All language subtitles for Soviet.Storm.WWII.in.the.East.Series.2.8of9.The.Battle.of.Berlin.1080p.WEB-DL.h264.AC3.MVGroup.Forum_[eng]

Spring 1945. After nearly
four years of savage fighting

With millions of
dead on both sides,

The Red Army has arrived
at the gates of Berlin.

The German capital will witness
some of the Most bitter fighting
of the entire war,

As Hitler s Third Reich
collapses amidst blood and fire.

Red Army tank crews looked on
intently as mechanics arrived
carrying steel meshes.

They began to fix them
to their tank s hull and turret.

It seemed a flimsy kind of
armour, but this experiment
could save the tank crew s
lives.

As Soviet tanks advanced into
German towns and cities in the
spring of 1945,

they were regularly ambushed
by German panzerfaust teams.

The Wehrmacht was running
out of trained soldier.

They had been forced to
conscript teenagers and old men.

But even in their hands, the
Panzerfaust could be just as
lethal as a tank.

The commander of a Soviet Guards
tank regiment described the
aftermath:

Here s a tank, standing
with the hatches buttoned down.

There s a small hole burnt
through the turret

just wide enough
to put your little finger in.

This is a Panzerfaust s work.

We have to weld off the hatch
which is locked from inside.

We pull four dead men
from the turret.

A hollow charge round has
burnt through the armour,

and the spitting of melting
metal has killed them all.

Engineers believed steel meshes
could protect Soviet tanks,

by causing the Panzerfaust
warhead to explode before it
reached the tank s armour.

The report read: The surface of
the mesh was torn and bent as a
result of the impact.

There was a hole in the tank s
slopping armour plate. It went
right through.

So the panzerfaust could kill a
T-34 even if it was cloaked in
the protective mesh.

Nonetheless, many tank crews
adopted the new measure. In this
bitter fighting,

they were willing to try
anything that gave them an added
chance of survival.

On 31st January 1945, tanks
of the 1st Byelorussian Front

reached the Oder River near
Küstrin and Frankfurt an der
Oder.

They crossed without waiting
for the infantry to catch up.

They had advanced
400 kilometres across Poland.

35 destroyed enemy divisions and
hundreds of thousands of
prisoners lay in their wake.

They were now just 100
kilometres from Berlin, the
lair of the Nazi beast .

But now the Stavka Soviet High
Command ordered a halt.

The frontline troops needed
resupply and rest,

before they were ready
to begin the final assault.

In March 1945, Pomerania to the
north, and Silezia to the south,

were cleared of German troops.
The flanks were secure for the
drive on Berlin.

The Germans attempted a
counterattack at Küstrin, but it
ended in complete failure.

In the process, some of the last
armoured forces available

for the defence of
Berlin were destroyed.

From his Fuhrerbunker
beneath the Reich Chancellery,

Hitler raged at this
latest failure.

He was particularly scathing of
the commander of the 9th Army,
Theodor Busse.

But when Chief of the General
Staff, Heinz Guderian, stood up
for Busse,

Hitler s wrath fell
on him instead.

Guderian was sent on leave,
effectively enforced retirement.

His successor was
General Hans Krebs.

Hans Krebs had been a military
attaché in Moscow when the war
began.

More recently, he d been Chief
of Staff for Model s Army Group
B,

which that winter had launched
the doomed Ardennes Offensive

against the western allies.

During his career Krebs had
shown a talent for planning
defensive operations.

Now, Hitler expected a miracle
from him in Berlin.

As Guderian packed his bags, an
old acquaintance of his was
preparing

for the final push on Berlin. He
was the Soviet General Semyon
Krivoshein.

The two men had met
in September 1939 in Poland,

during the Nazi-Soviet
carve-up of the country.

Semyon Moiseyevich Krivoshein
began his military career in
1918 with the cavalry.

In 1939, as part of the
Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland,

his brigade occupied Brest,
in modern Belarus.

This was when Krivoshein met
Guderian, the German general
responsible

for handing over control
of the city to the Soviets.

In 1945, Krivoshein commanded
the 1st Mechanized Corps.

It was the only unit
of the 1st Byelorussian Front

to be completely equipped
with American Sherman tanks.

1st Mechanised Corps was on the
eastern bank of the Oder River.
But every night,

its soldiers crossed the river
to help dig emplacements for
guns and tanks.

On the night of 15th April,

the Corps crossed the Oder to
take up these prepared
positions.

