Soviet War Memorial (Tiergarten)

Soviet War Memorial (Tiergarten)
Soviet Union/Russia
Soviet War Memorial in Berlin Tiergarten, Germany
For Soviet war dead of the Battle of Berlin
Unveiled	1945
Location	Berlin
Designed by	Mikhail Gorvits
Total commemorated	5,000
Вечная слава героям павшим в боях с немецко фашистскими захватчиками за свободу и независимость Советского Союза Eternal glory to heroes who fell in battle with the German fascist invaders for the freedom and independence of the Soviet Union

The Soviet War Memorial (Tiergarten) is one of several war memorials in Berlin, capital city of Germany, erected by the Soviet Union to commemorate its war dead, particularly the 80,000 soldiers of the Soviet Armed Forces who died during the Battle of Berlin in April and May 1945.

The memorial is located in the Großer Tiergarten, a large public park to the west of the city centre, on the north side of the east-west Straße des 17. Juni (17 June Street) in the Tiergarten locality.

This memorial was erected in 1945, within a few months of the capture of the city. Early photographs show the memorial standing in a wilderness of ruins, the Tiergarten having been destroyed by incendiary bombs and then stripped of timber for firewood during the last months of the war. Today, it is surrounded by the extensive woodlands of the reconstituted Tiergarten. Although the memorial stood in the British sector of Berlin, its construction was supported by all the Allied powers. Throughout the Cold War, Soviet honor guards from the Soviet sector (East Berlin) were sent to stand watch at the memorial.

The memorial was built from stonework taken from the destroyed Reich Chancellery. Built in a style similar to other Soviet World War II monuments once found all over the former Eastern bloc, the memorial takes the form of a curved stoa topped by a large statue of a Soviet soldier. It is set in landscaped gardens and flanked by two Red Army ML-20 152mm gun-howitzer artillery pieces and two T-34 tanks. Behind the memorial is an outdoor museum showing photographs of the memorial's construction and giving a guide to other memorials in the Berlin area. A large Cyrillic inscription is written underneath the soldier statue, which is translated as "Eternal glory to heroes who fell in battle with the German fascist invaders for the freedom and independence of the Soviet Union". The Soviets built the statue with the soldier's arm in a position to symbolize the Red Army's putting down of the Nazi German state.