Banner of the Great Victory

On April 30, 1945, Soviet soldiers hoisted the Banner of Victory over Reichstag ohm.

The battles of the 3rd shock army for Reichstag began on April 29, 1945. Building Reichstag and was one of the most important strongholds in the system of the central defense sector of Berlin.

On three sides, the building was surrounded by the Spree River through which only one bridge remained intact. The width of the river with high granite banks was 25 meters. From the fourth side Reichstag was covered by a number of stone buildings around the perimeter Reichstag and converted by the Nazis into fortresses, including the "Himmler's House" - the building of the Reich Ministry of the Interior.

Himmler's house

The approaches to the building were open areas that were shot through by machine-gun fire, numerous anti-aircraft artillery and heavy guns from the park. All doors and windows were barricaded. Only narrow embrasures were left for firing automatic weapons and artillery pieces. The trenches encircling the building in several rows were connected to the basements of the building.

Reichstag defended by a garrison of 1000 officers and soldiers of various units, mostly cadets of the naval school, parachuted into the area Reichstag A. In addition, it included SS detachments, Volksturm, pilots, gunners. They were well armed with a large number of machine guns, machine guns and faustpatrons. The officers of the garrison received an order from Hitler to keep Reichstag.

Storming the Reichstag was entrusted to units of the 79th Rifle Corps. The corps was reinforced with artillery, tanks and self-propelled guns. By midnight on April 29, preparations for the assault were over. Under the cover of artillery and mortar fire, units of the 525th Infantry Regiment crossed the river and entrenched themselves on the opposite bank. On the morning of April 29, powerful artillery and mortar fire was fired at Himmler's house. The 756th regiment of the 150th rifle division started a fight for him. Throughout the day on April 29, units of the 756th, 674th and 380th rifle regiments fought for the ministry. The Nazis offered stubborn resistance, fiercely fought for every floor, every room. By 4 o'clock. 30 min. On April 30, the house was completely cleared of the enemy. Breaking the stubborn resistance of the Nazis, units of the 150th and 171st divisions by 12 o’clock took their starting position for the assault Reichstag and in a trench that had high bulk walls, allowing you to hide from heavy fire. The Germans repeatedly launched violent counterattacks with the support of tanks and artillery, but all these attempts were repulsed by the Soviet units.

Attaching exceptionally important political and military importance to the battles to capture Berlin, the Military Council of the 3rd Shock Army, even before the start of the offensive, established the red banners of the Military Council. These banners were awarded to all rifle divisions of the army.

Commander of the 150th Rifle Division, which reached the immediate approaches to Reichstag y, General Shatilov V.M. presented the Red Banner of the Military Council of the Army No. 5 to the commander of the 756th regiment, Colonel F.M. Zinchenko.

To hoist the banner over Reichstag Colonel Zinchenko singled out his best 1st battalion. Commanded this battalion Captain Stepan Andreevich Neustroev.

S.A. Neustroev after the war

In storm Reichstag and other units also took part, each of which had its own Red Banner - the 1st battalion of V.I.

Davydov, 1st battalion senior lieutenant K.Ya. Samsonov from the 380th Infantry Regiment, two assault groups of the 79th Infantry Corps under the command of Major M.M. Bondar and Captain V.N. Makov. These groups included volunteers.
At 13 o'clock. 30 min. artillery preparation for the assault began - all guns and self-propelled guns, tanks, guards mortars hit on Reichstag at direct fire. The fire was fired by about 100 guns, including 152-mm and 203-mm howitzers. Above the building was a continuous cloud of smoke and dust. The assault began - the enemy opened heavy fire on the attacking units from the Tiergarten. The assault units were pinned to the ground by enemy fire and will advance to Reichstag u couldn't. For this battle, many Soviet soldiers were presented with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

First assault on the Reichstag failed, in the subdivisions, instead of the fighters and officers who had fallen out of action, replenishment was sent. Objects for attack were specified, artillery was brought up.
At 18 o'clock assault on the Reichstag was repeated. Battalion soldiers under cover of artillery Neustroeva rushed in unison to attack, it was headed by the party organizer of the company I. Ya. Syanov, deputy for political affairs A. P. Berest and adjutant of the battalion K. V. Gusev. Together with the battalion Neustroeva the soldiers of the Davydov and Samsonov battalions also rushed forward.

Tank IS-2, which took part in the storming of Berlin

Private Red Army during the battles for Berlin. soldier armed PPSh-41. 1st Belorussian Front, 125th Rifle Corps, 60th Rifle Division, April 1945.

The enemy could not restrain the heroic impulse of our fighters. In a few minutes they reached Reichstag and red flags appeared on it. Here the flag of the party organizer of the 756th rifle regiment Pyotr Pyatnitsky flew up, but running up the stairs he was hit by an enemy bullet, the flag was picked up by sergeant P.D. Shcherbina and strengthens it on one of the columns.
From the embrasures, the upper floors, the Nazis poured heavy fire on the advancing Soviet soldiers, but the soldiers who broke through the walls ended up in a dead zone of fire.

The door of the main entrance turned out to be walled up with bricks, and the Soviet soldiers were forced to break through the passage with a log. The attackers broke into the building Reichstag and by tying up a fight inside the building. The fighters of the battalions acted swiftly - in the corridors, halls, they entered into hand-to-hand combat with the Nazis. With automatic fire, hand grenades, and faustpatrons, the Soviet soldiers forced the enemy to lighten their fire and captured the premises adjacent to the entrance vestibule. Storming battalions, meter by meter, room by room, cleared the first floor of the enemy. Part of the Fritz was driven into the vast basement, the other part - to the upper floors of the building.

Fight in the building Reichstag and took place in extremely difficult conditions. From the explosions of faustpatrons and hand grenades, a fire broke out in the premises. It began to intensify when our units began to use flamethrowers to smoke out the Fritz. Fierce fighting ensued on the second floor of the building.
According to one of the stairwells, the soldiers of the Neustroev battalion - V.N. Makov, G.K. Zagitov, A.F. Lisimenko and Sergeant M.P. Minin, paving the way with grenades and machine gun fire, broke through to the roof and installed a red banner on the tower Reichstag A.
The banner of the Military Council of the 3rd shock army was instructed to hoist the scouts of the regiment - M.V. Kantaria and M.A. Egorov. Together with a group of fighters led by Lieutenant Berest, with the support of Syanov's company, they climbed onto the roof of the building and at 21:50 on April 30, 1945 hoisted the Banner of Victory over Reichstag ohm. For the skillful leadership of the battle and the heroism of V.I. Davydov, S.A. Neustroev, K.Ya. Samsonov, as well as M.A. Egorov and M.V. Kantaria, who hoisted the Banner of Victory over Reichstag om, - was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Fight inside Reichstag but continued with great tension until the morning of May 1, and individual groups of fascists who had settled in the basements Reichstag but continued to resist until May 2, until the Soviet soldiers finally finished with them.

salute of Victory

In battles for Reichstag up to 2500 enemy soldiers were killed and wounded, 2604 prisoners were captured.

Volkssturm armband

Volkssturm fighter surrenders. In his left hand he has a soldier's book of a Volkssturm participant

ISU-122 Polish troops that participated in the storming of Berlin

May 3, 1945 photos of a burning Reichstag and with the banner of Victory flying over its dome were published in the Moscow newspaper Pravda ..

Meliton Varlamovich Kantaria Mikhail Alekseevich Egorov

On June 24, 1945, the first parade of troops of the active army, the Navy and the Moscow garrison took place on Red Square in Moscow to commemorate the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War.

Victory parade

It was decided to bring the Banner of Victory from Berlin to the parade.

Soldiers of the 150th Idritsa Rifle Division against the background of their assault flag, hoisted on May 1, 1945 over the Reichstag building in Berlin and which later became the state relic of Russia - the Banner of Victory. In the photo, participants in the assault on the Reichstag, who escorted the flag to Moscow from the Berlin Tempelhof airfield on June 20, 1945 (from left to right): Captain K.Ya. Samsonov, junior sergeant M.V. Kantaria, Sergeant M.A. Egorov, senior sergeant M.Ya. Soyanov, captain S.A. Neustroev.

Guard of honor at the Banner of Victory

After participating in the parade, the Banner of Victory is still kept in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces.

The sensation was born on the air. TV presenter Nikolai Svanidze showed his guest, veteran of the Great Patriotic War Alexei Kovalev, a picture from the famous series "Victory Banner over the Reichstag" by the famous photographer Yevgeny Khaldei. Yes, it's me, - the full holder of the Order of Glory instantly reacted, - and this is Lenya Gorychev from Minsk and Abdulkhakim Ismailov from Dagestan!

But how is it? After all, everyone who studied history in a Soviet school knows for sure: the Banner of Victory was hoisted over the Reichstag by Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria. Whom to believe? Perhaps that official documents. For example, to the law: On May 7, 2007, the Federal Law "On the Banner of Victory" was adopted in our country. His first article explicitly and unambiguously states:

The banner of Victory is the assault flag of the 150th Order of Kutuzov II degree of the Idritsa Rifle Division, hoisted on May 1, 1945 on the Reichstag building in Berlin.

In less serious sources, this banner is also called flag number five. The Reichstag was not the first and was not the only one. The tradition of hoisting assault flags arose when a turning point occurred in the Great Patriotic War, and the Red Army went on the offensive. She liberated and took cities, and celebrated the victory with a red banner on a suitable building, or even on more than one. And when they went to Berlin ... To finish off the enemy in his lair and hoist the Banner of Victory over Berlin was ordered by Comrade Stalin himself back on the October holidays in 1944. And when it became clear that the 1st Belorussian Front would take Berlin, red flags were made in each army advancing on the capital of the enemy to hoist over the Reichstag. And in the 3rd shock army they decided to sew 9 flags - according to the number of divisions.

The army was the first to be in the center of Berlin, in some store they found a suitable red cloth, a sickle, a hammer and a star were applied through a stencil. And they handed out banners to representatives of rifle divisions. So that there was no mistake, they asked Moscow. Stalin ordered - to hoist the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag. Today, when the forest of spears is broken, no one seems to doubt the truth. At 2:25 p.m. on April 30, as reported by the all-Union radio, no flag was hoisted over the Reichstag - the commanders somewhat anticipated the events.

The very first banner, made from improvised means, was raised to the roof of the Reichstag by a group of Captain Makov from the 171st Infantry Division. It happened at 22:40. That same evening, two more red flags were hoisted on the roof. They were not, so to speak, official - each of those who took Berlin then wanted to be the first, and made a banner, banner, flag, from any piece of red that was tucked under the arm. There were many such flags in the Reichstag later - and the winners can be understood. And at three o'clock of the same night, Sergeant Mikhail Yegorov, junior sergeant Meliton Kantaria and political officer Lieutenant Alexei Berest, under the cover of submachine gunners, climbed to the roof of the Reichstag and fixed this very thing there - banner number five.

I ask Berest: "Won't it come off?" - "It will stand for a hundred years, we pulled it, the banner, with belts to the horse," Battalion Commander Stepan Neustroev later recalled.

Berest was right: long-range enemy shelling destroyed the first three banners. And the assault flag of the 150th division survived. And became the Banner of Victory. But Aleksey Berest, unlike Yegorov and Kantaria, did not get into the textbooks: the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front personally crossed him out of the list of those nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Comrade Zhukov did not like political workers. There was no one to take pictures of the heroes at three in the morning.

Yevgeny Khaldei (center) in Berlin near the Brandenburg Gate, May 1945.

The legendary photograph of Yevgeny Khaldei has its own fantastic story. The flag flying over the Reichstag in this photo, Yevgeny Ananyevich brought with him from Moscow. As soon as the war correspondent learned that the editors of the TASS Photo Chronicle were sending him to Berlin, he immediately got hold of the TASS store manager with three local kumach tablecloths. Flags were made from them: the first was installed at the Tempelhof airfield, the second - early in the morning on May 2 - at the Brandenburg Gate. And the third photographer hid in his bosom and, bending down, moved to the reystag - there was still a fight in the vicinity.

I came across several soldiers and officers. Without saying a word, instead of "hello", he took out his last flag. They were taken aback in amazement: "Oh, starley, let's go upstairs!" - Evgeny Ananievich said later.

The same legendary shot of the legendary Evgeny Khaldei

The dome was on fire, and the photographer found another suitable spot. Aleksey Kovalev fixed the flag - this moment is captured in the photographs, Khaldei filmed two cassettes then. Kovalev was assisted by scouts from the same company - Abdulkhakim Ismailov and Leonid Gorychev. They did not take the Reichstag - the 8th Guards Army fought in another part of Berlin. But courage and victory were common, and each flag over the Reichstag marked a great feat.

Author: Maxim Maximov, specially for UA-Football.
Posted on Wednesday, June 22, 2011. 04:00 (link to the source - at the end of the article)
I don’t know what else the current Kyiv authorities will come up with, so I copy it without cuts and corrections, although I don’t agree with everything. To stay here.
I only allowed myself to insert a couple of additions [in square brackets].

"On June 22, at exactly 4 o'clock, Kyiv was bombed ... Peacetime ended"

There is a date in our history that should not be forgotten even in the current fast-moving and impetuous time - this is June 22, 1941, when the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union. On this day, a big sports festival was planned in Kyiv: the opening of the Republican Stadium named after the head of the Ukrainian communists - Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, and the holding of a calendar football match of the USSR championship - Dynamo - CDKA.

We didn’t have time - the war broke out ...

The first German bombs exploded in Kyiv before dawn. But, oddly enough, this did not frighten the people of Kiev very much - they probably thought that ordinary army exercises were going on on the outskirts ... And only after some time the words of the song became known to the whole country: “On June 22, at exactly four o’clock, Kiev was bombed, we were announced that the war began”… Unfortunately, every year there are less and less eyewitnesses of those dramatic events.

The idol of the pre-war youth Konstantin Vasilyevich Shchegotsky, a great football player of Dynamo and the USSR national team, who was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor for his football skills, which, however, did not prevent him from visiting the cellars of the NKVD, described the events in the book "In the game and out of the game" that tragic day. Unfortunately, the book became a rarity - I had to use the publications of famous football chroniclers Axel Vartanyan and Georgy Kuzmin.