As Hitler ranted and
raved at his generals,

Commander of the 1st
Byelorussian Front Marshal
Zhukov was summoned to Moscow.

He and Stalin were to discuss
details of the final assault on
Berlin.

Zhukov had prepared two plans
for the offensive on the German
capital.

Plan A envisaged a thrust
from the Küstrin bridgehead.

Plan B from the bridgehead
near Frankfurt.

The Germans would be kept
guessing as to which was the
real line of advance,

forcing them to
disperse their troops.

But bad news awaited
Zhukov in the Kremlin.

In his memoirs he described a
late night meeting with Stalin.

He was told, The German front
in the West has completely
collapsed.

The Germans don t seem to be
willing to take any measures

to stop the advance of
the western Allies.

British and American troops
had crossed the Rhine.

They had destroyed German
Army Group B on the Ruhr.

Their armoured divisions were
advancing rapidly towards
Berlin.

Although the Allies
had agreed at Yalta

that Berlin would be in the
Soviet Zone of Occupation,

the Western Allies hadn t ruled
out entering the city before the
Red Army.

Winston Churchill had expressed
his opinion to the American
President.

Russian armies will no doubt
enter Vienna. If they also take
Berlin,

will not their impression that
they have been the overwhelming
contributor

to our common victory be
unduly imprinted in their minds?

I therefore consider that should
Berlin be in our grasp, we
should certainly take it.

Zhukov understood.

He put forward the plan that
could be implemented most
rapidly

a single assault
from the Küstrin bridgehead.

Marshal Konev, Commander of
the 1st Ukrainian Front,

also flew to Stavka
headquarters in Moscow.

In his memoirs, Konev recalled:
The Chief of Staff read aloud a
telegram,

the point of which was that the
Western Allies were preparing an
operation

to capture Berlin. Stalin
addressed Zhukov and myself:

So, who is going to take
Berlin? Are we, or are the
Allies?

I was the first to answer:

WE shall take Berlin, and we ll
take it before the Allies.

The General Staff worked night
and day as they planned the
operation.

One of the directives received
by the1st Byelorussian Front ran
as follows:

After the German defences
have been breached,

tank armies are to be introduced
on the line of the main thrust,

to enable the envelopment of
Berlin from the north and
north-east.

The purpose of this manoeuvre
was to block the Western Allies

eastward advance on Berlin.
The prize was not for sharing.

Zhukov planned to deliver the
main thrust through the Seelow
Heights,

held by General Weidling s
56th Panzerkorps.

Then the Soviet armies
would race west

and establish a perimeter
in the suburbs of Berlin.

This cordon would prevent German
forces retreating into the city.

Konev was unhappy that he was
not making the main assault on
Berlin.

Instead his Front would encircle
the city from the south-west.

But Konev ordered his staff
to prepare two plans

one following the Stavka s
Directives the other planning a
quick dash to Berlin.

Meanwhile, in Berlin
life went on.

Most services continued to run,
including public transport.

In reponse to the air raids,
many had volunteered to help
with firefighting,

or to help clear debris.

There were still
films and concerts.

But over everything hung a sense
of fear fear of what was to
come.

Berlin bore the unmistakable
scars of war cratered streets,
and scorched,

ruined buildings. Now Berliners
helped to build barricades,

as the city prepared
to defend itself.

Berlin s barricades were made
of wood, stone and rails.

They could be up to 2.5 metres
high and 4 metres thick.

They made many streets
completely impassable,

and the approaches
to them were mined.

Immobilised tanks were dug in at
crossroads, and became fixed gun
emplacements.

Berlin also boasted
three massive flak towers,

built to defend the city
from Allied air raids.

These were 40 metres high, and
bristled with anti-aircraft
artillery.

Many Berliners now wore
the armband of the Volksturm

the German equivalent
of the Home Guard.

These units were controlled not
by the army, but by the Nazi
Party.

The Volkssturm was
formed in October 1944,

after Hitler ordered the
mobilisation of all German males

between the age of 16 and 60.

By 1945, this meant the
conscription of the only men
left

teenagers, invalids
and the elderly.

The Nazis hoped to create
a fanatical people s militia,

but most had little stomach for
a one-sided fight with the Red
Army.

There were very few weapons
available for these units.

Some received Italian or Dutch
rifles, with just a few
cartridges.

But there were plenty
of Panzerfausts..

