Victory Day

More than 2.5 million soldiers were involved in the Berlin operation.War always begins suddenly, although a generation later it will seem inevitable to historians. In 1941 began the most terrible, the closest, the most expensive – the Great Patriotic War. They say that without huge losses the Nazis could not be stopped.

In the Berlin operation, in 1945, more than 2.5 million soldiers and officers, 6,250 tanks and self-propelled guns, 7,500 aircraft were involved. The losses were huge: the Red Army lost, according to official data, more than 15 thousand soldiers and officers. In total, Soviet troops in the Berlin operation lost 352 thousand people, including 78 thousand people killed.

Raising the flag over the Reichstag

During the operation, tanks were widely used in the city. In such conditions, they could not use a wide maneuver and became a convenient target for anti-tank weapons of the Germans. This also led to high losses: in two weeks of fighting, the Red Army lost a third of the tanks and self-propelled guns participating in the Berlin operation, which amounted to 1997 units. 2,108 guns and mortars and 917 combat aircraft were also lost. As a result, Soviet troops completely defeated 70 infantry, 12 tank and 11 motorized divisions of the enemy, captured about 480 thousand people.

On May 9, 1945, the Li-2 plane with the crew of A. I. Semenkova landed at the Frunze Central Airfield, delivering the act of surrender of fascist Germany to Moscow. On June 24, the Victory Parade was held on Red Square. Commander of the parade Rokossovsky, hosted the parade - Zhukov.