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 the 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. 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 is 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 came 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 erected 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 reunification 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 feelings 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 times. But in this case 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. 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 a total of 1,200 workers participated in the construction of the memorial. All of them received additional allowances and food. German workshops also made bowls for eternal flame and a mosaic in the mausoleum under the statue of a 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 to Soviet soldiers were erected in two more places immediately after the war. 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 memorial Complex in Treptow Park served as a venue different kind official events, had the status of one of the most important state monuments. On August 31, 1994, a thousand Russian and six hundred German soldiers, and the parade was hosted by Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
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 talk about further destinies Nikolai Masalov and Ivan Odarchenko. Nikolai Ivanovich, after demobilization, returned to his native village of Voznesenka, Tisulsky district, Kemerovo region. A unique case - his parents took four sons to the front and all four returned home with a victory. Nikolai Ivanovich could not work on a tractor because of contusions, and after moving to the city of Tyazhin, he got a job as a supply manager in a 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 of Honorary Citizen of Berlin. But talking about his heroic deed, Nikolai Ivanovich did not tire of emphasizing: what he accomplished was no feat, many would have done so 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 has been documented Soviet soldiers. 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 liberators erected in Berlin's Treptow Park and the 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. "Bye 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,” write angry media workers. 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 stationed near the Ukrainian border threaten the independence of a sovereign state. "For the first time since graduation cold war Russia is trying to suppress the 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. He 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 Buchner, architect, former member of the Berlin Senate: “What is there to hide, we had one member 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 -
... 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 the soldier of my state -
Keeping peace throughout the world!
G. Rublev
On May 8, 1950, one of the most majestic symbols of the Great Victory was opened in Berlin's Treptow Park. 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 is 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 came 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 erected 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 reminiscent of his numerous quotes carved on symbolic sarcophagi in Russian and German. After the reunification 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 feelings 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 times. 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 a total of 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. The 13-meter figure of the Liberator Warrior 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 to Soviet soldiers were erected in two more places immediately after the war. 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 the 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. A unique case - his parents took four sons to the front and all four returned home with a victory. Nikolai Ivanovich could not work on a tractor because of contusions, and after moving to the city of Tyazhin, he got a job as a supply manager in a 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 of Honorary Citizen of Berlin. But talking about his heroic deed, Nikolai Ivanovich did not tire of emphasizing: what he accomplished was no feat, many would have done so 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 liberators erected in Berlin's Treptow Park and the 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 stationed 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 to suppress a peaceful revolution in Eastern Europe by force,” German journalists write.
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 Buchner, architect, former member of the Berlin Senate: “What is there to hide, we had one member 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 a simple man who came to Europe in peace.
Monument to the Soldier-Liberator in Berlin, history May 8th, 2009
Liberator Warrior- a monument in Berlin's Treptow Park. Sculptor E. V. Vuchetich, architect Ya. B. Belopolsky. Opened May 8, 1949. Height - 12 meters.
The bronze sculpture of a warrior is set on a green hill - a stylized mound. On it, on a round pedestal, stands the figure of a soldier with a lowered sword and a little girl in her arms. Under the warrior's feet is a fascist swastika cut by him. The total height of the monument is 28.6 meters, the height of the sculpture itself is 12 meters.
It is believed that Sergeant Nikolai Masalov, who in April 1945 carried a German child out of the shelling zone, served as the prototype for the figure of a soldier with a child. In memory of the sergeant on the Potsdamer Brücke bridge in Berlin, a memorial plaque was erected with the inscription: "During the battles for Berlin on April 30, 1945, near this bridge, risking his life, he saved a child caught between two fronts from the fire."
Ivan Gaponenko writes:
In 1990, with a group of tourists, I visited the GDR. Berlin tour guide Albina Schweigel showed us Book Street, which in April 1945 was the front line in the battle for Berlin. “On the left side, there were Soviet soldiers in the houses, on the right side, selected SS units,” Albina explained.
We approached the red brick memorial sign. Albina translated for us an inscription made in German: “Trofim Andreevich Lukyanovich, senior sergeant Soviet army, April 29, 1945, here he saved a German child from the bullets of the SS. Five days after his heroic deed, he died of severe wounds. Honor and glory to his memory.”
Albina told what happened that day.