The Panzerfaust was a one-shot,
disposable launcher that fired a
hollow-charge,

anti-tank warhead. It was
very cheap and easy to make.

The Germans produced
more than 6 million of them

between 1943 and the
end of the war.

The most common version,
the Panzerfaust 60,

had an effective tank-killing
range of 60 metres.

Its warhead travelled
at 45 metres per second,

and was able to penetrate
200 millimetres of armour.

This was very bad news
for Soviet tank crews.

The front armour of a T-34 was
just 45mm and of an IS-2, 120mm.

Standing between Zhukov and the
capital of the Third Reich were
4 German armies.

They consisted of nearly
a million soldiers,

more than 1,000 armoured
vehicles, and almost 10,000 guns
and mortars.

More than 200
Volkssturm battalions

were formed into the Berlin
Army Command reserve.

The Berlin garrison itself
totalled more than 200,000 men.

Busse was extremely cynical
about their prospects.

We will consider
our task fulfilled , he wrote,

if American tanks
strike us in our back.

The German general staff
believed the fate of Berlin

would be decided on
the Seelow Heights.

Therefore most troops
were committed to the front,

rather than held back
inside the city.

On 15th April, a proclamation
from the Fuehrer was read out to
the troops:

Berlin will remain German,

Vienna will remain German and
Europe will never be Russian.

Form a single community to
defend not the empty word
Fatherland ,

but your families, your wives,
your children and, hence, your
own future.

The slogan Berlin will remain
German appeared daubed on walls
around the city.

Many still believed that somehow
the city could be saved.

Troops of the 1st Byelorussian
Front were addressed by their
Commissar:

Our troops have travelled
a difficult but glorious road.

Our battle standards are covered
with glorious victories

won at Stalingrad and Kursk, on
the Dnieper and in Byelorussia,

at Warsaw and in Pomerania,
in Brandenburg and at the Oder.

With our own sweat and blood, we
have earned the right to assault
Berlin,

to be first to enter
the city. To Berlin!

At 3 a.m. on 16th April 1945,
more than 7,000 guns, mortars

and Katyusha rocket-launchers

began an earth-shaking
bombardment of the German line.

It was one of the greatest
concentrations of firepower ever
seen.

In Berlin, the bombardment was
heard like the sound of distant
thunder.

In houses closer to the front,
pictures fell off walls, and
windows shattered.

In Müncheberg, the cross tumbled
from the church spire.

Amongst the guns were six,
massive, 280 millimetre mortars,

from the 34th Independent
Battalion of Heavy Artillery.

When the bombardment stopped,
150 giant searchlights were
switched on,

pointed straight at
the German lines.

The searchlights
were Zhukov s idea.

They were supposed to light the
way, and dazzle the German
defenders.

But they struggled to penetrate
the thick morning mist,

and the smoke and dust
thrown up by the barrage.

The searchlights proved just as
effective at dazzling their own
men.

And many were silhouetted by the
lights, becoming easy targets
for the Germans.

The Germans had known the
initial bombardment would be
massive.

So most of their troops had
already been withdrawn to the
second line.

This allowed Soviet troops to
advance the first few kilometres
with relative ease.

As the sun rose, the
searchlights were turned off.

Despite the early success,

it was clear by afternoon that
there had be no immediate
breakthrough.

The Seelow Heights were defended
by a network of machine-gun
nests

and gun emplacements.
It was a slow and bloody process

for the Soviet infantry
to fight their way through.

The advance of the 1st
Byelorussian Front was supported
by 800 Soviet aircraft.

Unchallenged by the Luftwaffe,
they arrived overhead to batter
the German positions.

By 1pm , Zhukov explained,

I clearly understood that the
enemy s defensive fire system
was intact

so to reinforce the attacking
troops and ensure a
breakthrough,

we decided to feed both
tank armies into the battle.

His decision created huge
traffic jams on the approaches
to the Seelow Heights.

Tanks, artillery tractors, and
supply trucks all struggled to
get forward.

By committing his tank
armies to the battle,

Zhukov had altered the plan that
he d agreed with the Stavka.

It showed desperation.
And Stalin was not happy.

He rang Zhukov to reprimand him
for this unauthorised use of the
tank reserve.

And he demanded to know when the
breakthrough would be made.

Zhukov tried to remain calm.
The enemy s defences at the
Seelow Heights

will be breached
tomorrow , he told Stalin.

Now Zhukov had to
make it happen.