“About six in the morning I was awakened by a phone call. At the other end, I heard the excited voice of my friend, lawyer Gurevich:

- Kostya, war!

Stop your stupid jokes!

- I'm not kidding: the Nazis attacked us!

There was a peaceful life outside the window: the janitor was cleaning the street - everything was quiet, calm, beautiful ... And suddenly explosions were heard in the distance! .. Hastily dressing, I rushed to the Continental Hotel, where coach Mikhail Pavlovich Butusov lived with his family. An acquaintance from Moscow also stopped there - radio commentator Vadim Sinyavsky, who came to report on the Dynamo - CDKA match. He must know something...

Lying on the windowsill, the great commentator and the equally great imitator (in the pre-television era he had no equal in the “painting” of football) shouted into the telephone receiver:

- They shoot anti-aircraft guns! Past ... Shells explode in the sky much higher than the planes. Here, it seems, they hit ... No, again by! ..

He hung up the phone, greeted me and immediately answered my question:

Yes, the war has begun. Fascist evil spirits attacked us!..»

Vadim Svyatoslavovich Sinyavsky could not even imagine that in November 1943, he, one of the first war correspondents who ended up in liberated Kyiv, would have to report from the destroyed city, completely different reports ...

The fighting on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War lasted 1418 days, and finally, on May 8, 1945, at 22:43 Central European Time, the war in Europe ended with the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces. And already on June 24 of the same year, the Victory Parade took place in Moscow. A little later, at the 45th Potsdam Conference of the leaders of the USSR, Great Britain and the USA, held in July-August, agreements were discussed on the post-war structure of Europe ...

All these events were captured by many outstanding Soviet and foreign photojournalists. I was lucky enough to be acquainted with one of them - the legendary photojournalist Yevgeny Chaldei, whose photographs are known to everyone affected by the war ... At least, we can talk about at least a few of them: “The Banner over the Reichstag” is a real symbol of Victory, the famous photograph "The First Day of the War" is the only one filmed in Moscow on June 22, 1941 and the Victory Parade on Red Square. Not to mention long trips to the Northern Fleet and participation in the liberation of the Crimea and a number of European capitals. These frames give a vivid idea of ​​the work of Yevgeny Khaldei.

"Victory Banner over the Reichstag". History of photography

“I think with sadness that one day all this will be thrown into the trash, like this whole era” ... These words just belong to the amazing chronicler of the great war and our countryman Yevgeny Khaldei, the famous military photojournalist of Krasnaya Zvezda, TASS, and later Ogonyok and Pravda, who during his lifetime became a legend in Russian photojournalism. Unfortunately, Evgeny Ananievich's fears were not in vain ...

My father died in 1943 near Dnepropetrovsk, in a terrible Sinelnikovsky nightmare, and the only thing that got in memory of him was yellowed photographs and an officer's pension ... So the military theme has been painfully familiar to me since the time of studying the primer.

At that time I worked in the Ukrainian "subsidiary" version of the Moscow weekly "Football". When in September 1997 it was necessary to go to negotiate with its editor-in-chief Oleg Kucherenko, my friend, who worked in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, clasped her hands and exclaimed: “Do you want to get acquainted with“ my ”Chaldey - I can think of a small package for him?” “And why is it yours?” ... “So who doesn’t know the military photographs of Yevgeny Ananyevich - yes, one banner over the Reichstag is enough for everyone! We have exhibited it so many times, so I often had to travel to Moscow for “free” photographs. The Museum was constantly short of money”…

And so, after negotiations in Football, our “capture group” on September 1st arrived on Onezhskaya Street, not far from the Vodny Stadion metro station, in the holy of holies of the legendary journalist - his small apartment-laboratory, which at the same time also served as museum ... I remember that standing in front of the door, one of us instantly broke out in sweat: “Wait, don’t call - I don’t believe that now I will see a person whose photograph has been hanging over my father’s bed all my life” ...

The door was opened by a big smiling man: behind the thick glasses of glasses - smart and kind eyes ...

- Ah, fellow countrymen! We finally got there - come on in, sit down. Be bolder - I'm alone here ... Not counting, however, my friends ... They are in the photographs.

The legendary photo historian lived among his archive, countless cameras and portraits of long-gone friends. As the guardian and creator of the truth about the war, about the difficult, painfully familiar era from his photographs ... Huge portraits of Zhukov and Simonov hung nearby, a little further away, in the circle of their sworn friends - Stalin with a modest star of the Hero on a white tunic ... On a bookcase - The Nuremberg trials, and large - Goering ... And quite unexpectedly - Charlie Chaplin with a dedicatory inscription.

- And I'm trying to interview Goering. But as soon as he found out that I was from the USSR, he refused. Although we still managed to exchange a few words - he turned out to be a miserable person ... And how is it with us, in Ukraine, - Evgeny Ananievich asked almost without transition.

Countryman

It turns out that Khaldei was born in the small Ukrainian town of Yuzovka - now Donetsk. And once - also Stalino ... A year later, during a Jewish pogrom, the Black Hundreds who burst into the house killed their grandfather and mother, who, dying, covered her little son with herself. The bullet went through her body and stuck in Yevgeny's lung ...

The father married a second time, he had three daughters. During the war, the Germans, retreating, killed many people in Ukraine, and most of all Jews ... Hundreds and thousands of people were thrown into the mines. Among the dead was the father of Yevgeny Khaldei, and, possibly, his three paternal sisters. He learned about this tragedy much later ...

The beginner yunkorr made his camera from a cardboard box and an eyepiece from his grandmother's glasses. I developed the plates under the bed... The church in Yuzovka appeared on the first picture, and when it was blown up, the ruins...

In the thirties, famine began in Ukraine, and the young man got a job as a steam locomotive cleaner in one of the depots. And he continues to take pictures ... Photos appear in the local press, signed - "E. Khaldei", and then the first essay ... about football! And already in 1936, a novice photojournalist was hired by the TASS Photo Chronicle. In Moscow!.. Filmed Magnitogorsk, Dneprostroy, reports about Stakhanov...

And although they were preparing for the war, it began unexpectedly ...

After talking a little about Ukrainian life, we soon switched to the topics of the old war - I wanted to hear from the owner himself about these people who have been inhabiting his apartment for so many years ...

Albums, prospectuses, whole piles of exhibition booklets… Solid war, destroyed cities, attacking marines… And suddenly portraits of the presidential couple Bill and Hillary Clinton with a dedication inscription: “To Eugene Chaldea”…

“I just returned from Argentina – there was a huge exhibition, and before that I traveled around the States…” he says.

- Are they really interested in this: after all, in your photographs there is only our war?

- And you read the review books - the Belgians printed it! ..

Did the war start unexpectedly for you?

- On June 22, 1941, I returned from Tarkhan, where the 100th anniversary of Lermontov's death was celebrated ... I filmed the guys from the rural literary circle there. One boy read poetry: “Tell me, uncle, it’s not without reason that Moscow, burned down by fire ...”, and I asked him to repeat these lines again and again in order to make good doubles ... If only I knew! .. And so I arrived in the morning to Moscow, I go up to the house - and I lived not far from the German embassy, ​​I look - the Germans unload bundles of things from cars and bring them to the embassy. I couldn't understand what was going on. And at ten in the morning they called from Photochronicles and ordered to urgently come to work. At eleven o'clock, Levitan's voice was heard on the radio: "Attention, Moscow says, all the radio stations of the Soviet Union are working ... At 12 o'clock an important government message will be transmitted" ... He repeated this for a whole hour - apparently, everyone in the Kremlin has nerves too were on the edge. Finally, at twelve, the voice of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Vyacheslav Molotov was heard - he stuttered slightly ... And then we heard a terrible thing: "... our cities of Kiev, Minsk, Bialystok were bombed ...".

From the editorial window, I saw people crowding near the TASS Photo Chronicles building - they were listening to the announcement of the beginning of the war with Germany under the loudspeaker. Grabbing a watering can, he jumped out into the street and managed to click the shutter several times. This is how the photograph, which later became world-famous, appeared, which was called “The First Day” ...

It was from her that my front-line everyday life of a photojournalist began: all the time I was at the forefront, went through the whole war, wore a military uniform - like all war correspondents. With the marines he stormed Novorossiysk and Kerch, liberated Sevastopol, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Austria, Hungary. I managed to fix the collapse of fascism in Berlin ... Finished fighting in Harbin and Port Arthur. He rose to the rank of captain.

Victory Flags

Khaldei's photo masterpiece "The Banner of Victory over the Reichstag", made on May 2, 1945, went around the whole world, became a textbook and is reproduced, perhaps, more often than all other works of the outstanding master. But few people know that he brought the red flag with a hammer and sickle to Berlin with him - he was afraid that suddenly at the right moment the soldiers would not have it ...

– Evgeny Ananyevich, please tell us the history of Berlin photographs.

“In liberated Budapest, I came across a newspaper that published a picture by American photojournalist Joe Rosenthal, in which American marines hoisted a banner on one of the liberated islands in the Philippines ... But I have long been thinking about how to put up my own” point" in the protracted war: what could be more significant - the banner of victory over the lair of the defeated enemy! ..

By the end of the war, I did not return from business trips without photographs with banners over liberated or taken cities. The flags over Novorossiysk, Kerch, Sevastopol, which were liberated exactly one year before the Victory, are perhaps more dear to me than others. The opportunity to be in Berlin and record the hoisting of the red flag over the Reichstag presented itself as soon as I returned to Moscow from Vienna: the editors of the TASS Newsreel ordered to fly to Berlin the next morning. An order is an order, and I began to quickly get ready: it was clear to everyone that the end of the war was near.

What if in Berlin I don’t have a red flag with a star at hand! .. It was lucky that in between business trips I lived with my distant relative, the tailor Israel Solomonovich Kishitser ... That is why it dawned on me! .. I run to the TASS supply manager Grisha Lyubinsky and he “gives” me three red local committee tablecloths ... I rush to Leontievsky lane to Izrail Solomonovich and he immediately sat down at his “zinger” ... I cut out the star, hammer and sickle with my own hands from a white sheet. By morning, all three banners were ready and I rushed to the airfield and flew to Berlin ...

flag number one

In Berlin, I ended up at the location of the 8th Guards Army, commanded by Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov. I met the poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky there, with whom we never parted. Young people, probably, do not know his songs, in which such heartfelt words sound: “Beloved city can sleep peacefully ...”, “I went on a campaign then ...”, “Oh, Dnepro, Dnepro, you are wide, powerful ...”, “Night short, the clouds are sleeping, and your unfamiliar hand lies in my palm "...
Dolmatovsky was most famous for the songs written to his words (“Random Waltz”, “Song of the Dnieper”, “Volunteers” by M. G. Fradkin, “Sormovskaya Lyric” by B. A. Mokrousov, “My Favorite” by M. I. Blanter, "Second Heart", "Beloved City"

I filmed the advance of troops, battles ... Zhenya spoke to the soldiers and commanders ... Everything was as usual. And suddenly, on the night of May 1, at about five in the morning, Dolmatovsky wakes me up: “Get up soon!” I can’t understand anything: “What happened?” “At the headquarters of Chuikov there is a parliamentarian from Goebbels. We need to go urgently." And we rushed off.

The messenger of Goebbels, and this was General Krebbs, came to the location of our troops early in the morning with a huge white flag. It was he who said that the night before, April 30, Hitler had committed suicide. Everyone took the news of this with regret: they really wanted to take him alive, put him in a cage and take him around the world so that people could see this geek.

Every second I clicked the shutter of my old "watering can" ... For some reason, Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov, during negotiations with Krebbs, flatly refused to be photographed ... And then I shifted my attention to the roof of the headquarters of the 8th Army, where a huge figure of an eagle was fixed. A terrible bird, rapaciously clutching its claws, perched on the globe, which was crowned with a fascist swastika. An eerie symbol of world domination. Fortunately, it did not take place! ..

With three soldiers, we climbed onto the roof, fixed the flag, and I took some pictures. It was still a long way to the Reichstag ... Besides, I did not know if I could even get to it.

Then, together with the troops, we, military journalists, made our way forward, forward and forward, and, finally, reached the Brandenburg Gate ... If you only knew how glad I was that these gates survived - after all, a year before the Victory, in Sevastopol, at I saw a picture of a captured German, in which Nazi soldiers marched in orderly rows through the Brandenburg Gate, and people stood in a dense crowd on both sides of the road. Hands are raised in greeting, bouquets of flowers are flying into the soldiers’ ranks, and on the back there is an inscription: “We are returning after the victory over France” ...

flag number two

- Early in the morning of May 2, I saw two of our fighters who, under hurricane fire, climbed onto the Brandenburg Gate. A stairway led up to the top platform. Somehow I got there... And having already gone upstairs, I discovered in the distance, in the smoke of the ongoing skirmish, the dome of the Reichstag. There was no red flag there yet ... Although, there were rumors that the SS men had been driven out of there yesterday.

Lieutenant Kuzma Dudeev, who was directing fire on the Reichstag from the Brandenburg Gate, and his assistant, Sergeant Ivan Andreev, helped me in filming. At first, the lieutenant and I tried to attach a flag on a horse ... Finally, I took a picture. This was already the second Berlin flag shot. It was even more difficult to go down from the Gate than to go up… I had to jump. And the height is decent: I hit hard - then my legs hurt for a long time. But the picture turned out great. Some kind of even cheerful: desperate guys and the flag winds dashingly, victoriously ...

True, that picture did not get into print, but remained in the archive: thanks even in 1972, on the day of the 25th anniversary of the Victory, they remembered him. To be honest, I did not expect that after so many years there would be people whom I photographed then. And suddenly a letter arrives: the pioneers of the Seeker detachment from the camp near Tuapse discovered that the lieutenant, who is holding a banner in the picture on the right, is very similar to their good friend, Uncle Kuzya. It turns out that a brave lieutenant leads their photo club and often talks about the war ... I rummaged through my old notebooks, where many names and surnames have accumulated, found those who were photographed at the Brandenburg Gate: Kuzma Dudeev, already known to me, and next to him a sergeant Ivan Andreev. Having contacted Kuzma Alexandrovich, we began to think how we could find the sergeant. And they found: in 1980: Ivan Petrovich turned out to be a Rostovite - his close neighbor ...

I have one last flag left. And I decided that this one was definitely for the Reichstag.

The last night before the storming of the Reichstag, I spent together with the poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky with the artillerymen - in the quarters near the Reich Chancellery. Early in the morning with the advancing soldiers moved to the Reichstag ...
[With his personal assault. On May 3, the Reichstag was already taken.]

The Flag That Wasn't

The Berlin operation began on April 16, and two weeks later the Soviet troops were already in the city center. On the morning of April 30, only a wide square separated ours from the Reichstag. But since the Germans flooded the Berlin metro, a large pit filled with water formed on the square. The attackers did not have artillery support at that time, except for three tanks. The Germans managed to knock out two of them, and the third ... drowned in the pit. After several unsuccessful attacks, it was decided to postpone the assault until dark.

- Each assault company had its own standard-bearers - they selected the best of the best there ... Like Gagarin in space: after all, commissars always fought for the "cleanliness of the ranks" ... But, it seemed that before death we were all equal. And if you knew how many banners were hoisted over the Reichstag after the Nazis were driven out of there! ..

- You were not suspected that your "Victory Banner" is an exclusively staged shot?

- There was everything ... I didn’t really mind: after all, I was not the only one running around Berlin with a camera - risking their lives, cameramen and photojournalists often forgot about death, chasing a profitable shot.

In general, an amazing story happened to the Reichstag: desperate lone volunteers, having made home-made flags from the red covers of German featherbeds, rushed to the Main building of the Third Reich in order to fix them at least on a column, at least in the window of the building ... Surprisingly, in any war they first take possession the main point, and only then they hoist their flag. Here everything was the other way around.

- Now it's called extreme ...

- Of course, I wanted to live ... But I really wanted to believe that the war was coming to an end, and nothing bad could happen ... You probably remember that Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria were the first to hoist the Banner of Victory ... But there were several Banners of Victory: they were sewn together in Berlin and distributed to the headquarters of formations that could be lucky - nine divisions went to storm the Reichstag.

But an unexpected incident occurred: one of the regiment commanders “felt” that someone’s flag was already reddening on the roof of the Reich Chancellery ... They hastened to report that the Reichstag had already been taken! .. And even the time was indicated - 14 hours 25 minutes “Moscow time” ... There was nothing to be done: after that, it was necessary to urgently send the most desperate to storm - after all, you would not report to the Headquarters that a mistake had come out! .. Of course, there was no end to the brave men ...

- They say that about 40 different banners were raised over the Reichstag during the assault ...

“I think there were even more people who wanted to. The Banner of Victory is considered to be the banner of the Military Council of the 3rd shock army at number 5, which was carried by scouts Yegorov and Kantaria. They were accompanied by the battalion's political officer, Lieutenant Aleksey Berest, and a group of submachine gunners led by senior sergeant Ilya Syanov, who cleared the way up with their fire... However, only two names were included in the history books - Yegorov and Kantaria... Apparently, the Leader decided so! True, not only they received Heroes of the Soviet Union for this operation, but also senior sergeant Ilych Syanov, senior lieutenant Konstantin Samsonov and captains Vasily Davydov and Stepan Neustroev ...

- And why did they bypass our fellow countryman Alexei Berest? ..

- At first, the command of the regiment introduced him to the Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. They did not forget to indicate in the award list that immediately after the hoisting of the Banner of Victory, Berest personally negotiated unconditional surrender with the Reichstag garrison ... However, Colonel-General Kuznetsov, commander of the 3rd Army, rejected the idea and awarded Berest "only" with the Order of the Red Banner. The real reasons for this decision of the military command are unknown. True, they say that the political officer was "too" brave and independent. There were rumors that Zhukov himself did not really like political workers ...

- So, when was the Banner of Victory hoisted?

- At 10:30 p.m. April 30. First, he was tied with straps to a bronze equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm II - on the pediment of the main entrance, and a little later, having overcome the resistance of the Nazis, they transferred it to the dome of the Reichstag. It became the Banner of Victory, now stored in Moscow, in the Museum of the Armed Forces. They said that the staircase to the dome of the Reichstag was blown up, and our fighters had to build a “circus pyramid”, the base of which, of course, was the hero from Akhtyrka, on Sumshchi, Alexei Berest ...

On the night of May 1 - somewhere around two hours - the shooting subsided for a while. And, disguised as a colonel, since the Nazis were not going to talk to another officer, accompanied by the "adjutant" Neustroev, Lieutenant Berest went to negotiate with the SS men and sailors who had settled in the basements ... His impressive dimensions, fearlessness and uncompromising logic broke the Nazis - an hour later they decided to give up...

Only by seven o'clock in the morning on May 2, the remnants of the garrison capitulated, and the fighting in the Reichstag practically ceased. But then I didn’t know about it yet and didn’t see the red banner, because on the morning of May 2 it was still “hot” in the Reichstag area ... And already on May 3, the kneeling Reichstag was visited by the commander of the First Belorussian Front, Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov.

At the same time, in Berlin, climbing onto a tank, Yevgeny Dolmatovsky read poems that he composed right on the go: “Guards are walking through Berlin and remembering Stalingrad ...”. A little later, a photograph appeared: Dolmatovsky with the Fuhrer's head under his arm...

Flag number three is victorious…

So, you didn't manage to come first...

- But I didn’t set such a task for myself: I just had to get on the roof of the Reichstag with my “tablecloth” at all costs ... And with the flag in my bosom, I stealthily went around the Reichstag and made my way into it from the side of the main entrance. There was still fighting in the vicinity. I came across several soldiers and officers. Without saying a word, instead of "hello", he took out his last flag - they were taken aback from amazement: "Oh, starley, let's go upstairs!"

I don’t even remember how we ended up on the roof… The dome was on fire… I immediately started looking for a convenient place to shoot. From below, smoke was billowing in clubs, it was blazing, sparks were pouring - it was almost impossible to get close. And then I began to look for another place - so that the Berlin perspective was visible. I saw the Brandenburg Gate below - somewhere there was my flag ... When I found a good point, I immediately, barely holding on to a small parapet, began to shoot - I shot two cassettes. I took both horizontal and vertical shots. When filming, I stood on the very edge of the roof ... Of course, it was scary. But when I had already gone downstairs and again looked at the roof of the building, where I had been a few minutes ago, and saw my flag over the Reichstag, I realized that I had not risked in vain. After all, thousands of my comrades did not live to see this happy day! .. The fact is that I dreamed of seeing this flag over the Reichstag - for me, as well as for everyone around, it was a symbol of accomplished justice.

- And who were these fighters with whom you climbed onto the roof of the Reichstag?

- There were four of us there, but I remember well your fellow countryman - Alexei Kovalev from Kiev, who was tying the flag. I photographed him for a long time... In different poses. I remember that we were all very cold then ... We were helped by the foreman of the reconnaissance company of the Guards Red Banner Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky of the Zaporozhye Rifle Division Abdulkhakim Ismailov from Dagestan and Leonid Gorychev from Minsk.

His war consisted of 1418 days of tireless work

Between two historical moments: the first picture of the outbreak of the war - "First Day" and "Banner of Victory" - were no less significant, taken at the crossings and roads of the Smolensk region, among the ruins of Vienna and Berlin, at the first peace conference in Paris ...

