its reconstruction. Some people were very annoyed.
Hans Georg Büchner, architect, former member Senate of Berlin: “What is there to hide, we had one deputy of the Berlin Senate in the early nineties. When your troops were withdrawn from Germany, this figure shouted - let them take this monument with them. Now no one even remembers his name.”
A monument can be called a national one if people go to it not only on Victory Day. Sixty years have changed Germany a lot, but they have not been able to change the way Germans look at their history. And in the old GDR guidebooks, and on modern travel sites - this is a monument to the "Soviet soldier-liberator". To the common man who came to Europe in peace.
Why execute monuments? Here is a man who has been going all his life, but how they did it The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -
