Soviet Memorial (Schönholzer Heide)

The memorial in autumn 2015

The Soviet memorial in the Schönholzer Heide ( listen ^{? / I} ) in Berlin-Pankow was built from May 1947 to November 1949 and has an area of ​​27,500 m². The Schönholzer Heide , a popular excursion destination in the 19th century, was the site of a large forced labor camp during the Second World War . After the war, the third Soviet memorial in Berlin was built here in the north-western part of the park together with the memorials in the Tiergarten and Treptower Park . Another is located in Berlin-Buch in the Bucher Schlosspark .

The memorial is a memorial and military cemetery of the Soviet war cemeteries where 13,200 of the approximately 80,000 soldiers of the Red Army who died in the final phase ( Battle of Berlin ) in March / April 1945 were buried.

View of the memorial in the Schönholzer Heide , winter 2010

History and description

Relief from the main portal

35 Pfennig postage stamp from the German Post Office of the GDR (1977) with a bronze sculpture of the “Mother Homeland” mourning her son and an obelisk

A Soviet group of architects, consisting of Konstantin A. Solowjow, M. D. Belavenzew, W. D. Koroljow and the sculptor Ivan G. Perschudchew, designed the entire complex of the memorial. On a wall around the memorial, the names, ranks and years of birth of a fifth of the victims who could be identified are affixed to 100 bronze plaques.

On both sides along the main axis, at the end of which a 33.5 m high obelisk made of syenite rises, are eight burial chambers, in each of which 1182  Red Army soldiers were buried. Under the obelisk's hall of honor there is a tomb in which two Soviet colonels were buried. A memorial stone behind the obelisk commemorates the Soviet victims of the concentration camps . The fact that Soviet prisoners of war are also commemorated in this memorial is a specialty, because under Josef Stalin prisoners of war were generally seen as potential collaborators.

In front of the obelisk is the main monument, a statue of the Russian "motherland", who mourns her fallen son. On the base of the obelisk, which is made of black porphyry blocks, there are 42 bronze plaques with the names of fallen officers. The complex also includes a large quotation from Josef Stalin .

On the basis of the treaty on good neighbors, partnership and cooperation between the Federal Republic and the Soviet Union of November 9, 1990 , the renovation of the memorial began in early 2011. Article 18 stipulates that “the monuments erected on German soil and dedicated to the Soviet victims of war and tyranny are respected and protected by German laws.” Soviet war graves must also be “preserved and cared for”. In a further agreement of December 16, 1992 between the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the government of the Russian Federation on war graves welfare, the federal government undertook to guarantee the permanent existence of the graves, to maintain them and to repair them.

Completion was originally planned for 2012 at a cost of 9.88 million euros. Around 10.35 million euros were spent on the complete renovation of the buildings and the outdoor facilities.

After completion of the work, the memorial was reopened on August 13, 2013 by the Senator for Urban Development and Environment Michael Müller together with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation Vladimir M. Grinin and has been open to the public ever since.

“Today's memorial hour is not just an act of honoring the dead by grateful descendants. It is an important act of rapprochement and reconciliation between Russians and Germans. [...] "

- On the reopening of the Soviet memorial in the Schönholzer Heide the Russian Ambassador Vladimir M. Grinin on August 13, 2013 :

See also

• List of well-known mother-home statues
• Soviet war cemeteries in Germany
• List of war cemeteries

literature

• Helga Köpstein : The Soviet memorials in Berlin. Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-9811048-1-1 .
• Hans Hauser: Worries about the Russian memorials . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 9, 1998, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 76-78 ( luise-berlin.de ).
• Frank Schumann : Monuments of Liberation: Traces of the Red Army in Germany. New Life, 2020, ISBN 978-3-355-01890-6 .

Web links

Commons : Soviet War Memorial (Schönholzer Heide)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry in the Berlin State Monument List
• Schönholzer Heide Memorial at the Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment
• Information on the renovation and rededication of the Schönholzer Heide memorial

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Soviet Cemetery of Honor & Memorial Schönholzer Heide Berlin . In: Berlin's Taiga . June 7, 2018 ( berlinstaiga.de [accessed June 30, 2018]).
2. ↑ Stalin's crimes. March 4, 2019, accessed on March 11, 2019 (German). 
3. ↑ Stalin's heirs. March 10, 2019, accessed on March 11, 2019 (German). 
4. ↑ Soviet Memorial Schönholz. (No longer available online.) Adb - office for architecture, monument preservation and building research. ewerien and obermann GbR, archived from the original on May 1, 2011 ; Retrieved July 30, 2014 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Soviet memorial and Schönholz military cemetery have been renovated. Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment, August 14, 2013, accessed on July 30, 2014 . 

Coordinates: 52 ° 34 ′ 54 ″  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 21 ″  E