The story of this place
Opened in 1949 in the Soviet sector of Berlin, this vast memorial commemorates the Soviet soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin in 1945; around 7,000 of the 80,000 Red Army men killed in the assault are buried beneath its lawns. At its heart stands a colossal 12-metre bronze of a Soviet soldier holding a rescued German child in one arm and a lowered sword in the other, his boot crushing a shattered swastika. The statue was reputedly modelled on a real sergeant, Nikolai Masalov, said to have saved a child under fire. Sixteen stone sarcophagi carved with battle scenes and Stalin quotations line the approach. It remains one of the largest Soviet war memorials outside the former USSR and a place of solemn ceremony.