Yevgeny Khaldei left to posterity photographs of the meeting between Stalin, Truman and Churchill, photos of the banners of the Nazi regiments thrown at the foot of the Mausoleum, and many others. And the photograph of Marshal Zhukov on a horse, as if flying across Red Square, served as the beginning of the friendship between the marshal and our fellow countryman ...

Once the master admitted that when he was filming on Red Square, how two hundred soldiers were throwing fascist banners and standards to the foot of the Mausoleum, tears filled his eyes with excitement and joy. “I noticed that both the marshals and the soldiers also had tears in their eyes ...”

Military photographs by Yevgeny Khaldei have been included in many books and encyclopedias about the war, and we can no longer imagine our history without his reports from the Victory Parade on Red Square, the Potsdam Conference, and the Nuremberg trials. After the war, Yevgeny Khaldei was looking for the heroes of his photographs, and this work continued throughout his life ...

Half a century after the Victory, in 1996, thanks to the perseverance of the public of Dagestan, the feat of the former foreman of the reconnaissance company of the Guards Red Banner Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky of the Zaporozhye Rifle Division was also recognized. A historical photograph captured by front-line photojournalist Yevgeny Khaldei helped, and 78-year-old Ismailov was invited to Moscow, where Russian President Boris Yeltsin presented him with the Gold Star of the Hero of Russia "For courage and heroism shown in the Great Patriotic War."

Yevgeny Ananyevich himself was awarded the Orders of the Red Star, the Order of the Patriotic War of the 2nd degree, medals ...

The award has found a hero...

However, in 1949, without explanation, Yevgeny Khaldei was fired from the TASS Photo Chronicle in Moscow. For a long time he could not get a job in any publication, and in 1950, unable to resist, he wrote a letter to the Central Committee. But to Suslov’s request to the relevant authorities: “Where can I use Yevgeny Chaldei?”, The answer was received: “As a photographer, it’s inappropriate”! .. As they said at that time: “The count let me down!”

And the author of "The Banner of Victory" got a job at the "Club and Amateur Art" magazine: he photographed industry, sports, artists ... Only in 1957, Khaldei was again hired by the Pravda newspaper, where he worked until 1972, photographing famous musicians, writers, politicians (Anna Akhmatova, Dmitri Shostakovich, Mstislav Rostropovich and others). But he was also fired from there - the retirement age ... He worked in the "Soviet Culture". But not for long...

As in the last war, the "allies" came to the rescue: in 1995 in Perpignan (France), at the international festival of photojournalism, Chaldea was honored by the whole world - Yevgeny Ananyevich was awarded the most honorable award in the art world - the title "Knight of the Order of Arts and Literature". There were two of them, the newly minted knights: he and Joe Rosenthal. Two old men on the stage supported each other by the arm. Rosenthal had a photo frame with his banner on his chest - American paratroopers on Iwo Jima, Khaldei had his “Victory Banner”.

In 1997, the American publishing house Aperture published the book Witness to History. Photographs by Yevgeny Khaldei” (“Witness to history. Photographs of Yevgeny Khaldei”). And in Paris and Brussels, the premiere of the 60-minute film "Eugene Khaldei - Photographer of the Stalin Era", filmed by Wajnbrosse Productions & Cult Film, took place.

With "Hetman" - for Ukraine!..

When a bottle of “Hetman” brought from Kiev appeared on the table, among photographic films and photographs, the master offered to drink for Ukraine, for the “city of Russian glory” Sevastopol, with which he had so much to do, and for the fact that there would never be a war !.. Khaldei looked around the walls with a warm look, nodded at the portraits of Simonov, Marshal Zhukov, fighter pilot Serov: each of them is milestones in his destiny...

- For the memory! For friendship... fighting... - he said and thought... - It turns out that without our Ukraine it’s impossible: remember, after all, with me on the roof of the Reichstag, fighters from the Guards Red Banner Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky of the Zaporozhye Rifle Division hoisted the flag! .. And Lesha Kovalev is generally a resident of Kiev …

- Evgeny Ananyevich, what about our other unsurpassed countryman Alexei Berest? ..

- He lived hard: he was undeservedly condemned. Amnestied, worked at a factory in Rostov. He died on November 3, 1970, saving a girl from under the wheels of a train.

The Victory Banner is the state relic of Russia, the official symbol of the victory of the Soviet people and its Armed Forces over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. It is an assault flag of the 150th Order of Kutuzov II degree of the Idritsa Rifle Division, hoisted on May 1, 1945 over the Reichstag building in the city of Berlin by Soviet soldiers.

On May 9, 1945, the name of Victory was removed from the Reichstag and on June 20, on a Lee 2 plane, it was sent to Moscow. His place in the Reichstag was taken by another scarlet banner.

The Victory Banner was made in military field conditions and is an impromptu State Flag of the USSR. It is a single-layer rectangular red cloth attached to the pole, measuring 82 cm by 188 cm, on the front side of which, at the top of the pole, a silver five-pointed star, a sickle and a hammer are depicted, on the rest of the cloth, before being sent to Moscow, an inscription was added in white letters in four lines: "150 lines of the Order of Kutuzov II st. Idritsk. div. 79 C.K. 3 U.A. 1 B.F" (150th rifle order of Kutuzov II degree Idritskaya division of the 79th rifle corps of the 3rd shock army 1 th Belorussian Front), on the reverse side of the panel in the lower corner near the flagpole there is an inscription "No. 5".

On the Victory Parade on June 24, 1945, the Victory Banner was not taken out. By order of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army dated July 10, 1945, the Victory Banner was sent to the Central Museum of the Armed Forces for eternal storage.

For the first 20 years, it was only an exhibit for the public to see, no one ever took it out of the museum. It was first carried at a military parade on Red Square on May 9, 1965 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Victory. Before the parade, the Victory Banner was restored - a mesh was sewn in instead of the torn off lower edge.

On April 15, 1996, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree "On the Banner of Victory", according to which on the days of state holidays of the Russian Federation, days of military glory (victory days) of Russia, during military rituals, as well as mass events related to the military victories of the Russian people , The Banner of Victory must be used along with the State Flag of the Russian Federation. According to the decree, the Banner of Victory, hoisted over the Reichstag in May 1945, is taken out only on May 9 - on the Victory Day of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 and on February 23 - on the Day of Defenders of the Fatherland, and for other purposes the "symbol Banner of Victory", which was a red cloth with a length to width ratio of 2: 1. On both sides in the upper corner there is an image of a five-pointed star.

On April 15, 2000, additions were made to the decree, according to which the symbol of the Banner of Victory can be temporarily exported to the territory of the CIS states by order of the president.

In 2007, an attempt was made to legitimize the status of the symbol of the Victory Banner in the federal law "On the Banner of Victory". However, the concept of "the symbol of the Banner of Victory" and its inconsistency with the original caused a sharply negative public reaction, which prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to make serious adjustments to the law, in particular, to replace the concept of "symbol of the Banner of Victory" with "a copy of the Banner of Victory." As a result, by the Federal Law of May 7, 2007, the Victory Banner was assigned the status of an official symbol of the victory of the Soviet people and its Armed Forces over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, the status of a state relic of Russia.

