Banner of the Great Victory

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

The battles of the 3rd shock army for the Reichstag began on April 29, 1945. The Reichstag building was one of the most important strongholds in 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. On the fourth side, the Reichstag was covered by a number of stone buildings along the perimeter of the Reichstag turned by the Nazis into fortresses, including the "Himmler House" - the building of the Reich Ministry of the Interior.

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.

The Reichstag was defended by a garrison of 1000 officers and soldiers of various units, mostly cadets of the naval school, parachuted into the Reichstag area. In addition, it included SS detachments, Volksturm, pilots, artillerymen. 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 the Reichstag at all costs.

The assault on 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 on the Reichstag in a trench that had high bulk walls that allowed them 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.


Volkssturm armband

The commander of the 150th Infantry Division, which reached the immediate approaches to the Reichstag, 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 the Reichstag, Colonel Zinchenko allocated his best 1st battalion. This battalion was commanded by Captain Stepan Andreevich Neustroev.

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

Other units also took part in the assault on the Reichstag, each of which had its own Red Banner - the 1st battalion of V.I. Davydov, the 1st battalion of Senior Lieutenant K.Ya. th Rifle 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 the Reichstag with 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 pressed to the ground by enemy fire and could not advance to the Reichstag. For this battle, many Soviet soldiers were presented with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The first assault on the Reichstag failed, and replacements were sent to the units instead of the out-of-service soldiers and officers. Objects for attack were specified, artillery was brought up.
At 18 o'clock the assault on the Reichstag was repeated. Under the cover of artillery, the fighters of the Neustroev battalion rushed in a single impulse to attack, it was led by the party organizer of the company I. Ya. Syanov, deputy for political affairs A. P. Brest and adjutant of the battalion K. V. Gusev. Together with the battalion of Neustroev, the soldiers of the battalions of Davydov and Samsonov also rushed forward.

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

The enemy could not restrain the heroic impulse of our fighters. A few minutes later they reached the 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 Reichstag building, starting 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.

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

The battle in the Reichstag building 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.

On one of the staircases, 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 fire from machine guns, broke through to the roof and installed a red banner on the tower Reichstag.

The banner of the Military Council of the 3rd shock army was instructed to hoist the regiment's scouts - M.V. Kantaria and M.A. Egorov. Together with a group of fighters led by Lieutenant Brest, with the support of Syanov's company, they climbed onto the roof of the building and at 2150 hours on April 30, 1945 hoisted the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag. For skillful leadership of the battle and heroism, 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 the Reichstag, were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The battle inside the Reichstag continued with great tension until the morning of May 1, and separate groups of fascists who settled in the cellars of the Reichstag continued to resist until May 2, until the Soviet soldiers finally finished with them. In the battles for the Reichstag, up to 2,500 enemy soldiers were killed and wounded, 2,604 prisoners were captured.


ISU-122 of the Polish Army, which participated in the storming of Berlin

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

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


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

The coldest day on April 30 was in 1884, when the average daily temperature in Moscow was -7 degrees Celsius, and the warmest - in 1969. That day the temperature rose to +24.7 degrees.
Sources -

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 frame.

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."

Evgeny Ananievich 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 Khaldei?”, 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 Ananievich 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 absolutely impossible: remember, after all, soldiers from the Guards Red Banner Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky Zaporozhye Rifle Division hoisted the flag with me on the roof of the Reichstag! .. 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 Banner of Victory is one of the main symbols of the triumph of the Soviet people in the war against fascism. As befits such a symbol, its history is surrounded by a set of legends and myths. Some of the inconsistencies that were present in the description of the hoisting of the banner over the Reichstag, officially adopted in the USSR, allowed some to doubt that the flag was actually installed. Mikhail Egorov And Meliton Kantaria.

For the first time, the idea of ​​hoisting the Banner of Victory was announced on November 6, 1944. Joseph Stalin at the solemn meeting of the Moscow City Council, dedicated to the 27th anniversary of the October Revolution.