Zhukov s advance,
led by Chuikov s 8th Guards Army

and Katukov s 1st Guards Tank
Army, was faltering on the
Seelow Heights.

Meanwhile Marhsal
Konev s 1st Ukrainian Front

was advancing towards the Neisse
River and the forests south-east
of Berlin.

The Germans had no forces here
able to withstand his assault.

On the evening of 17th April,

Konev informed Stalin that he
was ready to send two tank
armies to help Zhukov.

Stalin thought about it for
a moment. Then he agreed.

Very good he said, Direct the
tank armies towards Berlin.

Konev immediately issued orders
to Rybalko s 3rd Guards Tank
Army,

and Lelyushenko s 4th Guards
Tank Army, to turn towards
Berlin.

At the Neisse River, Rybalko s
troops found a ford no more than
a metre deep.

Rather than wait for
bridging equipment,

his tank crews made their
vehicles water-tight, and drove
straight across.

By the third day of the
offensive, tanks of the 1st
Ukrainian Front

were poised to breakthrough
the German defences.

At the same moment, Zhukov s
troops were at last about

to breakthrough German positions
on the Seelow Heights.

General Krivoshein s motorised
infantry had managed to capture

an intact bridge at
the town of Platkov.

Now his 1st Mechanised Corps
was advancing unchecked.

Behind them, rolled the T-34s of
Bogdanov s 2nd Guards Tank Army.

On 20th April , wrote General
Weidling, commanding the German
defence,

our units, having suffered huge
losses and exhausted to
extremity,

could no longer withstand the
pressure of the Russian
assault.

Weidling s corps
was outflanked on both sides.

That evening Zhukov entrusted
General Semen Bogdanov with a
historic mission

to lead his 2nd Guards
Tank Army into Berlin,

and to become the first Soviet
troops to enter the enemy
capital.

The next day Krivoshein s 1st
Mechanised Corps, part of 2nd
Guards Tank Army,

reached the Berlin suburb of
Weissensee, and fulfilled the
mission.

For this, Krivoshein received
his nation s highest award,

the title Hero of
the Soviet Union .

The main force
of the 1st Byelorussian front

was now sweeping around
Weidling s shattered corps,

and arriving en masse
at the outskirts of Berlin.

Konev s dream of conquering
Berlin had been thwarted.

Forests and lakes, minefields
and pillboxes had slowed his
advance.

There was hard fighting
around Zossen,

from where the Wehrmacht High
Command had recently fled.

But his advance had trapped
20,000 men of the German 9th

and 4th Panzer Army
in the forests south of Berlin.

These men could no longer reach
the city to help in its defence.

Hitler faced a dilemma: stay in
the capital or flee to his
Alpine Fortress .

He pinned his hopes on the army
detachment of SS General Felix
Steiner.

Hitler telegraphed the general:

The primary task before Army
Detachment Steiner is to attack
from the north

The fate of the capital
of the Third Reich

depends on how successfully
you execute this mission.

It was an impossible order
that could not be carried out.

When Hitler was told this
he flew into a rage,

accusing the army of cowardice
and treason. It s all over. he
at last recognised.

The Fuhrer would stay in Berlin.

But he clutched at one last
straw, General Wenck s 12th
Army,

facing the Americans
on the Elbe River.

On 23rd April Wenck
was ordered to relieve Berlin.

But neither Steiner nor Wenck
could save the capital.

The Berlin garrison was formed
from a host of shattered army
and SS divisions,

supplemented by Volkssturm
battalions, police and air
defence units

about 120,000 men in total.
It was not enough,

although many of the SS men were
prepared to fight until the end.

The Soviets outnumbered the
Germans by more than four to
one.

And many Red Army soldiers were
now battle-hardened veterans

graduates of the Stalingrad
academy of street fighting.

Soviet tanks advanced on both
sides of the street, in a
staggered double file.

They kept 30 metres behind the
infantry, and used their main
gun

to take out defensive
strongpoints that were holding
up the advance.

Infantry squads and snipers
worked to flush out the German
panzerfausters.

The Soviets knew that the
Panzerfaust had a short range,
about 60 metres.

So tanks would pull up 150
metres from an enemy-held
building,

and shell it from a safe range.

When assault teams
captured a building,

they used smoke grenades
to fill the street with smoke,

allowing more troops
to move up in safety.

General Krivoshein s mechanised
corps was redeployed to the
north-western suburbs.

