Soviet memorial in Treptower Park

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Statue with child and broken swastika

The Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park (also Treptower Memorial ) is a memorial and at the same time a military cemetery in Treptower Park in Berlin . The facility, which was completed in May 1949, was built on the instructions of the Soviet military administration in Germany to honor the soldiers of the Red Army who died in World War II . Over 7000 of the soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin are buried here. The colossal statue belonging to the monument is 30 meters high with hill and base.

Soviet memorials in Berlin

After the end of World War II, the Red Army created four Soviet memorials in the urban area of ​​Berlin. They should remember the Red Army soldiers who were killed, especially the 80,000 or so Soviet soldiers who were killed in the conquest of Berlin. These memorials are not only memorials to the victory over Germany , but also military cemeteries and thus Soviet war cemeteries in Germany . The central memorial is the facility in Treptower Park. In addition, the memorial in the Schönholzer Heide ( Pankow ), the memorial in the zoo and the memorial in the Bucher Schlosspark were built .

Building history

To design the memorial in Berlin-Treptow , a competition was held by the Soviet command, for which 33 designs were received. From June 1946, the proposal from a Soviet creative collective was implemented, headed by the architect Jakow B. Belopolski , the sculptor Yevgeny Wuchetitsch , the painter Alexander A. Gorpenko and the engineer Sarra S. Walerius. In addition to sculptures and reliefs, flame bowls with a diameter of 2.50 m were also made, which were manufactured in 1948 by the Lauchhammer art foundry . In addition, the skills of the Sperlich foundry from Birkholzaue were used to build the monumental sculpture. The memorial was built on the site of a large playground and sports field in the area of ​​the "New Lake" created on the occasion of the Berlin trade exhibition of 1896. It was completed in May 1949.

The federal government renovated the facility by 2004 for more than 11 million euros. The gilded quotations from Josef Stalin were also restored. In October 2003 the statue of the Red Army soldier was restored in a workshop on Rügen , brought back to Berlin by ship and has been on its base again since May 4th, 2004.

history

Wreath-laying ceremony by Lenin pioneers, Komsomol and Thalmann pioneers, July 1989
Protest demonstration by around 250,000 Berlin citizens against neo-Nazis, January 1990
Paint attack on the statue “Mother Homeland” on May 4, 2019

The construction of the monument was marked by the onset of the Cold War . Although there was a shortage of housing in post-war Germany and the construction sector had almost come to a standstill due to a lack of planning, manpower and material, the Soviets gave monument erection priority over housing. A symbol of victory was to be erected in the center of Germany, the fallen were to be offered a dignified resting place and an alternative to the redesign plans for Berlin that Hans Scharoun had run. The memorial expressed two things: In the understanding of the Soviet occupying power, the dimensions of the complex should be “a witness of the size and the insurmountable strength of the Soviet power”. East German politicians like Otto Grotewohl, on the other hand, saw the memorial, inaugurated on May 8, 1949, the 4th anniversary of the end of the war, as a sign of thanks to the Soviet army as a liberator.

In the following decades, the Treptower plant was the scene of mass events and state rituals of the GDR, which sometimes completely superimposed the original intention of being the victory mark and cemetery of the Second World War. In 1985, on the 40th anniversary of the end of the war, the representatives of the youth movement of the GDR organized a torchlight procession at the Treptower Memorial. There they took the "oath of the youth of the GDR".

During the fall of the Wall on December 28, 1989, strangers smeared the stone sarcophagi and the base of the crypt with anti-Soviet slogans. The SED-PDS suspected that the perpetrator or perpetrators came from the right-wing extremist scene and organized a mass demonstration on January 3, 1990, in which 250,000 citizens of the GDR took part. Party chairman Gregor Gysi took this opportunity to call for “protection of the constitution” for the GDR. He was referring to the discussion of whether the Office for National Security, the successor organization of the Stasi , should be reorganized or wound down. The historian Stefan Wolle therefore believes it is possible that behind the graffiti were Stasi employees who feared for their posts.

The Soviet war memorials were an important negotiating point on the Russian side for the two-plus-four treaties for German reunification . The Federal Republic therefore committed itself in 1992 in the agreement of December 16, 1992 between the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Government of the Russian Federation on war graves to ensure their existence, to maintain and repair them. Any changes to the monuments require the approval of the Russian Federation.