In his speech, the Soviet leader said: “The Soviet people and the Red Army are successfully carrying out the tasks that confronted us during the Patriotic War ... From now on and forever, our land is free from Hitler’s evil spirits, and now the Red Army is left with its last, final mission: to complete, together with armies of our allies to defeat the fascist German army, finish off the fascist beast in its own lair and hoist the Banner of Victory over Berlin.

Of course, the idea of ​​Comrade Stalin was warmly approved, and they switched to its practical implementation already in the spring of 1945, a week before the start of the Berlin operation.

The poles were made from curtain rods

On April 9, 1945, at a meeting of the chiefs of political departments of all the armies of the 1st Belorussian Front, an instruction was given that red flags should be made in each army advancing on Berlin, which could be hoisted over the Reichstag.

In the 3rd shock army, located in the direction of the main attack, 9 such banners were made, according to the number of divisions in the army. Each of the banners was numbered.

The flags were made of plain red material, modeled after the USSR national flag. Stars, hammer and sickle were drawn through a stencil. The poles for the banners were made by an army projectionist from curtain rods. There was no splendor and pomposity in this process, but those who participated in it recalled extraordinary enthusiasm - after all, these simple flags were a symbol of the approaching end of the war.

Interestingly, in Moscow, one of the factories received a secret order to create a ceremonial flag from banner velvet. However, this flag was never sent to the troops.

On the night of April 22, assault flags were presented on behalf of the Military Council of the 3rd shock army to representatives of rifle divisions.

By this time, the first red banner was already flying over the capital of the Reich. On April 21, it was installed on one of the Berlin buildings by a corporal, reconnaissance observer of the 1st battery of the 106th mortar regiment of the 1st mortar Brest brigade of the 5th Artillery Red Banner Kalinkovichi division of the RGK breakthrough Alexander Muravyov.

The question of on which of the Berlin buildings the main Banner of Victory was to be installed was addressed personally to Stalin. The leader pointed to the Reichstag. Of course, Joseph Vissarionovich did not explain the reasons for his choice. Perhaps the reason was that it was with the burning of the Reichstag that Hitler's dictatorship in Germany began, which later turned into a world war.

Flag on the pediment

On April 29, the Soviet units reached the near approaches to the Reichstag. The building was defended by the most fanatical parts of the SS, including units formed from Latvian, French and Scandinavian collaborators. The last defenders of Nazism fought furiously.

On April 30, the storming of the Reichstag was launched by soldiers of the 171st Infantry Division under the command of colonel Alexey Negoda and 150th Infantry Division Major General Vasily Shatilov.

The morning assault was repulsed, and during the afternoon assault, separate groups of Soviet soldiers managed to penetrate the interior of the Reichstag.

It was during this second assault that several groups of fighters from both Soviet divisions managed to reach the facade of the Reichstag at once and set several red flags on it.

According to the combat log of the 150th Infantry Division, at 14:25 on April 30, 1945 Lieutenant Rakhimzhan Koshkarbaev And Private Grigory Bulatov“They crept up to the central part of the building in a belligerent way and put a red flag on the stairs of the main entrance.”

The flag on the pediment of the building, which is under the control of the enemy, is difficult to consider as the banner of Victory. Nevertheless, Koshkarbaev and Bulatov were presented with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but received the Order of the Red Banner.

By the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated May 7, 1999, Rakhimzhan Koshkarbaev was posthumously awarded the highest degree of distinction - the title of "Halyk Kaharmany" ("People's Hero").

Balancing on the dome

The evening assault on the Reichstag on April 30 turned out to be successful for the Soviet units, when they managed to break inside, after which a fierce battle unfolded in the building.

