Victory Day. Colour Pictures from 1945

[DYR]

ROFL!! Ah, c'mon, this is just a Cold War invention like "bears walking on the streets of Moscow".

[DYR]

LOL! Actually, that fine substance was invented and put to wide use by Peter the Great I believe.

[patton]

Ah. Well, if your grandad said it, it must be true.

[DYR]

I've seen the chronicle movie... It is actually worth owning, the movie about that parade.

The part you describe is, in my opinion, the most moving and the most meaningful part of it all. Rows of soldiers, perfectly lined, all of them - Heroes of Soviet Union, with nazi unit standarts lowered as to wipe the floor of Red Square. Under the cold staccatto of drums, they marched from one end of the square to another, and upon reaching the Lenin tomb, they turned - row by row, to throw the nazi flags to the floor before the walls. This was a hugely powerful scene... People wept while watching this - it really downed on them that the nazi horror, which raped their home for 4 years, was destroyed. That heap of wood and fabric cost them too much, and that was a clear reminder, and also a reminder that it was THEIR victory, the Great Victory of the People, and not the communists or Stalin. It was all about the common folks, the people that paid with their blood and best of their sons, to drive off the nazi menace. This day belongs to them.

[DYR]

I have no reason to distrust him, because he never lied - on any subject, for that matter. Such a man he is.

[wolficatZ]

Good stills, all from frames of 16mm color film.

Conspicuously missing is Georgi Zhukov on his white horse.

[wolficatZ]

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

300,000 casualties (dead, wounded, missing) is generally accepted as the Soviet losses in the Bettle of Berlin.

[Atlantic Bridge]

There is no doubt, that the russian women and men, who fought with heroism to overcome the nazi empire, where great heroes. Not only in Russia but in the whole world.

On the other hand I find it quite strange to find here in FREE REPUBLIC "heroic" propaganda pictures from Lenin and Stalin. It is true, that the Red Army made by far the biggest contribution of all nations to overthrow Hitler, but it is also true that Stalin was:

1. At first a pragmatic ally to Hitler in splitting and raping Poland and other countries in eastern Europe. Killing thousands of innocents (Katyn i.e.) etc. etc. etc.

2. A beast that held many innocent nations (Poland, Czechia etc.) in its grip as his price after the war.

3. A mass murderer who killed millions of innocent Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Poles and people from many other nations for his low base motives. Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, Pol Pot or Jack the Ripper are just harmless milksops compared to Stalin.

Stalin is for sure nobody any real Freeper ever wants to honor. We should all be happy that his foul stinking body is rotting in his grave at the Kremlin wall.

President Bush just found the right words about Stalins evil empire yesterday, when he was talking to the people of the Baltic nations, who are free now from Sowjet oppression.

Please do not use Stalins propaganda photos anymore. They spoil the remembrance of the real Russian heroes who fought in their time for the good thing.

[DYR]

Thank you on your statement about russian men and women. However, I disagree on the part of "propaganda photos". In any case, while Stalin's photos may be offending, I see no problem whatsoever with the photos of soldiers on the Red Square - they were heroes, all of them. As to the red banners and Stalin's and Lenin's pictures - well, these were the realities of those days. No sense in ignoring them.

[labette]

Thank you.

[bgarid]

>President Bush just found the right words about Stalins evil empire yesterday, when he was talking to the people of the Baltic nations, who are free now from Sowjet oppression.
Latvia and Estonia have sided with Hitler during WWII.
They were the Bad Guys and they lost.
That's all there is to it... >A mass murderer who killed millions of innocent Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Poles and people from many other nations for his low base motives.
I find presence of Germans in your list startling. They were anything, but innocent in this war, IMHO.

[DYR]

While the above is true, we should not confuse NKVD-instigated murderous rampage and the heroism and self-sacrifice of Russians that fought the nazis. The NKVD was the enemy of Russian people and all peoples of USSR, as well as the enemy of Poland. The Russian soldiers who fought in WWII are a different matter. Using such broad generalisations is not always just.

[ops33]

In the seventh picture there appears to be a white horse, but if you didn't know that Zhukov was riding a white horse I don't think anyone would see it.

Funny, but Stalin was not a good horseman and was afraid that he couldn't control the horse during the parade, so Zhukov led the parade on the white horse.

[fso301]

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.

The culmination was for each bearer of the captured standard to toss it single file onto a pile.

[Professional Engineer]

ping

[MindBender26]

Was shooting a 10th anniversary of Chernobyl story at a nursing home in Kiev. Old gent saw us with the betacam and inquired "Journalist?" (with the French pronunciation)

Replied. "Da da. Americanski journalist."

He drew himself up about two feet, held a finger up and proclaimed "Rodina (Motherland i.e USSR) Journalist!"

He went upstairs and returned with the old Leica cameras and his photo albums.

He had been a "Red Star" (military newspaper)photographer with Marshal Zokof. We had an incredible time with him. He had marched (and shot photos) all the way from Stalingrad to Berlin.

A great old soldier.

[patton]

I met a guy in a bar in Bavaria, who, as it turns out, was the command seargent major under Rommel.

[wolficatZ]

 

 

The original film was shot in color, but the pics posted above are screengrabs from video tape, fairly easy to tell

from the overlapping frames in the high motion sequences.

 

I've never seen the complete film, only a few clips that were used in the TV series Russia's War: Blood in the Snow, from which I grabbed the above frame..

 

 

 

 

 

The May 7, 1945 Victory Parade was also noteworthy for the first presentation to the Western Allies of the JS-III heavy tank, quite an advancement in tank design.

[ccmay]

As to the red banners and Stalin's and Lenin's pictures - well, these were the realities of those days. No sense in ignoring them.

Correct. If we airbrush Stalin out of the picture, have we not become Stalinists ourselves?

-ccm