According to the law, during the celebrations dedicated to Victory Day and other days associated with the events of the Great Patriotic War, as well as to put on display instead of the Victory Banner if it is removed from view for restoration work, copies of the Victory Banner can be used . The type of copies of the Victory Banner must correspond to the type of the Victory Banner.

The law defines the place and procedure for storing the Banner of Victory.

The original Victory Banner is stored in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces. Due to the fragility of the material, it must not be stored in an upright position. The Banner of Victory lies unfolded on a horizontal surface and is covered with special paper. For better preservation, all nails have been removed from its shaft. Their heads began to rust and injure the fabric.

A "pocket" was sewn to the pole for attaching the Banner. Take it only by wearing gloves. Transported in a special case.
A unique display case with climate control was made to store the Banner of Victory.

A duplicate of the Banner is currently available for public viewing, exhibited in a glass case of the museum and exactly repeating the original.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

The Life and Death of a Hero.

His name is Alexey Prokopevich Berest. On March 9, 2015, he would have turned 94 years old. Aleksey Berest was born into a simple peasant family in the village of Goryaistovka, Akhtyrsky district, Sumy region, on March 9, 1921, when the coals of the Civil War were still smoldering in some places. Prokop Nikiforovich and Kristina Vakumovna Berestov had sixteen children. But only nine of them survived the harsh years. In 1932, Alexei and his brothers and sisters were orphaned. Fortunately, in a large family there are always older children who will not let the rest go to waste - for Berestov, these were older sisters Marina and Ekaterina. It was they who, after the death of their father and mother, took upon themselves all the hardships of the “heads of the family”, having managed, at the very least, to raise and educate younger relatives.
Alexei had a harsh collective farm childhood, when he had to work on a par with adults in the field from dawn to dusk, and you also have to study! However, although Alyosha was an inquisitive child, he never made it to the honors. Yes, and the character was already the same in childhood! No matter how they tried to break him, how many trials he did not survive for his stamina and indifference to everything, he always remained with his opinion. At the age of sixteen, he entered the courses of tractor drivers. Moreover, in order to become a tractor driver, he attributed two extra years to himself - young Alexei was afraid that they would not be taken to study, citing his “youngness”.

In October 1939 he volunteered for the Red Army. Participated in the Soviet-Finnish campaign. He served in the 2nd communications regiment of the Leningrad Military District. Behind these dry lines of biography are hidden those qualities that are now commonly called patriotism. But Aleksey Prokopyevich did not like loud words, he did not like pomposity and empty talk, but he was not a silent man. His words were capacious, concise and categorical, like autobiographical memories of those years. During the Great Patriotic War, he went from private to deputy battalion commander for political affairs. In other words, he did not make much of a career, although he showed his personal qualities. Few people remember, but in the 5th episode of the film "Liberation" Berest was played by E. Izotov. And this is not just a coincidence of the surname - the authors of the film deliberately paid tribute to the hero, who was already beginning to be forgotten at that time ... Berest began the war as a private - a signalman, a year later he became the commander of the department, and then the party organizer of the company. In 1943, Corporal Berest was selected among the best soldiers to study at the Leningrad Military-Political School. Despite the fact that Berest did not have the required secondary education, front-line experience and positive characteristics did their job - he was accepted into the school and in a few months Berest completed a training course for officers. After completing a course of study at the school, at that time stationed in Shuya, Berest was appointed deputy battalion commander for the political part of the 756th Infantry Regiment of the 150th Infantry Division.

April 30, 1945, by order of the first commandant of the Reichstag, commander of the 756th Infantry Regiment Zinchenko F.M., ml. Lieutenant Berest A.P. led the execution of the combat mission of hoisting the banner of the military council of the 3rd shock army on the dome of the Reichstag. For this operation he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Simply put, he, under the cover of a company of submachine gunners Syanov I.A., climbed onto one of the columns of the Reichstag at 14:30, and attached a red flag to it. But the command at least generally liked the idea, it seemed that the red flag over the column was not very impressive, and an order was given to install a flag over the dome of the Reichstag. At the same time, it should be mentioned that the building was teeming with enemy soldiers who did not even think about laying down their arms yet.
Bursting inside, the detachment came under heavy machine-gun fire from the enemy. Aleksey Prokopyevich managed to hide behind a bronze statue, but the shooting was so intense that the statue's hand was cut off. Picking up a piece of bronze, Berest threw it towards the machine-gun point. The fire subsided, apparently, the enemy took a piece of the limb of the statue for a grenade. This moment was enough to rush forward. But the base of the flight of stairs turned out to be destroyed and of enormous growth, almost under two meters, the hero Alexei performed the role of a springboard - this is Egorov M.A. on his shoulders. and Kantaria M.V. climbed higher. Berest was the first to go up to the attic. He very rarely talked about the past later - at first it was somehow not customary to hold meetings with schoolchildren, and then he was not specifically called. But his memories were preserved, how they tied the Red Flag with soldier's belts to the bronze leg of a horse. That's right, even with a little irony, Alexei Prokopyevich recalled the apogee of this operation.

“The command assigned me the task of leading and ensuring the hoisting of the Victory Banner. In a swift dash, we burst into the opened passage of the central entrance of the building, the doors of which were blown up by a grenade. At this time, with my participation, the flag-bearers, comrades Kantaria and Egorov, fixed the army banner No. 5 on one of the columns of the central entrance to the Reichstag at 14.30 on April 30, ”Alexey Berest recalled already in the sixties (quoted by Yuzhny A. So who hoisted a banner over the Reichstag?).
On the night of May 2, 1945, on the instructions of the command, dressed in the uniform of a Soviet colonel, Berest A.P. personally negotiated with the remnants of the Reichstag garrison, forcing them to surrender. Again I will try to explain what was behind this. In reality, the garrison did not intend to surrender, and agreed to negotiate with an officer, no lower than a colonel. However, among the Soviet soldiers and officers who broke into the Reichstag, the battalion commander Stepan Neustroev was the most senior in rank - he wore captain's shoulder straps. Stepan Neustroev was a man of small stature and lean build, so he feared that the Nazis simply would not believe that he was a senior officer with the rank of colonel. And the hero Alexei, like no one else, suited the role of a person capable of setting conditions, so he had the honor to put on colonel's shoulder straps, albeit "pretend". Captain Neustroev went with Alexei as an assistant. Berest gave the enemy two hours to think and walked back with a firm step, not looking back. A shot was heard from behind, but Alexei continued to move. Later it turned out that the bullet had shot through his cap. For "exceptional courage and courage shown in battles" Berest A.P. was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but, as they say, Marshal Zhukov did not like political officers very much, and, looking at the position of the applicant for the award, decided that the Order of the Red Banner would be enough. In May 1946, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR published a Decree "On conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to the officers and sergeants of the armed forces of the USSR, who hoisted the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag." The highest award of the Soviet state was awarded to five servicemen: Captain Stepan Neustroev, Captain Vasily Davydov, Senior Lieutenant Konstantin Samsonov, Sergeant Mikhail Yegorov and Junior Sergeant Meliton Kantaria. Alexei Berest, who, as we see, played a significant role in the storming of the Reichstag, was never awarded the highest award.
Immediately after the end of the war, Alexei Berest was appointed head of the echelon en route from Germany to the Soviet Union and carrying back Soviet citizens driven away by the Germans - people who faced a difficult fate after returning to their homeland. Berest stopped on his way to his native village, where he fell ill with typhus and was placed in a military hospital. By the way, the hospital also played an important role in the life of an officer - it was there that he met a nurse named Lyudmila, who became his faithful companion for the next years of his life.