Mikhail Yegorov (right) and Meliton Kantaria hoisting the Banner of Victory over the Berlin Reichstag in May 1945. Photo: RIA Novosti / Vladimir Grebnev

Immediately several groups of Soviet soldiers were ordered to get to the roof of the Reichstag and set up a banner there. The assault flag of the 150th Infantry Division was presented to a group of Lieutenant Alexei Berest, Sergeant Mikhail Egorov And Junior Sergeant Meliton Kantaria. The banner group was covered with fire by a company of submachine gunners under the command of Senior Sergeant Ilya Syanov.

Initially, this flag was installed on the pediment of the main entrance of the Reichstag - on the eastern part of the building - and attached to the equestrian sculpture William I.

At that time, the building was not yet under the complete control of the Soviet troops - in some of its premises, the Nazis continued to resist.

On the afternoon of May 2, the Victory Banner was transferred to the dome of the Reichstag. The task performed by the same Berest, Egorov and Kantaria was extremely difficult - the glass dome was destroyed, and during the ascent along the metal covers, Egorov almost fell off. However, in the end everything ended well.

First survivor

The fact that the flag set by the group of Alexei Berest was not the first on the roof of the Reichstag is true. This banner was the fourth in a row, but the first three were shot down by the fire of the Nazis who continued to resist.

The flag raised by the soldiers of the 150th Infantry Division was named the Banner of Victory for two reasons. Firstly, it was "numbered", that is, officially issued for establishment, and secondly, it was not shot down by Nazi fire.

The first flag on the roof of the Reichstag was planted by an assault group under the command of Captain Vladimir Makov as part of senior sergeants Gazi Zagitova, Alexandra Lisimenko, Mikhail Minin And Sergeant Alexei Bobrov. Literally with a difference of several minutes, two more groups set up their banners - Major Bondar And Lieutenant Sorokin.

The history of the first three banners on the roof of the Reichstag, shot down by the Nazis, was not a big secret. In particular, it is described in the publication "History of the Second World War", published in 1979.

True, most often, when talking about the Banner of Victory, the Soviet press wrote about Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria, without mentioning the senior banner group, Lieutenant Berest.

Banner of Victory over the Reichstag. Berlin May 1, 1945. Photo: RIA Novosti / Viktor Temin

Lieutenant in the shadow of subordinates

Why did the name of Alexei Berest drop out of the canonical Soviet version? Why was he, unlike Yegorov and Kantaria, not awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union?

There is no exact answer to this question. Moreover, the name of Berest was not erased from the memoirs of veterans, therefore, one could find out about his participation in hoisting the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag, but only in case of great interest in the topic.

According to the most popular version, Alexey Berest was not awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union at the will of the omnipotent Zhukov- the marshal did not like political officers, and Berest held this position. According to another version, the tough character of Berest did not like his immediate superiors. According to the third, at the very top they decided that two ordinary soldiers, a Russian and a Georgian, would look best as the standard-bearers of the Victory, and they decided to sacrifice an officer.

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 President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko Oleksiy Berest was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine with the Order of the Golden Star (posthumously).

How the inscription appeared on the Banner of Victory

Not everyone knows about another interesting moment. Initially, there were no inscriptions on the flag, which became the Banner of Victory. Above the dome of the Reichstag fluttered a red banner with a star, a sickle and a hammer, as well as the number "5" - under this number was the banner issued to the 150th Infantry Division.

The first commandant of Berlin, Colonel General Nikolai Berzarin solemnly escorts the Victory Banner to Moscow. Photo: RIA Novosti / Viktor Kinelovsky

After the flag was removed from the Reichstag, it was kept first at the headquarters of the 756th Infantry Regiment, and then at the political department of the 150th Infantry Division. June 19, on the eve of sending the banner to Moscow, head of the political department of the 150th division, lieutenant colonel Artyukhov ordered to make an inscription on it with white paint: “150 pages of the Order of Kutuzov II Art. Idrits. Div." This meant "150th Rifle Order of Kutuzov, II degree, Idritsa Division."

This initiative was not liked by the one who came to check the banner before being sent to Moscow to the head of the political department of the 79th Rifle Corps, Colonel Krylov.