After crossing the River Spree,
it joined up with Rybalko s 3rd
Guards Tank Army

to complete the
encirclement of Berlin.

The River Spree curled
through the German defences.

In places the river was 200
metres wide. The Germans
considered this

an impenetrable barrier, and so
the south bank was lightly
defended.

The appearance of
Soviet motorboats

was therefore an unpleasant
surprise for the Germans.

These boats of the Dnieper fleet
had been transported by road,

and were now launched
onto the Spree.

The amphibious assault succeeded
in establishing a foothold
across the river.

Reinforcements were then quickly
ferried in to shore up the
position.

This sudden advance,
where it was least expected,

threw the German defensive
plan into chaos.

Several blocks were given up
without a fight,

as units raced back to
avoid being cut off.

The Red Army troops were all
aiming for one spot the
Reichstag building.

The Reichstag building
was completed in 1894.

In the interwar period
of the Weimar Republic,

it was where the lower chamber
of the German parliament met.

In 1933, shortly after Hitler
came to power, it caught fire in
suspicous circumstances.

Hitler accused the communists
of starting the fire

as part of a plot
against the government.

The next day, the Reichstag
Fire Decree gave the Nazi party

emergency powers to deal
with its political opponents.

In effect, it was the death
of democracy in Germany.

The Reichstag building
no longer had a purpose.

The centre of government was now
located somewhere else entirely

inside the Führerbunker, 25 feet
beneath the garden of the old
Reich Chancellery.

The bunker had been built during
the war in complete secrecy.

By April 1945, it had become
Adolf Hitler s permanent
residence,

and the site of his
military headquarters.

According to those who
experienced life inside the
bunker,

the place smelled of wet cement,
and there was a constant drone

from the ventilation system.

It was claustrophobic, but
impervious to bombs and shells.

The Red Army didn t know
about the Führerbunker,

even as their tanks fired on
the Reich Chancellery itself.

The observation point of the
34th Battalion of Heavy
Artillery

was located in an elevator
tower on Schlesinger Strasse.

They couldn t see the Reichstag
only flames and smoke.

On 27th April their unit
was ordered forward.

As the artillery spotters looked
for a new vantage point, their
telephone rang.

A voice demanded to speak
to the senior officer.

Sergeant Pavel Larin, commander
of the scout section, was given
the phone.

18th orders you to fire
on Target 21. said the voice.

Target 21 was the Reichstag
building. Sergeant Larin
acknowledged the order.

His battery hadn t fired on
the Reichstag before.

And Larin knew that there were
Red Army troops just 300 metres
from it.

Firing from a range of 3 miles,
the smallest mistake in their
calculations

could end up killing
their own comrades.

Larin also knew that any delay
in the fire mission would not be
forgiven.

The BR-5 heavy mortar fired
an anti-concrete round

that weighed 246 kilograms and
carried 58 kilograms of
explosive.

This shell made a crater 10
metres wide and 6 metres deep.

The battery fired 42 shells, one
after another. Then the phone
rang again.

At the other end of the line
they were shouting to cease
fire.

They d been hitting
their own positions.

The new order was to
fire on Target 20.

Target 20 was the Reich
Chancellery. The battery fired
18 rounds.

The forward unit came
back on the phone.

Good shooting. I officially
thank you on behalf of the
assaulting units!

Pavel Larin had just played his
small part in the fall of
Berlin.

The Soviet 3rd Shock Army was
leading the race to the
Reichstag.

Its commander was
Vasiliy Kuznetsov.

The same Kuznetsov who d faced
the Germans on the first day of
the war,

near the Byelorussian
town of Grodno,

as he struggled to save
his 3rd Army from encirclement.

His war looked like it
would finish in the Baltic,

where he d been a Deputy Front
Commander. Then in March 1945,

Zhukov clashed with Nikolai
Simonyak, commanding the 3rd
Shock Army.

It was just two weeks
before the Berlin Operation.

The experienced Kuznetsov
was flown in as a replacement.

The 3rd Shock Army had fought
its way through the northern
suburbs of Berlin.

Now Kuznetsov s men were just
800 metres from the Reichstag
building.

The first attempt on the
Reichstag took place on 29th
April.

But the attacking troops
were fired on from the rear,

by Germans in the
Kroll Opera House.

So first the Opera House
had to be cleared.

Soviet infantry attacked again
at 11.30 a.m. on 30th April.