The battle for Berlin was raging, and civilians - old men, women, children - were hiding in a bomb shelter. When there was a lull between the fights, a five-year-old girl, disobeying her mother, got out into the street. Noticing the absence of her daughter, the mother rushed out into the street. And suddenly, from the window of the house where the SS men settled, a burst of machine-gun fire crackled - a woman, bleeding, collapsed dead on the pavement. The daughter burst into tears when she saw her dead mother. Hearing the crying of the child, Lukyanovich rushed to save the girl. Crawled, picked up, crawled back. When he had already reached his own and handed over the child to his comrades, German side a shot rang out. An SS sniper's bullet mortally wounded the hero. In the medical battalion, he came to his senses. He told his comrades that he was born in 1919 in Belarus, in a working-class family. He worked as a fitter at the Minsk Watch Factory. At the beginning of the war, a German air bomb hit the house where Lukyanovich's family lived. Mother, wife, two daughters and mother-in-law died.
Doctors fought long and hard for the life of the hero, but they could not save ...
And the German girl saved by the Soviet fighter was taken up by Frau Zilke, whose husband died near Stalingrad.
- And what was the fate of the girl? We asked Albina. She smiled and replied, “It's me...”
She said that she graduated from Berlin College foreign languages and works as a tour guide-instructor at the city department of Intourist.
And in Berlin's Treptow Park, 5,000 Soviet soldiers who died during the liberation of the city sleep in eternal sleep. There are red carnations on the gravestones, and white Russian birches rustle in the wind nearby, reminding of the distant Motherland. On a bronze pedestal stands a 13-meter figure of a Soviet soldier-liberator with a girl in his arms, saved by him.
Memorial Complex
The memorial is located in a park on the territory of the former East Berlin. The total area of the majestic building is 280 thousand square meters.
The memorial was created by order of the SVAG (Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Military Administration) number 139 dated June 3/4, 1947 "On the construction of monuments in the Treptow and Pankow parks of the city of Berlin to the fallen Soviet soldiers."
The authors of the complex are sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich, architect Yakov Belopolsky, engineer Sarra Varelius and artist Alexander Gorpenko. Work on the creation of the memorial from June 1947 to May 1949 was carried out by 7 thousand builders. At the same time, the remains of soldiers from other parts of Berlin were reburied.
The complex has two entrances in the form of arches with inscriptions in Russian and German. The inscription reads: "Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the battles for the freedom and independence of the socialist Motherland." Alleys from the entrances lead to the three-meter stone sculpture "Motherland". And already from the sculpture you can see the entire memorial and the 12-meter monument.
The granite from which the memorial was created was taken from the ruins of the Reich Chancellery.
The entrance to the memorial cemetery is framed on the right and left by 13-meter granite banners. On both sides, kneeling warriors are carved near the banners. From the entrance terraces the staircase descends to the central part architectural complex. Five mass graves are located along its main axis, and on both sides of the main axis there are 16 sarcophagi (eight on the right and on the left) with bas-reliefs.
Out of 7.2 thousand names of 2.77 thousand people are known.
Sculpture restoration
A large-scale restoration of the sculpture, which lasted more than a year, was completed in 2004. The bronze soldier was dismantled and transported to the island of Rügen. There, at the 45-ton sculpture, they strengthened supporting structure and the metal was cleaned. The work was carried out by Metallbau. Other parts of the memorial were also restored.
The monument is administered by the city development department of the Berlin Senate. The restoration cost the department 5.3 million euros, and 1.35 million euros were spent on work directly related to the sculpture.
Eternal glory to our heroes! Happy Victory Day!
69 years ago, on May 8, 1949, the Monument to the Liberator in Treptow Park. This memorial was erected in memory of 20 thousand Soviet soldiers who died in the battles for the liberation of Berlin, and became one of the most famous characters Victory in the Great Patriotic War. Few people know that the idea for the creation of the monument was real story, and the main character of the plot was a soldier Nikolai Masalov whose feat was undeservedly forgotten for many years.
Monument "Warrior-Liberator" in Berlin (Berlin, Germany) - description, history, location, reviews, photos and videos.
Previous photo Next photo
How to get there: by train to the station. Treptower Park or buses No. 166, 265, 365.
Opening hours: around the clock 7 days a week. Entrance to the park and memorial hall is free.
Add a review
Track