Aleksey Prokopyevich finished his service in the armed forces in 1948 in Sevastopol - with the rank of senior lieutenant and as deputy chief for political affairs of the transmitting radio center of the communications center of the Black Sea Fleet. Then he moved to the Rostov region. Here, in the village of Pokrovsky (today it is a regional center) was the birthplace of his wife Lyudmila Fedorovna. Petr Tsukanov, the foreman of the police, who at that time was the head of the local district police department, recalled: “Our neighbor died, Beresty settled in this hut, four with children. Earthen floor, adobe walls, reed roof. Windows are on the ground. We arrived - a suitcase and a bundle with linen. Well, I could order potatoes and cabbage on the collective farm, they shared it with them. He was appointed chief regional department of cinematography. He sometimes invites me to the movie booth - let's have a drink, sit, he told how he took the Reichstag, like he even hoisted the banner. And I myself reached Balaton ... ”(Quoted by: Gorbachev S. Berlinsky Marinesko). Berest lived modestly, but he never fawned or groveled before anyone - this was his life credo. And because of him, Alexey Prokopevich made a lot of problems for himself. He often changed jobs - sometimes he headed DOSAAF in the Proletarsky district, then he was deputy director of MTS in the Oryol region, and in the Neklinovsky region he headed the cinematography department.

But the character was iron, and the time was tough. He made enemies or something else happened there, but soon Berest was arrested. It is quite possible that the fact that he stubbornly tried to get the truth and tell about his participation in the hoisting of the red banner on the Reichstag played a role here. In February 1953, when Berest was arrested, during interrogation at the prosecutor's office, the investigator provoked him into a fight. Berest was sentenced to ten years in prison for embezzlement, although seventeen people confirmed his non-involvement in the alleged act. Well, at least the term was reduced under the amnesty - two times less. Berest served his fate, and returned to the Rostov region. Of course, there could no longer be any talk of any leadership work. The Berest family settled in Rostov-on-Don - in the village of Frunze. This is a small microdistrict of "private" and two-story buildings on the border of Aleksandrovskaya grove on the one hand and Kiziterinovskaya beam on the other - a typical workers' settlement. Workers of Rostov factories lived here. Aleksey Berest also got a job at the plant. The war hero worked as a loader at the third mill, a filler at the Prodmash plant, then got a job as a sandblaster in the steel shop of the Rostselmash plant.

The Berest family lived in a two-story house, on the first floor. Birch bark was well known and loved both at the plant and in the village. The daughter of the hero, Irina Alekseevna, speaks of the great human kindness of her father Alexei Prokopyevich Berest: “Like all powerful people, my father was very kind - to the point of naivety. They have a new mechanic in the brigade - a soldier from the army. The bride is pregnant, but he does not marry: "There is nowhere to live." Father settled them, young, in our room, prescribed. The guy, when he drinks, was bad, and his father felt sorry for him. They had a girl. They lived with us for 4 years. Then they disappeared, and suddenly a family comes to our apartment - from Sverdlovsk. It turns out that our guy quietly exchanged our room for an apartment in Sverdlovsk. We have four neighbors. But my father became friends with this family too” (Quoted by Gorbachev S. Berlinsky Marinesko).
On November 3, 1970, Alexei Prokopevich Berest died tragically. He died, as befits a real hero, having accomplished a feat. He was standing with his grandson in his arms when the cry "Train!" On the rails was a child - a girl. None of the eyewitnesses even had time to notice how Alexei Prokopyevich put his grandson on the ground and rushed to certain death. He pushed the girl out of the way and took a blow so hard that he was thrown far into the platform. Aleksey Prokopevich Berest died in the hospital, he was only forty-nine years old. Of course, this physically strong person would have lived much longer and, who knows, maybe he would have found modernity, but to be a hero and perform feats, you see, Berest was in the family - that's why he could not hesitate, then throwing himself under a moving train after a child .

Until the last days of his life, Aleksey Berest was very worried about the fact that the state did not note his actual military merits, moreover, he greatly offended him, hiding him in the "zone" for years on a fabricated and ridiculous accusation. Berest's daughter Irina Alekseevna recalled: “In the sixties, Neustroev came to us several times (the same battalion commander with whom Berest participated in negotiations with the Germans, playing the role of a colonel - approx. I.P.): “Why do you live in a communal apartment , in such bestial conditions? Not that with regret, but with some kind of feeling ... complacency, or something: “Do you even have a phone?”. And when they drink, Neustroev takes off his Golden Star and hands it to his father: "Lesha - on, she is yours." The father replies: "Well, that's enough ...". It was painful for my father. He suffered for the rest of his life. When military holidays or parades were shown on TV, he turned it off (Quoted by: Gorbachev S. Berlinsky Marinesko)).
A real hero was buried in the small Alexandrovsky cemetery (the former cemetery of the village of Alexandrovskaya, which is now part of the Proletarsky district of Rostov-on-Don). In Soviet times, veterans were taken to the grave at his grave, they carried flowers on Victory Day and held various meetings. In the 1990s, the time of general devastation - in the country and in the minds, which was also manifested in the trashy behavior of young people, on the bust installed over the grave, vandals beat off either ear or nose, checking whether it was made of non-ferrous metal. And today, although his grave has been removed, it still leaves a depressing impression, as it is located at the entrance to the cemetery, where garbage from other graves is taken down.
May 6, 2005 for military courage in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, personal courage and heroism shown in the Berlin operation and hoisting the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag, by decree of the President of Ukraine No. . It turns out that the memory of a real hero and a Russian person was more honored in Ukraine than in Russia, to whose service Berest gave the best years of his life, gave heroically, and died heroically, saving a child from under a train.
Why did the merits of Berest remain unmarked by the high title of Hero in the Soviet Union and then in Russia? It is unlikely that anyone will be able to answer this question. Public organizations and veterans repeatedly sent letters to Moscow with a request to confer the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and then Hero of the Russian Federation, to Alexei Prokopyevich Berest. However, every time they were refused. At the same time, almost every indigenous person in Rostov-on-Don knew that it was Berest who hoisted the red banner on the Reichstag. After all, a bust of memory was erected on the territory of the Rostselmash plant, Berest was constantly remembered on Victory Day, the veterans said. However, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was nevertheless awarded to Berest - only by an organization of a socio-political persuasion, called the "Permanent Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR" (leader - Sazhi Umalatova).
The name of Berest is also included in the number of nominal "stars" on the Rostov Prospect of Stars. Also, the name of Berest is one of the streets in the Selmash microdistrict of the Pervomaisky district of Rostov-on-Don and the secondary school No. 7 of the same city. And yet, Rostovites, like other people who are not indifferent to the fate of this amazing person, a real hero, do not lose hope that someday the Russian government will condescend to appreciate the merits of Alexei Prokopyevich Berest, and assign him title of Hero of the Russian Federation posthumously.