Artyukhov suggested supplementing the inscription: "79th Corps, 3rd Shock Army, 1st Belorussian Front." However, there was not enough space left on the flag, and only “79 s.k., 3 c.a., 1 b.f.”

Colonel Krylov arranged this option, and the banner was sent to Moscow. In the capital, they decided not to change anything in its appearance. This is how the now familiar view of the Banner of Victory appeared.

Many are interested in how and when the flag was hoisted over the Reichstag by Soviet soldiers. Let's figure it out together. Before talking about those who planted the flag over the Reichstag, let us describe in order the events of the last days of April 1945 that preceded this momentous event.

Strictly speaking, it began on April 16th. The operation lasted from that date until 8 May. Its goal was to complete the defeat of Germany, to unite with the allies, to capture Berlin. We will not describe the entire operation in detail. We will only tell about the events that immediately preceded the storming of the Reichstag, which interests us.

What was the Reichstag?

On April 29, the battles for the Reichstag of the 3rd shock army began. This building was one of the main points in the central sector of the Berlin defense. It was surrounded on three sides. Only one bridge over it remained intact. 25 meters was the width of the river. The Reichstag on the fourth side was covered with stone buildings located around the perimeter. The Nazis turned them into fortresses, including the "Himmler House" - the building where the Reichsministry of the Interior was located.

What were the approaches to the building like?

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

Who defended the Reichstag?

Thousands of soldiers and officers from various units defended the Reichstag. They were mostly cadets of the naval school, parachuted into the area of ​​the fortress. In addition, there were SS detachments, artillerymen, pilots, and Volksturm. They were armed with a large number of machine guns, machine guns and faustpatrons. Hitler ordered the officers to hold the Reichstag by any means.

It was entrusted to storm it with units of the seventy-ninth rifle corps. It was reinforced with artillery, self-propelled guns and tanks.

Preparations for the assault on the Reichstag

On April 29, closer to midnight, preparations for the assault ended. They crossed the river under the cover of artillery and mortar fire from the 525th Infantry Regiment. They settled on the opposite bank. On April 29, in the morning, artillery and mortar shelling was opened on the "Himmler's house". Units of the 756th, 380th and 674th regiments fought for the ministry throughout the day. Stubborn resistance was offered by the Nazis, who fought furiously for every room, for every floor.

April 30, by 4 hours 30 minutes, the house was completely cleared of the enemy. Breaking his resistance, units of 171 and 150 divisions took their original position in the trench by 12 o'clock (for the assault on the Reichstag). It had high bulk walls, which allowed the Russians to hide from the fire. The Germans repeatedly launched violent counterattacks, supported by artillery and tanks. However, these attempts were repulsed by the Soviet units.

Giving the battles for Berlin exceptional military and political significance, the Military Council of the Third Shock Army established even before the start of the offensive. They were handed over to all rifle divisions.

The first assault on the Reichstag

Around 13:30 the assault began. The enemy opened heavy fire on the attackers from the Tiergarten. They pressed the assault units to the ground, which therefore could not advance to the Reichstag. Many Soviet soldiers received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for this battle.

But the first assault on the Reichstag failed. Reinforcements were sent to the subunits instead of retired officers and soldiers. Artillery was brought up, objects of attack were specified.

Next Assault

The assault was repeated at 18:00. The fighters of the Neustroev battalion, under the cover of artillery, rushed to the attack in a single impulse. It was headed by I. Ya. Syanov, party organizer of the company, A. P. Brest, deputy for political affairs, K. V. Gusev, adjutant of the battalion. Also, the soldiers of the Samsonov and Davydov battalions rushed forward.

