THE LIBERATOR AND THE GIRL: SOVIET MEMORIAL IN TREPTOWER PARK

Today in Berlin: May 8, 1949

On this day in 1949 in Berlin, the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park was unveiled on the site of the former artificial lake created in 1896 for the Great Berlin Industrial Exposition. Although “unveiled” might be a bit of an understatement: the site covers 10 hectares of land.

The memorial’s central element is the over 30-metre-tall (counting the base) statue of Der Befreier (The Liberator) by a Soviet artist, Yevgeny Vuchetich. Vutchetich was a member of the creative team led by architect Yakov S. Belopolski. Together with painter Alexander A. Gorpenko and art historian, critic and engineer Sarra Samuilovna Valerius (she and Vuchetich would marry afterwards), the team was responsible for designing and overseeing the building of the memorial.

The whole site of the Soviet Memorial in Treptower Park seen from above (view E-W, Berliner Fernsehturm in top left corner ). Photo by Toni Klemm, via Wikipedia C.C. 4.0

They created what was the largest monument to the fallen Soviet soldiers (at least until two decades later the “Mother Russia” statue rose above Stalingrad, now Volgograd). Over 1,200 German labourers worked on the site to complete the memorial in time for the fourth anniversary of Red Army’s victory over the Nazi Germany. The site is at the same time the last resting place for 7,200 (out of nearly 100,000) Soviet soldiers who died during the Battle for Berlin.