Victory Day. Colour Pictures from 1945

[bgarid]

Victory Parade, Moscow, Red Square, June 24, 1945

[MindBender26]

To this day, the men and women who fought in the Great Patriotic War are considered in major heroes in Russia.

[Mears]

Beautiful pictures-the clarity astonishes me for such old photos.

I actually remember V-E Day and V-J Day---Lord,how the time does go by.

[Cyclopean Squid]

Awesome. Thanks for posting. Color photos always make a scene appear somehow more real--black and white is too dreamy and faraway.

The people of the Soviet Union sacrificed so much for victory in the Great Patriotic War--they are in a brief state of joy in these scenes, for a moment forgetting the hell of the War and the nightmare of Stalinism.

[BrooklynGOP]

They were.

[Last Dakotan]

Especially all the officers that Stalin had executed due to the fact that they might have enough popularity to challenge him.

[BrooklynGOP]

My great-grandfather was "repressed" in 1939.

[labette]

Thank you. Those are excellent sixty year old pictures.
Is anyones' Russian sufficient to translate the script next to Stalins' face?

[bgarid]

Glory to our heroic Red Army which has defended independence of our Motherland and won a victory over enemy!

[ccmay]

I love the picture of all the German regimental standards lowered to the ground with flags furled. I've never seen that before; is this kind of desecration usual after a victory? It must be a huge insult and embarrassment to the units that were defeated and lost their battle standards.

-ccm

[patton]

The russians suffered something on the order of 900,000 dead in the battle of Berlin.

Then they raped anything that moved.

I have mixed feelings about that.

[patton]

The statehouse in MI proudly displays a VA flag, captured in battle.

We plan to take it back.

[endthematrix]

General Joshua L. Chamberlain of Maine, recalls the ceremony of the South's surrender:

"Bayonets were affixed to muskets, arms stacked, and cartridge-boxes unslung and hung upon the stacks. Then, slowly and with a reluctance that was appealingly pathetic, the torn and tattered battle-flags were either leaned against the stacks or laid upon the ground. The emotion of the conquered soldiery was really sad to witness. Some of the men who had carried and followed those ragged standards through the four long years of strife rushed, regardless of all discipline, from the ranks, bent about their old flags, and pressed them to their lips.

And it can well be imagined, too, that there was no lack of emotion on our side, but the Union men were held steady in their lines, without the least show of demonstration by word or by motion. There was, though, a twitching of the muscles of their faces, and, be it said, their battle-bronzed cheeks were not altogether dry. Our men felt the import of the occasion, and realized fully how they would have been affected if defeat and surrender had been their lot after such a fearful struggle."

[Jeff Chandler]

I heard that the Russians were bewildered by the German toilets-they had never seen toilets before and weren't sure what they were for, so they washed potatoes in them.

[patton]

And thus was invented Vodka. ;)

[patton]

Thank you for posting these colour pictures - it is odd, but my entire impression of WWII is B&W.

What a wierd thing.

[DYR]

Huh? My granddad was in Poland and Berlin back then, as part of 4-th armored corps... When I approached him on the "raped everything" part, he flatly stated that it was a lie, although he admitted that there were an isolated incidents of rape and plunding, and the perpertators, when caught, were swiftly executed.