Posted 26 июня 2020,, 20:55

Published 26 июня 2020,, 20:55

Modified 24 декабря 2022,, 22:37

Updated 24 декабря 2022,, 22:37

Unknown about the well-known: what German banners were laid low to the foot of Lenin's Mausoleum

Unknown about the well-known: what German banners were laid low to the foot of Lenin's Mausoleum

26 июня 2020, 20:55
All the banners that were thrown to the foot of the Mausoleum on June 24, 1945, were taken not on the battlefields, but in Germany's museums.

The Vyatka librarian Tatyana Mashkovtseva recalled in connection with yesterday’s parade in Moscow the first Victory Parade and the myths that developed around him:

“Everyone saw impressive shots of fascist banners being thrown at the foot of the Mausoleum at the very First Victory Parade. But it is curious that the soldiers carried gloves with 200 banners and standards of the defeated German units, emphasizing that it’s disgusting to take these standards in the hands of the poles. And they threw them on a special platform so that the standards did not touch the Red Square bridge. It is believed that the first was thrown Hitler's personal standard, the last - the banner of the army of Vlasov. On the evening of the same day, the platform and all the gloves were burned...

I've always been wondering what kind of banners they were. Well, yes, it officially seems to be alleged that it’s all the banners of the Wehrmacht’s units, but all the time it seemed somehow embarrassing ... And then I got ready for the event and came across:

“The enemy banners and standards abandoned at the Mausoleum were collected by the captured SMERSH teams in May 1945. All of them are of an obsolete sample of 1935, taken in places of regimental storage and Zeichhaus. The fact is that on August 28, 1944, Hitler ordered that all banners and military flags be removed from the front zones to Wehrmacht museums. And after the war, about 900 captured banners were delivered to Moscow from Berlin and Dresden. Many of them were collected by the captured SMERSH teams in May 1945.

Some have taken from museums. They were brought and put in the gym of the Lefortovo barracks. Of these, the special commission selected 200 banners and standards for the Parade. And either due to oversight, or because of beauty and impressiveness (historians have no other explanation) - along with real Hitler banners, the commission selected about 20 old German flags. By the way, the flag (standard, etc.) of the Russian liberation army was not there either”.

“No" personal label "existed in nature. The shaft familiar to us from photographs and the chronicle, with a pommel in the form of a wreath with a swastika and a sitting eagle, is a pole from the banner of the Adolf Hitler SS Leibstandart (regiment). The cloth was also taken as a trophy, but it was not taken out to the Parade and is currently stored in the FSB (Federal security service) archive. It was issued to the Parade by a separate order and was not included in the general list”

But here is the list of trophy banners selected for the parade, approved by Colonel Peredelsky on June 21, 1945 (documents of the Central Archive of the Russian Ministry of Defense)..."

"