The 8th of May is celebrated as “VE Day” in Western Europe, but for the Russians, the 9th of May is celebrated as “Victory Day”. – It’s on this day that modern Russia (and Russians who live abroad) celebrate/commemorate the victory over Nazism.
Today, we visited Potsdam, so we took the chance to visit the Soviet war memorial and cemetery on Bassinplatz. We weren’t expecting to see the memorial covered in wreaths and flowers left by all of the German political parties (and it was even more surprising to see normal expat Russians laying down their own bouquets.)
As great as the personal sacrifice of the common soldier surely was, Soviet memorials in Germany serve up a dubious version of history. They mainly do this by framing the defeat of Nazism as a “liberation” of Germany – just don’t mention what happened to German women during that liberation, and definitely don’t mention the fact that the Soviet victory laid down the groundwork for a further 4 decades of totalitarian Communist rule for the East Germans.
(This is a repost from Instagram from May 9th, 2024)