The enemy could not withstand the heroic impulse of the Soviet soldiers. They reached the Reichstag in a few minutes, on which red flags appeared. Here the flag of the 756th Infantry Regiment, party organizer Pyotr Pyatnitsky, appeared, however, running up the stairs, the warrior was hit by an enemy bullet. Sergeant P. D. Shcherbina picks up the banner, strengthens it on one of the columns. So for the first time the flag was hoisted over the Reichstag by Soviet soldiers.

Fights inside the building

From the upper floors, from the embrasures, the Nazis poured heavy fire on the Soviet soldiers. However, the soldiers who broke through to the walls of the building found themselves in a dead zone of fire. The front door was bricked up. Soviet soldiers had to break their way with a log. Assaulters burst into the Reichstag building, having already started a fight inside. The soldiers of the battalions acted swiftly: in the halls and corridors they entered into hand-to-hand combat with the Nazis. machine gun fire, faustpatrons, Soviet soldiers forced the enemy to weaken the fire and captured the premises that were adjacent to the entrance lobby. Meter by meter, the assault battalions cleared the first floor of the Germans. One part of the Nazis was driven into vast basements, and the other - to the upper floors.

In exceptionally difficult conditions for Soviet soldiers, the battle took place in the Reichstag building. From the explosions of hand grenades and faustpatrons, a fire broke out in the premises. It began to intensify when the Soviet units began to use flamethrowers to smoke out the Fritz. Fierce fighting ensued on the second floor as well.

Hoisting the banner

Soldiers from Neustroyev's battalion (Lisimenko, Zagitov, Makov, and also Sergeant Minin) broke through to the roof, paving the way for one of the roofs with machine gun fire and grenades. Now they have hoisted the flag over the Reichstag. Two fighters stood out in particular. Their names are usually given when answering the question of who hung the flag over the Reichstag. Let's describe these events in more detail.

Two noted heroes were M. A. Egorov and M. V. Kantaria (scouts of the regiment). It was they who raised the flag over the Reichstag. The soldiers were instructed to hoist the banner of the Military Council of the Third Shock Army. They, with the support of Syanov's company, together with a group of soldiers led by Lieutenant Brest, on April 30, at 21:50, climbed onto the roof. The flag over the Reichstag was hoisted by these Soviet soldiers. For heroism and skillful leadership of the battle, K. Ya. Samsonov, S. A. Neustroev, V. I. Davydov were awarded the honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union. It was also received by M. V. Kantaria and M. A. Egorov (those who raised the flag over the Reichstag). However, the fighting didn't end there.

Continued fighting inside the Reichstag

So, we figured out who raised the flag over the Reichstag. When it was, we also found out. The Soviet flag was raised over the Reichstag on April 30, at 21:50. Let us now describe further events. Inside the Reichstag, the battle continued until the morning of May 1 with great tension. Separate groups of the Nazis, who settled in the basements of the building, did not stop resisting until May 2, until the Soviet soldiers finished with them.

At 6:30 am on May 2, G. Weidling, General of Artillery (Chief of Defense of Berlin), surrendered. He ordered the remnants of the garrison troops to cease resistance. This happened in the middle of the day. Groupings of German troops located southeast of Berlin were liquidated on the same day.

Up to 2,500 enemy soldiers were wounded and killed in the battles for the Reichstag. 2604 people were captured.

In total, the losses on the part of the USSR amounted to 78 thousand people. The enemy lost about one million people, including 150 thousand were killed. In Berlin, Soviet catering to hungry Berliners were deployed everywhere.

Victory

In the same year, on May 3, photographs of the burning Reichstag, over which the Banner of Victory fluttered, were published in Pravda, a Moscow newspaper. Raising the flag over the Reichstag announced to the country that the enemy had been defeated.

On June 24, 1945, the first parade took place on Red Square in Moscow to commemorate the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War.

It was decided to bring the Banner of Victory from Berlin to this parade. It is kept to this day in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces. Those who raised the flag over the Reichstag will never be forgotten in our country. We remember the names of these heroes every year, on May 9, when the anniversary of the Victory is celebrated. It was the raising of the flag over the Reichstag that marked it.

