Photos WW2 Soviet Forces

[Иван Феоктистов]

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

GAZ-60 and ZiS-12 with a searchlight

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

Destroyed Soviet tank T-40 and the deceased tankman

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

On April 30, 1945, after a decisive assault at 21.50 minutes, the soldiers of the 1st rifle battalion (commander - Captain S.A. Neustroev) of the 756th regiment installed the Victory Banner on the roof of the Reichstag!

Attaching extremely important political and military significance to the battles to capture Berlin, the Military Council of the 3rd Shock Army of Colonel-General Kuznetsov, even before the start of the offensive, established the red banners of the Military Council. These banners were presented to all rifle divisions of the army.

The commander of the 150th rifle division, which came to the immediate approaches to the Reichstag, General Shatilov handed the Red Banner of the Army Military Council No. 5 to the commander of the 756th regiment, Colonel Zinchenko. For hoisting the banner, the colonel assigned Neustroev's battalion. Other units also took part in the assault on the Reichstag, each of which had its own Red Banner - the 1st battalion of Davydov, the 1st battalion of Senior Lieutenant Samsonov from the 380th rifle regiment, two assault groups of the 79th rifle corps under the command of Major Cooper and Captain Makov. Many ordinary soldiers made their own, personal red banners, which they made from scrap materials, right down to the red covers of books. The hearts of the soldiers burned with fire and everyone wanted to end the war.

At 13:30, artillery preparation for the assault began: about 100 guns, including 152-mm and 203-mm howitzers, were firing. The assault began - the enemy opened heavy fire on the attacking units. The assault units were pinned to the ground by enemy fire and could not advance towards the Reichstag. The first assault on the Reichstag was not successful, in the subunits, instead of the fighters and officers who were out of action, replenishment was sent, the objects for the attack were clarified, and the artillery was pulled up.

At 18 o'clock, a new assault began, this time successful: Soviet soldiers reached the Reichstag and burst into the building. On one of the stairwells, the fighters of the Neustroev battalion: Makov, Zagitov, Lisimenko and Sergeant Minin, paving the way with grenades and fire from machine guns, broke through to the roof and installed a red banner on the Reichstag tower.

The banner of the Military Council of the 3rd Shock Army was instructed to hoist the scouts of the regiment - Meliton Kantaria and Mikhail Yegorov. Together with a group of fighters led by Lieutenant Alexei Berest, with the support of Syanov's company, they climbed onto the roof of the building and at 9.50 pm on April 30, 1945, hoisted a red flag. By the morning of May 1, when the Reichstag was practically cleared of the Nazis, the Victory Banner was already flying over Berlin.

The above is the canonical version of the first hoisting of the red banner over the Reichstag. There are others.
The combat log of the 3rd Shock Army says that the already mentioned commander of the 1st Battalion of the 380th Infantry Regiment of the 171st Infantry Division, Captain Samsonov, was the first to break into the Reichstag building, and his soldiers hoisted the banner in the window of the Reichstag. There is also a version that the first to reach the Reichstag on April 30 were the soldiers of the reconnaissance group under the command of Sorokin, and the first to hoist a banner made from a feather bed (a feather bed was found in the seized building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs), a fighter from this group, Grigory Bulatov, who then tried to prove his feat for many years. The banner was hoisted over the dome by fighters Leonid Gorychev, Abdulhakim Ismailov and Alexey Kovalev. Also, there is no exact answer who is depicted in the legendary photo of Yevgeny Khaldei.

Be that as it may, the proceedings "who is the first" globally have little effect and in no way diminish the great feat of all those warriors who, starting the battles on April 16, in 2 weeks of heated battles, crushed the hated enemy and took his capital city by decisive storm Berlin. The Victory Banner announced this feat to the whole world, demonstrating not only a military, but also a moral victory over Nazism.

