The last battle, the hardest battle…
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Time flies by. It appeared as if it was only yesterday, but already 75 years have passed. How many of those who were sixteen during the war are still with us? Commemorating their feat, we continue to publish the dates of the most important events of the Great Patriotic War, which changed the march of history not only on one sixth of the earth, but of Europe and the world as a whole.
May 9 is the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.
The main operation of 1945 was the Berlin offensive operation (April 16 - May 8, 1945). In its course, the Soviet command planned to surround the German group in the Berlin area and take the city by storm. The Soviet forces were opposed by the German troops of the Wisla Army Group (under command of Colonel General K. Student) and the Army Group "Center" (under command of Field Marshal F. Schörner). The troops of the 1st and the 2nd Belorussian (under command of Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov and Marshal of the Soviet Union K.K. Rokossovsky respectively) and 1st Ukrainian (under command of Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev) fronts launched an offensive on April 16, 1945.
Soviet troops broke through the defenses of German troops on the rivers Oder and Neiss and on the Zeelovsky heights. On April 25, the encirclement ring around Berlin was closed. On the same day, Soviet troops interlocked with the American in the town of Torgau on the Elbe.
The fighting in Berlin itself began on April 26th. On April 30, the Reichstag (parliament building) was taken, over which Soviet soldiers Sergeant M. A. Egorov and Junior Sergeant M. V. Kantaria hoisted the Victory Banner. On the night of May 1, Hitler committed suicide transferring power to his successor, Grand Admiral K. Doenitz, and on May 2, the Berlin garrison surrendered.
The last operation of the Great Patriotic War was the Prague offensive operation (May 6–11, 1945). During this operation, the troops of the 1st, 2nd and 4th Ukrainian fronts (under command of Marshal of the Soviet Union I. S. Konev, Marshal of the Soviet Union R. Ya. Malinovsky, and Army General A. I. Eremenko respectively) having come to the aid of the Prague national uprising, liberated Prague (May 9, 1945) and completed the liberation of Czechoslovakia.
On May 7, 1945, at the headquarters of the Commander of the Allied Forces, General D. D. Eisenhower in Reims and the representative of the German command, Colonel General A. Jodl, signed the preconditions for the surrender of the German armed forces. On the night of May 8–9, 1945, in the suburbs of Berlin Karlshorst, representatives of the German command, Field Marshal V. Keitel (from the ground forces), Colonel General G. Yu. Stumpf (from the Air Force) and Admiral General G. G. von Friedeburg (from the Navy) signed an act on the unconditional surrender of Germany in the face of the Allied command. On behalf of the Soviet command, this act signed Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov, on behalf of Great Britain, Chief Marshal of Aviation A. Tedder, on behalf of the U.S., Major General K. Spaats, on behalf of France, General J. de Lattre de Tassigny. This marked the end of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
The material was prepared by associate professor of the SPbGASU Department of History and Philosophy Ye.P. Guriev, Candidate of History, on the basis of the Letter of the RF Ministry of Science and Higher Education No. МН-2.2 / 2891 of July 16, 2019.