Berlin Victory Parade 1945

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Berlin Victory Parade 1945. In the stands: US General George S. Patton , Marshal of the Soviet Union Zhukov , British Major General Brian Robertson and French General Pierre Kœnig .

The Berlin Victory Parade 1945 was a military parade of the allied victorious powers in Berlin , the capital of the defeated Nazi state , shortly after the end of the Second World War . It took place on September 7, 1945 on Charlottenburger Chaussee near the Brandenburg Gate . Participating countries were the Soviet Union , the USA , Great Britain and France .

history

Soviet IS-3 tanks during the parade on Charlottenburger Chaussee

The proposal for a joint event came from the Soviet side, following the Moscow Victory Parade of 1945 . The parade took place on Charlottenburger Chaussee, near the Brandenburg Gate. Shortly before the set date, the American General Dwight D. Eisenhower and the British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery declined the invitation and sent General George S. Patton and Major General Brian Robertson in their place . Robertson became Deputy Military Governor of the British Zone of Occupation in May 1946 . The parade was commanded by the British Major General Eric Nares , second in command of the British Sector of Berlin . The salute came from the cannons of the 3rd regiment of the British Royal Horse Artillery . Pierre Kœnig , military governor of the French zone of occupation in Germany, was France's representative . Marshal Zhukov , who had already accepted the parade on Red Square in Moscow on June 24, 1945 , acted as the representative of the Soviet Union . General Patton was not impressed by his Soviet colleague and described him in a letter to his wife as a medal-hung operetta character.

A total of about 5000 soldiers took part in the parade, 2000 of them from the Soviet Union. The parade was opened by marching soldiers, followed by detachments from various armored divisions , including the British 7th Armored Division , the French 1st Armored Division, and a division of the Soviet 5th Shock Army . Furthermore, soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division and the 16th Cavalry Regiment of the US Army marched . The Red Army took the opportunity to present the IS-3 heavy battle tank , accompanied by 52 tanks from the 2nd Guards Tank Army .

In Russian sources, the event was referred to as the "Forgotten Parade" because it was hardly mentioned in Western media. This is probably also related to the beginning of the Cold War .

On May 8, 1946, the first anniversary of the surrender of the Wehrmacht , another military parade of the four Allies took place: the Berlin Victory Parade in 1946 was also under the command of Eric Nares. The occasion was the inauguration of the Soviet memorial in the Great Zoo .

See also

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Geoffrey Roberts: Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov . Random House, 2012. p. 235. Partial online view
  2. ^ Willmuth Arenhövel, Rolf Bothe: Das Brandenburger Tor . 1991, p. 303

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 59 ″  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 40 ″  E