Monument to the soldier-liberator in Berlin. Monument in Berlin's Treptower Park

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

The monument erected in Germany to the Soviet soldier-liberator, who carries a little rescued girl in his arms, is one of the most majestic symbols of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

Warrior Hero

The appearance of the sculpture was originally conceived by the artist A. V. Gorpenko. However, the key author of the monument to the warrior-liberator, E. V. Vuchetich, was able to bring his idea to life only thanks to the decisive word of Stalin. The installation was decided to coincide with May 8, 1949.

Architect Ya. Vuchetich, admired by the feat of the soldier Nikolai Maslov, who selflessly fought against the German invaders up to the capital of the Nazi Reich.

It was the feat of an ordinary soldier who was not afraid to pass under the explosions of shells and bullets flying from all sides in order to save a little German girl, played a decisive role in the creationmonument to Soviet soldiers in Berlin. A monument to such an outstanding person should have been created only by an equally non-standard personality. It was decided to install a sculpture in Treptow Park as a symbol of victory over fascism.

Best of the best

In order to show the whole world the heroic deed of our soldiers, the Soviet government allowed a monument to Russian soldiers to be erected in Berlin. Treptow Park received its eternal decoration in the form of a memorial complex only after the best of the best were selected in a competition in which about 33 individual projects participated. And in the end, only two of them reached the leading position. The first one belonged to E. V. Vuchetich, and the second - Ya. B. Belopolsky. To ensure that the monument to Russian soldiers in Berlin was erected in compliance with all ideological norms, the 27th Directorate, responsible for the army defense installations of the entire Soviet Union, had to follow.

Because the work was difficult and painstaking, it was decided to involve more than 1,000 German soldiers serving sentences in Soviet prisons, as well as more than 200 workers from the German Noack foundry, the Puhl&Wagner mosaic and stained glass workshop, and gardeners working in the Spathnursery partnership.

Production

Soviet monuments in Berlin were supposed to constantly remind German citizens what awaits their people in the event of a repetition of such terrible acts. It was decided to make the monument at the Monumental Sculpture factory, located in Leningrad. Monument to Russian soldiers inBerlin exceeded the mark of 70 tons, which significantly hampered its transportation.

Because of this, it was decided to divide the structure into 6 main components and thus transport them to Treptow Park in Berlin. The hard work was completed in the first days of May under the tireless guidance of architect Ya. B. Belopolsky and engineer S. S. Valerius, and already on the 8th of May the monument was presented to the whole world. The monument to Russian soldiers in Berlin reaches a height of 12 meters and is today a key symbol of the victory over fascism in Germany.

The opening of the memorial in Berlin was led by A. G. Kotikov, who is a major general of the Soviet army and at that time acting as the city commandant.

By mid-September 1949, the monument to the soldier-liberator in Berlin came under the control of the Soviet military commandant's office of the magistrate of Greater Berlin.

Restoration

By the fall of 2003, the sculpture was so dilapidated that the leadership of Germany decided that restoration work was necessary, during which the monument to the liberator soldier in Berlin was dismantled and sent for modernization. It took almost half a year, as a result of which, in May 2004, the renewed figure of the Soviet hero returned to its original place.

The author of the monument "Warrior-Liberator"

The sculptor of the monument to the warrior-liberator Yevgeny Viktorovich Vuchetich is by far the most famous muralist of the Soviet era.

The most famouswork

City	Name	Year
Volgograd	Mamayev Kurgan
Moscow, Lubyanskaya Square	Monument to Dzerzhinsky	1958
UN Gift	The figure "Forge swords into plowshares". Called for global preservation of peace	1957
Berlin	Monument to a Soviet soldier	1949

Who is he, the hero?

The monument in Berlin was made using the figure of a Soviet soldier - the hero Nikolai Maslov, a native of the village of Voznesenka. This heroic man lived in the Tula district of the Kemerovo region. He managed during the storming of Berlin in April 1945 to save a little German girl. During the operation to liberate Berlin from the remnants of fascist formations, she was only 3 years old. She sat in the ruins of the building near the body of her dead mother and wept bitterly.

As soon as a slight lull formed among the bombings, the crying was heard by the Red Army. Maslov, without hesitation, made his way through the shelling zone behind the child, asking his comrades to cover him, if possible, with the help of fire support. The girl was saved from the fire, but the hero himself was seriously injured.