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

Servicemen of the 150th Idritsa Rifle Division in front of their assault flag, hoisted on May 1, 1945 over the Reichstag building in Berlin and later became a state relic of Russia - the Victory Banner. In the photo, participants in the storming of the Reichstag, seeing off the flag to Moscow from the Berlin Tempelhof airfield on June 20, 1945 (from left to right): Captain K.Ya. Samsonov, junior sergeant M.V. Kantaria, Sergeant M.A. Egorov, senior sergeant M. Ya. Syanov, captain S.A. Neustroev

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

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.

For his feat, Grigory Bulatov was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (instead of being awarded this title, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner). Excerpt from the award list:
“Brief description of the feat: ... Taking from the battle every square meter, at 14 o'clock on 30.4.45, they burst into the Reichstag building, immediately seized the exit of one of the cellars, locking up there up to 300 German soldiers of the Reichstag garrison. Having made his way to the top floor, Comrade. BULATOV in a group of scouts at 14 hours 25 minutes. hoisted the Red Banner over the Reichstag... "

Also in the photo: in a leather jacket and a cap, platoon commander Lieutenant Semyon Sorokin, on the left with the Order of the Patriotic War, Sergeant Viktor Provotorov, behind Bulatov's back (from the butt side) is senior sergeant Ivan Lysenko, on the far right (with a flashlight on his jacket) Stepan Oreshko

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

V. M. Shatilov recalls: "From my position on the fourth floor, it was seen how the figures of people scattered over the square rose, ran, fell, rose again or remained motionless. And they all pulled together, as if to two poles of a magnet, to the front door and to the south-western corner of the building, behind which there was a parliamentary entrance hidden from my eyes. I saw how the Banner suddenly glowed with a scarlet speck above the steps at the right column"

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

A photograph of a Soviet soldier hoisting a red banner over the captured Reichstag was later called the Victory Banner - one of the symbols of the Great Patriotic War. Evgeniy Khaldei, photographer: “There were four of us there [on the roof of the Reichstag], but I remember well your fellow Kievite Aleksey Kovalev, who was tying 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 assisted 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 strap was removed from the officer's right hand, as it looked like a second watch. This could give rise to the accusation of looting of the Soviet servicemen. Although, most likely, it was a compass that Soviet officers wore on their right hand. During perestroika, the story with the original photograph, as expected, began to be used for gossip and "sensations".

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

Soviet soldiers and one of the banners hoisted over the Reichstag.

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

A photograph of a Soviet soldier hoisting a red banner over the captured Reichstag was later called the Victory Banner - one of the symbols of the Great Patriotic War. Evgeniy Khaldei, photographer: “There were four of us there [on the roof of the Reichstag], but I remember well your fellow Kievite Aleksey Kovalev, who was tying 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 assisted 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 strap was removed from the officer's right hand, as it looked like a second watch. This could give rise to the accusation of looting of the Soviet servicemen. Although, most likely, it was a compass that Soviet officers wore on their right hand. During perestroika, the story with the original photograph, as expected, began to be used for gossip and "sensations".

View attachment 302313View attachment 302314View attachment 302315View attachment 302316View attachment 302317View attachment 302318View attachment 302319

Victory Banner over the Reichstag. A less well-known photo than the now official photograph of the hoisting of the red banner over the Reichstag.

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

 

[1645556315]

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

View attachment 300333

Май, 1945

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

Tanks of the 6th Guards Tank Army of the Trans-Baikal Front are advancing on Big Khingan during the Khingano-Mukden operation in Manchuria in August 1945.

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

Tank M4A2 "Sherman" of the 219th Tank Brigade of the 1st Mechanized Corps of the 2nd Guards Army of the 1st Belorussian Front and the red banner in the Weißensee district of Berlin. April 1945

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

Portrait of the Guard Senior Sergeant O.S. Maryenkina and the guard of junior lieutenant N.P. Belobrova from a separate sniper company of the 3rd Shock Army. May 4, 1945.

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

May 1942. A representative of the Red Army takes motorcycles at one of the military factories in Moscow.

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

A Red Army soldier inspects a German 105 mm self-propelled gun Pz.Sfl.IVa "Dicker Max" of the 521st tank destroyer battalion captured near Stalingrad.

 

[Иван Феоктистов]

Air parade in Tushino, 1936.