How the USSR met victory in the Great Patriotic War

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

For most Soviet citizens, it was clear that defeat in a war meant death. Therefore, the long-awaited victory was perceived as salvation and a new life.

On May 9, 1945, at 2:10 am, Soviet radio announced to the citizens of the USSR the long-awaited good news - an act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst.

All-Union radio announcer Yuri Levitan, who read that famous message, recalled: “In the evening we announced several times that today the radio will work as an exception until four in the morning. We tried to read this seemingly simple information so that people would understand: do not go to bed. Wait! And immediately a new stream of phone calls. Familiar and unfamiliar, already happy voices shouted into the phone: "Thank you! Understood the hint! We set the tables! Well done!"

The vast country did not sleep that night. People opened windows, woke up neighbors, music and joyful shouts of “Victory! Victory! “Everyone poured out into the street - hugging, crying, laughing. A kind of euphoria reigned around,”recalls Yasen Zasursky.

If people saw a soldier and an officer, they would immediately pick him up in their arms and begin to swing. “Strangers kissed each other. I don’t remember such a unity of people as it was on May 9, 1945, we were all one - Russians, Tatars, Uzbeks, and Georgians - we were all united as never before,”says Muscovite Gennady Tsypin.

Lyudmila Surkova, who lived in the capital at that time, recalled: “The crowd flows along the street like a river. Streams from the alleys flow into it. Everyone strives to the center. Trucks with soldiers are also trying to get there. The soldiers bend down, kiss those who can be reached. They throw packs of Belomor into the back, hold out bottles …

Everything that had been accumulating for four years - torment, hope, disappointment, loss - burst out in one spirit, embraced everyone, strengthened many times over. It seems impossible, but everyone understood each other, became related to closeness."

“The windows are wide open, including songs and light. Leninskaya Street in searchlights, on every hill there are anti-aircraft batteries. It seemed they were shooting from everywhere,”Vyacheslav Ignatenko described that memorable day in distant Vladivostok.

The culmination of the celebration was the raising of the banner of Victory over the Golden Horn Bay by a balloon. “From the nearest hills into the sky, at the crosshairs of one point above the Golden Horn, dazzling beams of searchlights hit. At one point, and in it … the Victory Banner fluttered! It was something incredible - a message from heaven. There, above, there was a wind, and the Banner unfurled with the entire width of its dazzling red banner towards the city."

Many soldiers of the Red Army were caught by the message of Germany's surrender right during the fighting. Marine of the Baltic Fleet Pavel Klimov in May 1945 was in western Latvia, where a large enemy grouping was still holding.

“The Germans were the first to let us know that the war was over. We walked along the coast. They did not understand why there was such a noise, jubilation along the German trenches. It turns out that they found out that the war was over. We learned from the fireworks and shooting in the air that the end was. Then only by radio received the order to cancel the operation. There was great joy,”Pavel Fedorovich recalled.

In the evening, a grandiose salute was given on Red Square in Moscow: 30 artillery volleys from a thousand guns, accompanied by cross beams from 160 searchlights and the launch of multi-colored rockets. Yasen Zasursky recalls: “For some reason I remember how the volleys frightened flocks of crows - with the start of the fireworks, the birds rose up from behind the Kremlin walls with screams and circled in the air, as if they were happy with us. It was all great!"