The German authorities did not forget about the generosity of the Soviet man and, in addition to the monument, immortalized his memory by hanging a sign on the Potsdam Bridge, telling in detail about his feat for the sake ofGerman child.

Biography details

Nikolai Maslov spent most of his adult life in harsh Siberia. All men in his family were hereditary blacksmiths, so the boy's future was considered predetermined from the beginning. His family was quite large, given that, in addition to him, his parents had to raise five more children - 3 boys and 2 girls. Until the outbreak of hostilities, Nikolai worked as a tractor driver in his native village.

As soon as he turned 18, he was drafted into the ranks of the Soviet army, where he graduated with honors from the preparatory school for mortars. Exactly one year after he first joined the army, his regiment faced military realities for the first time, coming under German fire on the Bryansk front near Kastorna.

The battle was very long and hard. Soviet soldiers managed to break out of the fascist encirclement three times. Moreover, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that even in such a difficult situation, the soldiers managed to save at the cost of many human lives the banner that they received in Siberia in the first days of the regiment's creation. The guys managed to get out of the encirclement as part of only 5 people, one of whom was Maslov. All the rest consciously gave their lives in the Bryansk forests for the life and freedom of the Fatherland.

Successful career

The survivors were reorganized, and Nikolai Maslov ended up in the legendary 62nd Army under the command of General Chuikov. Siberians managed to win on Mamaev Kurgan. Nicholas and his closest comradesrepeatedly covered with debris from the dugout mixed with clods of earth flying from all sides. However, colleagues returned and dug them up.

After participating in the Stalingrad battles, Nikolai was appointed as an assistant in the banner factory. No one could even imagine that a simple rural guy would reach Berlin in pursuit of the Nazis.

For all the years of his stay in the war, Nikolai managed to become an experienced warrior, fluent in weapons. Having reached Berlin, he and his comrades took the city into a tight ring. His 220th Regiment advanced along the Spree towards the government office.

When there was about an hour left before the start of the assault, the soldiers heard crying from under the ground. There, on the ruins of an old building, clinging to the corpse of her mother, sat a little girl. All this Nikolai learned when, under the cover of his comrades, he was able to break through to the ruins. Grabbing the child, Nikolai rushed back to his own, having received a serious wound along the way, which did not prevent him from performing a truly heroic feat on an equal basis with everyone else.

Description of the monument "Warrior-Liberator"

As soon as the last stronghold of fascism was taken by Soviet soldiers, Evgeny Vuchetich met with Maslov. The story about the rescued girl prompted him to create a monument to the liberator in Berlin. It was supposed to symbolize the selflessness of the Soviet soldier, protecting not only the whole world, but also each individual person from the threat of fascism.

The central part of the exposition is occupied by the figure of a soldier holdingchild, and the second sword, lowered to the ground. Fragments of a swastika lie under the feet of the hero of the Soviet Union.

The park in which the memorial was erected is already famous for the fact that more than 5,000 Soviet soldiers were buried there. According to the initial idea, on the site where the monument to the liberator soldier stands, a sculpture of Stalin holding a globe in his hands was to be installed in Berlin. Thus, symbolizing that the Soviet government keeps the whole world under its control and will never again allow the threat of fascism.

More Facts

It would not be superfluous to note also the fact that, as a sign of victory over Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union issued a coin with a face value of 1 ruble, on the reverse side of which Yevgeny Vuchetich's work, "The Liberator Warrior", was depicted.

This idea belonged directly to the famous marshal-hero Kliment Voroshilov. As soon as the Potsdam conference came to an end, he summoned a sculptor and asked him to create a sculpture that would show what the world had cost and what awaits anyone who would ever encroach on its integrity.

The sculptor agreed, but decided to play it safe and created an additional version of the sculpture of a Soviet soldier with a machine gun and a child in his arms. Stalin approved this particular option, but ordered to replace the machine gun with a sword, with which a simple soldier would cut the last symbol of fascism, the role of which was played by the swastika.

It cannot be said that the monument to the liberator in Berlin is just a prototype of Nikolai Maslov. This is an integral, collective imageall the soldiers who selflessly defended their homeland.

After half a year of work on the creation of the figure, the "Liberator Warrior" began to rise in Treptow Park, and you can see it anywhere in the park due to its significant height.