Why is Victory Day celebrated on May 9th?

You may ask: "Why is Victory Day celebrated on May 9, that is, a little later?" The fact is that it was then, at 0:43 Moscow time, that the German Surrender Act was signed. This was carried out by the Field Marshal and representatives of the German Navy, who received the appropriate authority from Doenitz. Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov was present from the Soviet side. A brilliant operation led to the capture of the Reichstag, as well as the courage of Soviet officers and soldiers who fought to end the nightmare of a war that lasted a long and terrible four years.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to upload all the photos of the real hero Grisha Bulatov, who was the first to hoist the banner

above Reichstag and to which this article is dedicated, therefore I refer readers to the original source

Who was the first to hoist the banner over the Reichstag http://best.kp.ru/kirov/reichstag/ I really hope thatafter seventy yearshistorical truth will prevail and the reward will find its hero.

Officially, all textbooks on the history of the Russian Fatherland of the 20th century tell us that Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria were the first to hoist the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag. Russian and Georgian. It happened at about 3:00 o'clock on May 1, 1945.

But Meliton Kantaria himself, 46 years later, answering a question from a journalist from the Veteran newspaper (1991, No. 6 (214), told a completely different story.

“On April 30, we saw the Reichstag in front of us - a huge gloomy building with dirty gray columns and a dome on the roof. The first group of our scouts broke into the Reichstag: V. Provotorov, G. Bulatov. They fixed the flag on the pediment. The flag was immediately noticed by the soldiers lying under enemy fire in the square.

MELITO KANTARIA

ml. Red Army sergeant
Hero of the Soviet Union.

That is, already on April 30, the banner fluttered over the Reichstag. This means that it was not Yegorov and Kantaria who hoisted the first banner.

In addition to the memories of Kantaria, there are other confirmations of this fact. Let's look at the most reasonable ones.

FACTS KNOW EVERYTHING

The Institute of Military History of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation sent an answer to a request about who was the first to hoist the banner over the Reichstag (June 19, 2005, No. 247443):

«... Veach of the armies advancing on Berlin was preparing one red banner for hoisting over the Reichstag building. In the 3rd shock army on April 22, 1945, 9 such banners were prepared (according to the number included inher divisions). Red banners, flags and flags were in all assault groups that went into battle with the main task - to break into the Reichstag and install them on the building. In total, about 40 flags were raised over the Reichstag. In this regard, and for a number of other reasons, the question of who was the first to accomplish this feat is still debatable.».

This means that even the Ministry of Defense does not claim that Yegorov and Kantaria were the first, and do not exclude that someone else could be the first.

In May 1945, about 30 award sheets were signed for submission to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union precisely for hoisting the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag. Including the soldiers of the reconnaissance group of Lieutenant Semyon Sorokin, which included senior sergeant V.N. Provotorov (platoon party organizer), senior sergeant I.N. Lysenko, privates G.P. Bulatov, S.G. Bryukhovetsky, M. A. Pachkovsky, M. S. Gabidullin, N. Sankin, and P. Dolgikh.

In a document such as the "Award List", there is a column "Brief, specific statement of personal military feat or merit."

In the award list of Private Grigory Petrovich Bulatov, his feat is described as follows:

On April 30, 1945, the all-Union radio reported that in 14 hours 25 minutes The Banner of Victory was hoisted over the Reichstag.

Later, this message will be called "not true", and it will not go down in history.

We have all seen newsreel footage in which cameraman Roman Karmen captured how several Red Army soldiers run into the Reichstag. In the hands of one is a banner. They climb up and secure the flag. Every year on May 9, these frames are shown by all channels of the country. And they talk about the feat of the soldiers of the Red Army, naming the names of Yegorov and Kantaria. But other people are captured on the newsreels! The banner is carried by the Red Army soldier Grigory Bulatov, and next to him is Lieutenant Semyon Sorokin.

