Victory Day
Last week we celebrated V-E Day (Victory in Europe), on the 75th anniversary of the German surrender ending World War II in Europe. However, we shouldn’t forget about ‘Victory Day,’ the Soviet Union’s name for its defeat of Germany in what is known as the ‘Great Patriotic War.’
The scale of the war in the Soviet Union is difficult to imagine as they bore the brunt of the fight against Germany. Visualize an invasion of the United States that started in New York and reached the Mississippi River. And devastated the cities and countryside, killing over 10% of the population. That was World War II in the former Soviet Union. There are war monuments, memorials and museums throughout the country honoring significant battles and events.
The Motherland Calls
The Motherland Calls
The Motherland Calls statue and its surrounding grounds honor the Battle of Stalingrad fought from August 1942 to February 1943. It is widely considered a turning point in the war between the Soviet Union and Germany. German’s initial 1941 invasion fell just short of capturing Moscow and Leningrad. In the summer of 1942 Germany launched an offensive into southern Russian oil fields needed to supply their armies. During that offensive German forces attempted to capture Stalingrad (now called Volgograd). This titanic struggle resulted in over a million casualties on each side and complete destruction of the city during harsh building-by-building, street-by-street fighting. In November 1942 the Soviet Union launched a counterattack and surrounded the German forces in the city. Those German forces surrendered in February 1943. It was the first major defeat of German armies in Russia. From that time on, the Soviet forces went on the offensive until they captured Berlin in 1945.
The statue is the tallest in Europe, and the largest statue of a woman in the world. The monument includes an eternal flame and a listing of Soviet soldiers killed in the battle.
Some additional photographs from this memorial:
Warrior Liberator
In April 1945, Soviet forces launched the final offensive to capture Berlin. Similar to the battle for Stalingrad two and a half years earlier, the conflict raged from street-to-street, and house-to-house. Hitler committed suicide as Soviet soldiers neared his bunker and Germany surrendered shortly thereafter. Soviet soldiers raised their flag over the German Reichstag (legislative building) upon its capture. The photo is as iconic to the Soviet Union as the U.S. flag raising photo on Iwo Jima.
The Soviets built a statue to honor this battle, called ‘Warrior Liberator.’ Located in a cemetery for Soviet soldiers who died in the battle for Berlin, it displays a Soviet soldier holding a German child on top of a broken Nazi symbol. It represents the victory over fascism.
Heroic Defenders of Leningrad
Leningrad (modern day Saint Petersburg) endured a 900-day siege during the war. Starvation and deprivation were rampant, especially in the winter of 1941. In that first winter the only supply line was over a frozen lake. Over one million people died before the Soviet army broke the siege in 1944.
The monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad contains several statues and a museum with artifacts from the battle.
Glory Monument
Glory Monument
The Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. holds the names of the 58,000+ American deaths in that war. It would be impossible to create a monument large enough to hold over 20 million names. Throughout Russia there are monuments listing names of those who died from a particular region. This one, the Glory Monument in Novosibirsk (a Siberian city), lists casualties from that city, overlooked by a grieving mother.
Other War Monuments and Memorials
Spread throughout the country are many other monuments, memorials, and museums. A few are pictured below:
Final Thoughts
The former Soviet Union incurred over 20 million deaths during the war. In comparison, the United States death toll was about 400,000. The Eastern front campaign was already three years old when the Western Allies launched the D-Day invasion in June 1944. As a result, the majority of Germany’s military deaths occurred in the fight on the Eastern front against the Soviet Union. We should remember the price paid by the former Soviet Union in World War II.
Ironically, all these heroic sacrifices, honored by these monuments, were made for an evil dictator, Stalin, and for a state that no longer exists.