They were supported
by artillery fire

falling directly
onto the Reichstag building.

At 10.30 p.m. the Victory Banner
finally flew above the Reichstag
building.

The previous morning, Hitler had
spoken with Major General
Mohnke,

commanding the defence of the
Berlin Central Sector. He asked
him,

How long will you be able to
hold out? . 20 to 24 hours
maximum came the reply.

That evening, Hitler ordered a
report on the status of Wenck s
12th Army.

The answer came at 1am

Wenck had been forced to abandon
his attempt to relieve Berlin.

14 hours later,
Hitler shot himself.

His body was carried to a shell
hole outside the entrance to the
Fuhrerbunker,

covered in petrol, and burned.

Under a white flag, a delegation
led by Chief of the General
Staff

Hans Krebs approached
the Soviet lines.

They were taken to see General
Chuikov at 8th Guards Army
headquarters.

Krebs informed Chuikov
of Hitler s death,

and the formation of a new
German government under
Grandadmiral Dönitz.

But Chuikov refused
to negotiate.

His demands were simple
and to the point:

He wanted the immediate and
unconditional surrender of the
Berlin Garrison.

The Germans refused.
The fighting went on.

After returning from
his failed negotations,

General Krebs committed suicide
in the Fuhrerbunker on 1st May.

It fell to General Weidling to
surrender the Berlin garrison,
and end the fighting.

Weidling contacted the Soviets
by radio: Please cease fire.

We will send truce envoys to the
Potsdam Bridge at 12.50 p.m.,
Berlin Time

The arrangements of the
surrender were agreed at these
brief negotiations.

At about 6am the
next day, 2nd May,

the headquarters of the Berlin
Garrison crossed the frontline
and surrendered.

From captivity,
Weidling issued his last order:

On 30th April the Fuehrer
committed suicide,

thus abandoning those
who had sworn loyalty to him.

The situation makes
further resistance meaningless.

I order the immediate
cessation of resistance.

This order was relayed
through loudspeakers.

The Germans began
to put down their weapons.

The Battle of Berlin was one of
the largest battles in history.

About 3.5 million men fought on
both sides. During the campaign,

Red Army soldiers liberated
hundreds of thousands of
prisoners

from German concentration camps.

Amongst them were more
than 200,000 foreign nationals.

They included Edouard Herriot,
the former Prime Minister of
France,

and General Otto Ruge,
Commander of the Norwegian Army.

On 7th May, the German
Instrument of Surrender was
signed at Rheims in France.

The signatories were the German
General Alfred Jodl,

US General Walter Smith,
Soviet General Ivan Susloparov,

and French General François
Sevez, as the official witness.

But the Soviet Union decided
Susloparov did not have proper
authority

to sign the surrender.
It would have to be done again.

And so on 8th May,
10.43 pm Central European Time,

Field Marshal Keitel,
representing the German army,

General Stumpff, of the
Luftwaffe, and Admiral von
Friedeburg of the Kriegsmarine,

signed another Act of
Surrender in Berlin,

in the presence of Marshal
Georgi Zhukov and Air Chief
Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder.

On 9th May the Red
Army entered Prague.

On 10th May the Red Army
occupied the Hel peninsula in
the Danzig Bay.

And on 11th May, German Army
Group Courland finally
surrendered.

In these last days of the war,
1.2 million German soldiers were
taken prisoner,

including 101 generals.

On 24th June 1945, a Victory
Parade was held in Moscow s Red
Square.

Marshal Rokossovsky commanded
the parade. Marshal Zhukov
inspected the troops.

Thus ended the Great Patriotic
War of the Soviet People.

Sergeant Pavel Larin never
found out who 18th was,

the voice who d ordered him to
fire on the Reichstag and Reich
Chancellery.

He was just thankful
to have survived the war.

On the morning of 3rd May, Larin
was ordered to go to the Reich
Chancellery

and document the effects
of their bombardment.

The Berlin Garrison
had surrendered,

but suddenly they came under
fire from a machine-gunner on a
rooftop.

Luckily he missed. Larin wasn t
allowed to enter the Reich
Chancellery

it was being visited by Zhukov
and the front commanders.

The artillerymen made his notes
and headed towards the
Reichstag.

It was difficult to
get in there too

the building was crowded with
thousands of soldiers
celebrating their victory.

Then, standing on his
comrade s shoulders,

he wrote on the wall:
Sergeant Pavel Larin .