It is important that this moment was staged only on May 2. Roman Karmen himself, in a TV program dated May 3, 1945, tells that it was these people who were the first to hoist the banner:

« ... Lieutenant Sorokin, together with Private Grigory Bulatov, on April 30, under heavy German fire, climbed onto the roof of the Reichstag and hoisted the banner.

ROMAN CARMEN

Soviet cameraman, documentary filmmaker, front-line cameraman, teacher, professor.

So, among the heroes of the shooting of Carmen were participants in the real hoisting of banners in different places of the Reichstag: Grigory Bulatov, Semyon Sorokin, Rakhimzhan Koshkarbaev, Stepan Neustroev (the commander of the group, which included Yegorov and Kantaria). But if the first two were from one assault group, then the second - from another. How could this happen? After all, people from different groups could not climb the dome at the same time? The fact is that Carmen arrived at the Reichstag for filming on May 2 and asked: "Who was the first?" Everyone pointed to the young Grisha Bulatov. Carmen called Bulatov for filming, and his commander Sorokin and several other people from another group went with him.

By the way, there is no video showing Yegorov and Kantaria hoisting the banner at all. After the war, Berlin was divided, and the part where the Reichstag was located became the occupation zone of Great Britain. Therefore, they were no longer able to make staged shots after the war. Later, all uncomfortable shots with portraits of Bulatov and Sorokin were cut out from Carmen's newsreel. The moment a person places a flag on a flagpole lasts only a second. But even in this second you can see: Bulatov is in the frame.

All photographs of the hoisting of the banner are also staged. They were made on May 2 and later. But in the famous photo taken by A. Kapustyansky on May 2, 1945, which is called “Banners at the walls of the Reichstag”, it is not Yegorov and Kantaria that are captured, but the soldiers of the reconnaissance group of Lieutenant Semyon Sorokin. In the foreground is young Grigory Bulatov, next to him is Semyon Sorokin. By the way, it was this photo that Zhukov placed on the cover of his book of memoirs “The Reichstag is taken!”. The book was published in 1969. In all subsequent editions of the memoirs, this photo was no longer used.

And also it was the soldiers of the Sorokin group that were captured in the photograph “Salute to Victory on the pediment of the Reichstag”, which was taken on May 3 by Ivan Shagin.

Standard-bearers at the walls of the Reichstag

Salute to Victory on the pediment of the Reichstag

There are published memoirs by Semyon Sorokin and Viktor Provotorov that it was on April 30 that the first red flag was hoisted on the Reichstag. And Grigory Bulatov carried this banner. The phonogram from Semyon Sorokin's interview is stored in the MAI Museum.

Sorokin says that when their reconnaissance group hoisted the banner, he reported this to the commanders, and journalists swooped in:

“Photographer Ryumkin and cameraman Carmen came to us on May 2 and asked: who was hoisting? Let's go shoot. And Yegorov and Kantaria did not go, they immediately said - we are not the first.

SEMEN SOROKIN

Platoon Leader, Lt.

This same Neustroev was part of the group with Yegorov and Kantaria. So it turned out that in all the photos and videos there are ordinary soldiers, in the rank of a private with them, Lieutenant Sorokin. And here the captain is standing nearby: with regalia and with epaulettes. And for the journalists who rushed to the place, the information was given like this: here is Captain Neustroev, and these are the soldiers of his group, and it was they who hoisted the banner. Although Neustroev had nothing to do with the Sorokin group. From here begins a big lie about a great feat!

A soldier of the Red Army leaves an autograph on the column of the Reichstag

FROM HEROIC HEIGHTS TO CRIMINALS

And so, when the ardor from the swift assault on the Reichstag subsided, almost 30 award sheets fell on the table for Zhukov to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for hoisting the banner. Why so much? In total, on April 30 and on the night of May 1, during the assault on the roof of the Reichstag, four banner groups visited, four banners were fixed: the first were Sorokin's scouts, the last, already late at night, fighters, including Yegorov and Kantaria.

