INTRO BY PATRICE GREANVILLE

Few armies have deserved the fruits of their victory better than the Red Army. Those who do not understand why this is so need to comprehend the stunning immensity of the horrors visited on the Soviet Union by the conquering German armies. Wholesale and retail death by bombs, bullets, bayonets, hanging, burning alive, freezing and starvation, not to mention torture, are just some of the methods employed. Use your imagination, and reality will exceed it: every kind of atrocity was indeed used by the Nazi legions to break the spirit of the first workers' state, and they failed. Berlin was a hard battle. Soviet forces sustained 81,116 dead for the entire operation, and another 280,251 were reported wounded or sick during the operational period. The victory was indeed sweet when the Great Patriotic War finally came to a close. 

Sensational film footage of Berlin after the surrender (May 3, 1945)

CHRONOS-MEDIA History

 

Footage of the Red Army restored with ifilmrestoration.com in 3K Subtitles with explanations in different languages can be activated in the player.

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Marshal Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov - commander-in-chief of the Red Army - inspects the city on May 3, 1945 after the surrender of Berlin. He is accompanied by Arthur Pieck - the later general director of the East-German airline Interflug and son of the first president of the GDR, Wilhelm Pieck.

In addition, celebrations of the Red Army in front of the Brandenburg Gate, the Victory Column and the Lustgarten are shown with rare original sound. Locations chronologically: 0:00 Reichtsag - 0:26 Brandenburg Gate - 1:34 Reich Chancellery (dead Hitler lookalike and dead Goebbels family) - 3:15 Victory Column - 4:06 Georgen Church (blown up in 1949) - 4:40 City Palace - Kaiser Wilhelm National Monument (demolished 1949/1950) - 4:55 Lustgarten and Altes Museum. The archive material is partly used in the 2nd part of the documentary "Hitler over Berlin", which will be published soon on this channel.

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BELOW: Marshal Zhukov and his staff inspect the city.  Before the Branderburg Gate After visiting the Chancery.

RIGHT COLUMN: Additional views of the city in 1945, right after the Nazi power collapse. German women washing clothes at water hydrant. Photographing Goebbels and family remains, dead by suicide on May 1, 1945. Soviet troops break into spontaneous dancing and singing.

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