On August 31, 1994, the military ceremony for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Germany was held at the Soviet Memorial in Treptower Park. After a ceremony in the Schauspielhaus on Gendarmenmarkt , 1,000 Russian soldiers from the 6th Guards Mot.-Rifle Brigade and 600 German soldiers from the Guard Battalion at the Federal Ministry of Defense came together to commemorate the dead. They formed the framework for the wreath-laying ceremony by Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President Boris Jelzin, accompanied by short speeches .

Since 1995, a memorial rally has been held at the memorial every year on May 9th with the laying of flowers and wreaths, which is organized by the “Bund der Antifaschisten Treptow e. V. "is organized. The motto of the event is “Liberation Day” and corresponds to Victory Day , the Russian holiday. On the night of May 8th to 9th, 1945 in Berlin-Karlshorst an eventual unconditional surrender was signed by three leading German military officers authorized by the last Reich President Karl Dönitz in Flensburg - Mürwik and four Allied representatives. On May 9, 2015, around 10,000 people visited the memorial to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the war - among them were members of the Night Wolves , a Russian motorcycle and rocker club. The bikers' trip to Berlin caused a stir when some members were initially refused entry to Germany.

On September 2, 2015, the inscriptions on a memorial plaque were destroyed by arson.

On May 4, 2019, there was another incident in which the statue "Mother Homeland" was doused with a dark liquid.

The attachment

Hill with pavilion and statue
Main axis of the memorial
General view from the hill

The visitor enters the strictly axially symmetrical Treptower memorial, coming from Puschkinallee or the street Am Treptower Park , each through a triumphal arch made of gray granite. An inscription on this honors the soldiers “who died for the freedom and independence of the socialist homeland”. Following the path one arrives at a kind of forecourt with a three-meter-high woman statue, an allegory of the “mother home” mourning her fallen sons. From here the line of sight of the main monument opens up.

A broad, gently sloping path lined with sloping birch trees leads along the central axis to the main field of the complex. This is marked by two large, stylized flags made of red granite, which lean towards the path on either side. At the front of each is the sculpture of a kneeling soldier in full gear and armed with a submachine gun. There is an older soldier on the left and a younger soldier on the right.

From here a few stairs lead down to the symbolic burial ground, which forms the center of the complex. These graves, greened with grass and small hedges, are marked by five square stone slabs, each with a laurel wreath (the real graves are more likely to be found on the sides of the complex under the plane trees and under the burial mound).

Sixteen white limestone sarcophagi stand along the perimeter of this field. They are provided with reliefs from the history of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet peoples on the two long sides and bear quotations from Josef Stalin on the narrow side facing the central field , in Russian on the left (northern) and in German on the right (southern) ) Side of the plant. The individual sarcophagi have specific themes: attack by the Germans, destruction and suffering in the Soviet Union, sacrifice and renunciation of the Soviet people and support of the army, heroic army, heroic struggle of the army, sacrifice and suffering of the army, victory, heroic death.

The last two sarcophagi dedicated to the heroic dying stand in line with the central location of the complex, an artificially created burial mound. This is dominated by the sculpture “The Liberator” by Yevgeny Wutschetich standing on a double conical base. The figure shows a soldier who carries a sword in his right hand and a protective child on his left arm; a swastika is bursting under his boots. The sculpture is 12 meters high and weighs 70 tons. This monument to the liberator, together with Mother Heimat on Mamayev Hill in Volgograd (1967) and the worker behind the front in Magnitogorsk (1979), forms a memorial triptych depicting the forged sword in Magnitogorsk, the raised sword in Volgograd and the lowered sword shows in Berlin.

Interior view of the pavilion, February 2014

The statue rises above a walk-in pavilion that was built on a hill. In the dome of the pavilion there is a mosaic with a surrounding Russian inscription and an incorrect German translation. This mosaic was one of the first significant orders in the post-war period for the August Wagner company, a unified workshops for mosaic and glass painting in Berlin-Neukölln . The hill with the pavilion is modeled on a " Kurgan " (medieval, Slavic graves of the Don plain). Such Kurgane occur more often in the Soviet memorial complexes: for example in Volgograd , Smolensk , Minsk , Kiev , Odessa and in Donetsk . In Treptower Park, the hill with the pavilion and statue with a height of 30 meters forms the towering end point of the 10 hectare facility.