But Zhukov makes a decision - to postpone the appointment of the title to everyone! Why? Today, one can only guess, for example, that the great marshal knew how Soviet history is written: the main thing in it is ideology, not facts.

And this story was written like this (Bulatov himself told his childhood friend Viktor Shuklin about this): in mid-May, Marshal Zhukov, along with the participants in the Berlin operation, those who were the first to storm the Reichstag, arrived in the Kremlin. There was an official part. There was also a one-on-one conversation. Bulatov recalled that Stalin shook his hand and congratulated him. He was in good spirits. And then he calmly explained that the Hero would be given only after 20 years.

STALIN

I can't assign the title of Hero. Yegorov and Kantaria will hoist the banner. But you will not be forgotten: they will consider you to have stormed the Reichstag and even set one of the flags on the lower floors. All this is temporary. In 20 years you will receive the title of Hero

Young Grishka, who was then only 19 years old, could not object to the Supreme Commander.

That same evening, Bulatov was taken from the Kremlin to Beria's dacha. A dirty scene was played here: a waitress was sent to the boy, and she accused Grishka of rape. The guy immediately ended up in a cell of criminals. All. History has been written. There are a few touches left: to choose from the 30 people who really participated in the storming of the Reichstag, the most ideologically consistent and hand over to them the banner that was preserved after the hoisting. By the first anniversary of the Victory, this task was resolved: on May 8, 1946, five people received the titles of Heroes of the Soviet Union for hoisting the Banner over the Reichstag: Neustroev, Samsonov, Davydov, Yegorov and Kantaria. From that moment on, they are officially considered those who hoisted the banner.

BULATOV Kept his word
STALIN - NO

Bulatov returned to Slobodskaya in 1949. Criminal, who will believe him? Yeah, he didn't even try. Of course, they knew that he took Berlin - they knew that he had stormed the Reichstag - they knew. At city meetings, he was always thanked for his service and exploits at the front. But Bulatov was silent for 20 years, as he promised that it was he who hoisted the Banner of Victory. Waited. I hoped. But during this time, the history of the country had already been written, it was studied at school: the soldiers of the Neustroev group published their memoirs, but there were no others. Archived records have been cleaned up. The same video of the hoisting the banner, filmed by Carmen, was shown every year on the next anniversary of the Victory. Bulatov watched her: here are the soldiers of his group running into the building, here you can see his back - he is carrying a flag. Close-up of the hands - his hands - which secure the banner. And the voice-over is blatantly lying: the group of Captain Neustroev, Yegorov and Kantaria. Try to bear it. And he started drinking.

But in the 60s, here and there, the memoirs of the soldiers of the Sorokin group began to be printed. So, on April 30, 1961, Komsomolskaya Pravda (No. 102) published a story about the capture of the Reichstag. Here are the memories of the participants in the battle on April 30, 1945, there are the words of Rakhimzhan Koshkarbaev: “Major Davydov handed me a red flag. I was supposed to be accompanied by a group of scouts. I looked around, Grigory Bulatov was next to me ... ".

It was in the 60s after so many years that Sorokin's scouts found each other, signed off, united. And they began to try to prove the truth. They wrote to the Central Committee, they wrote to Brezhnev.

The year 1965 has come. 20 years have passed. But oblivion is not over. Nobody was going to rewrite history and admit that people have been lied to for so many years. And Grigory, under the onslaught of colleagues who insisted that the time had come to tell the truth, broke through: he gave the writer Ardyshev three notebooks - common school notebooks - with his notes. These notebooks contained his correspondence with Zhukov, with Carmen. There was also a photograph of Zhukov in this notebook with his signature: "In memory of the hero of the Reichstag." Bulatov goes to the city committee of the CPSU to prove this very truth. At this time, the nickname "Grishka-Reichstag" is forever glued to him.

Little Grigory Bulatov in the top row 4th from the left

BuBulatov after the war