On 2 May 1945, the last garrison which defended Berlin finally surrendered to superior Soviet troops. Hitler had committed suicide on April 30th.

[Photo: Bundesarchiv.]

In the photograph, in front of the destroyed Brandenburger Tor and a Soviet IS-2 heavy tank is Yevgeny Khaldei, the Soviet war photographer who took the famous photo of the reenacted flag raising over the Reichstag. The Stalin tank was turret number 414 and belonged to the 7th Independent Guards Heavy Tank Brigade.

[Photo: from the fonds of the RGAKFD.]

[Photo: from the fonds of the RGAKFD.]

[Photo: from the fonds of the RGAKFD.]

[Three more views from a different angle of the scene above related in front of the Brandenburger Tor; these photographies were probably taken on 7 May 1945. The white band brushed to the tank´s turret was an ID to avoid be attacked by Allied fighter-bombers.]

The “Thousand-Year Reich” finally only lasted 12 years and the dream/nightmare started by Hitler and the Nazis caused more than 60 million people dead in the greatest war in History. Between 16 April and 6 May, the Soviets had 304,887 killed, wounded and missing, along with the loss of 2,156 tanks and self-propelled guns, 1,220 artillery pieces and 527 aircraft, althought the true cost is likely to be higher. It is almost impossible to give an accurate figure of German military and civilians died from this last battle.

[Photo: Bundesarchiv.]

[A Soviet soldier walks on Berlin´s already defeated Friedrichstraße with Oranienburger Straße (notice U-bahn Oranienburger Tor entry at left, same spot as today) with a dead German soldier laying on the ground. Note Iron Cross on German´s body chest and the FG-42, a machine-gun usually provided to paratroopers.]

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The Bitter End