The sculptor himself has emphasized in several interviews that the representation of the soldier with a rescued child has a purely symbolic meaning and that it is not a precise incident. However, the story of Sergeant Nikolai Iwanowitsch Massalow (1921–2001), who had brought a little girl to safety near the Potsdamer Bridge on April 30, 1945 when the Reich Chancellery was attacked, was widely circulated in the GDR . A memorial plaque was placed on this bridge over the Landwehr Canal in his honor . For a long time he was also considered a role model for the “Treptower Soldier”. However, the model for the bronze figure was the Soviet soldier Ivan Odartschenko (1926–2013).

Another version says that the monument is modeled on the heroic deed of the Soviet soldier and former worker of the Minsk radio plant (Belarus) T. A. Lukyanovich , who paid with his life to save a little girl in Berlin. The source for this version is the book Berlin 896 km by the Soviet journalist and writer Boris Polewoi .

See also

gallery

  • Portal at the entrance to the memorial

  • Woman statue "Mother Homeland" on the forecourt of the memorial

  • Mother home , postage stamp of the GDR, 1970

  • Statue of the "Mother Homeland"

  • Avenue with flag pylons on the main axis

  • Close-up view of a soldier kneeling at the central portal

  • Elderly soldier at the Soviet War Memorial

  • Main axis with bronze wreath

  • Memorial stone in the center of the memorial

  • 8. Sarcophagus in the north row. Subject: "Hero's death"

  • Detail: little Svetlana Kotikowa, daughter of the city commander Alexander Kotikow , sat as a model

  • Portal at the exit of the memorial

  • Visitors lay flowers to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Victory Day .

  • Honor plaque of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship with a representation of the memorial

  • Treptower Symbol.JPG

  • Panel on the side of the main axis of the monument

literature

  • Peter Fibich: The triumph of victory over death. The Soviet memorial in Berlin Treptow . In: Die Gartenkunst , 8 (1/1996), pp. 137–152.
  • Helga Köpstein : The Soviet memorials in Berlin. Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-9811048-1-1 .
  • Steffi Töpfer: The Soviet memorial in Treptower Park in Berlin. Layout, design language and iconographic tradition . In: Stefan Troebst, Johanna Wolf (Ed.): Remembering the Second World War. Monuments and museums in Central and Eastern Europe . Leipzig 2011, pp. 127–135 (Writings of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity).

Web links

Commons : Soviet memorial in Treptower Park  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Sources and individual references

  1. ↑ Reference list of the Lauchhammer art foundry, here: 1948
  2. ^ Company history of the Sperlich foundry 1946–1981
  3. ↑ Stalin's heirs. March 10, 2019, accessed on March 11, 2019 (German).
  4. ↑ a b Peter Fibich: The triumph of victory over death. The Soviet memorial in Berlin-Treptow (PDF) In: Die Gartenkunst 8 (1996), p. 150.
  5. ↑ Stefan Wolle : The ideal world of dictatorship. Everyday life and rule in the GDR. 1971-1989. Federal Agency for Political Education , Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-89331-297-8 , p. 333 ( series of publications by the Federal Agency for Political Education , 349).
  6. ↑ After a controversial European tour: "Night Wolves" celebrate the end of the war in Berlin . Spiegel Online , May 9, 2015.
  7. ^ Maltreated history. Junge Welt , November 4, 2015, accessed November 4, 2015 .
  8. ^ Soviet memorial in Treptower Park. Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment - Berlin, accessed on October 8, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Stalin's heirs. March 10, 2019, accessed on March 11, 2019 (German).
  10. ↑ Russian Wikipedia, article Hinterland und Front, ru: Тыл - фронту (монумент)
  11. ↑ С. Б. Ильин, А. С. Лонгинов, А. В. Сульдин: Всенародная академия . Издательство политической литературы, Moscow 1986, p. 62 .
  12. ↑ О. А. Кудзоев: Скульптурная летопись края . 1989, p. 101 .
  13. ↑ И. Слука: Великая Отечественная война . In: 100 самых знаменитых монет СССР . 2015, p. 17 .
  14. ↑ Монумент скульптура Родина-мать в Волгограде. Accessed September 28, 2017.
  15. ↑ Annemarie Richter: Gottfried Heinersdorff (1883–1941), a reformer of German glass art. Dissertation, TU Berlin, 1983 p. 134.
  16. ↑ For example in: Berliner Zeitung , September 14, 1966.


Coordinates: 52 ° 29 ′ 10 ″  N , 13 ° 28 ′ 18 ″  E