««The campaigns conducted by the Red Army played a decisive role in the defeat of Germany.»
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander-in-chief of the Allied Armed Expeditionary Forces in Europe.
This is the joy of victory and the triumph of the winners, whose great feat will forever remain in the memory of posterity.
«Russia has accomplished a great military feat Russia, in a heavy single combat almost one-on-one with the advancing Hitlerite armies, took on the full force of the German blow and stood. We, the British, will never forget the feat of Russia.» Bernard Montgomery, Field Marshal of Great Britain.
Fascist Germany recognized itself defeated and agreed to unconditional surrender. On May 8, representatives of the German Fascist command signed an act of surrender in Berlin, the last act of the great tragedy that befell the peoples of Europe and, if not for the steadfastness and heroism of the Red Army, could have become a catastrophe for the peoples of the whole earth. Marshal of the Soviet Union G. K. Zhukov accepted the surrender from the Soviet Supreme Command.
No holiday has been marked with such genuine national rejoicing as this one, because it was the Victory of 1945. And, probably, people did not cry like that on any holiday, because they were not only tears of joy, but also tears for those who did not live to see this great day. It really was «a holiday with tears in my eyes, joy with gray hair on my temples.» And it is also a celebration of peace on earth, peace that the Soviet people won at the cost of huge losses.
On May 10, the entry of Soviet troops into the city of Vindava (Ventspils). Full occupation of the Putziger-Nerung spit and the Courland Peninsula.
On May 11, Soviet troops occupied Bornholm Island in the Baltic. Completion of the liquidation of the remnants of resisting enemy troops in Czechoslovakia.
May 15 is the last battle in Europe. The Yugoslav army near the town of Dravograd destroyed the remnants of the Germans and the Croatian Ustashe. The end of the reception of German Fascist troops surrendering on the entire Soviet front «the reception of captured German soldiers on all fronts is over»: the latest summary of the Sovinformburo.
On May 24, Stalins speech at a reception in the Kremlin in honor of the commanders of the Red Army (a toast to the health of the Soviet and, above all, the Russian people).
«I raise a toast to the health of the Russian people not only because he is a leading people, but also because he has a clear mind, a steadfast character and patience the trust of the Russian people in the Soviet government turned out to be the decisive force that ensured a historic victory over the enemy of humanity, fascism.» Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, Supreme Commander.
MILESTONES
Facts of biography, not very well known
Adolf Hitler (he never bore his fathers surname Schicklgruber) was born on April 20, 1889 in the small town of Braunau on the Inn River, on the border of Austria and Germany. His parents were 52-year-old Austrian customs officer Alois Schicklgruber and 20-year-old peasant Clara Pelzl. Both branches of his family came from Waldviertel (Lower Austria), a remote area where small peasant communities were engaged in labor. The gravestone from the grave of Hitlers parents was removed in Austria in Braunau in 2012, as this place has recently increasingly become an object of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis and their sympathizers, the German news agency DPA reports.
Hitlers grandfather Johann Georg Gidler, who worked for hire at the mills, met a peasant girl Anna Maria Schicklgruber, who at that time served as a housekeeper in Graz. In 1837 Anna gave birth to her son Alois, and only five years later Johann Gidler and Anna Maria got married. Alois bore the surname Schicklgruber until 1876, until he officially changed it since he was brought up in the house of his uncle Johann Nepomuk Gidler to Hitler. Alois was married three times. His third wife, Klara Pelzl, was 23 years younger than him and gave birth to five children, only two of whom reached adulthood Adolf and his younger sister Paula.
Adolf Hitlers mother Klara was a quiet, hardworking woman, she kept a tidy household and tried in every way to please her husband. Adolf loved his patient mother, and she, in turn, considered him a beloved child, even though, according to her, he was «crazy.» She assured him that he was not like other children, but despite all her love, Adolf grew up a dissatisfied and touchy child. Psychologically, she subconsciously shaped him, as if compensating for her own unhappy family life. Adolf was afraid of his strict father, a domineering and quarrelsome man who subordinated children to his own cruel outlook on life. Unhappy and lonely, thrice unsuccessfully married Alois Hitler sought solace in drinking.
More than once, young Adolf had to lead his tipsy parent home. Later, he recalled his father as a drunken sadist who squandered family money. This sullen and hot-tempered despot constantly made the children feel the power of his stick or belt. Alois shouted at his son, humiliated him and constantly punished him. There was a huge tension between the two irreconcilable characters. Probably, Hitlers subsequent fierce hatred stemmed from hatred of his own father, who was partly Jewish «Micheling». Hitlers paternal grandfather was Jewish, Walter Langer wrote about this back in 1972 in the book «The Consciousness of Adolf Hitler» (W. Langer, «The Mind of Adolf Hitler. The Secret Wartime report», N.Y., 1972).
«Hitler was worried that he might be blackmailed because of his Jewish grandfather, and ordered his personal lawyer Hans Frank to check his paternal pedigree. Frank did this and told the Fuhrer that his grandmother got pregnant while working as a servant in a Jewish house in Graz.» During World War II, it was a report to US President Roosevelt and had secret access. Langer also claimed that «all analysts believe that Hitler is probably a neurotic psychopath on the verge of schizophrenia. This means that he is not crazy in the conventional sense of the word, but is a neurotic who lacks restraining reflexes.» In 1895, at the age of six, Adolf entered a folk school in the town of Fischlham, near Linz. Two years later, being a very religious woman, his mother sent him to Lambach, to the parish school of the Benedictine monastery, after which, she hoped, her son would eventually become a priest. But he was expelled from school, found smoking in the monastery garden.
Then the family moved to Leonding, a suburb of Linz, where young Adolf immediately excelled in his studies. He stood out among his comrades for his perseverance, turning out to be a leader in all childrens games. In 19001904. he attended a real school in Linz, and in 19041905 in Steyr. In October 1907, 18-year-old Adolf left his terminally ill mother with cancer and went to Vienna to find his way in life. But he suffered a terrible setback he failed the entrance exams to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. It was a terrible blow to his ego, from which he never recovered, considering «these stupid professors» to be guilty of what happened. In December 1908, his mother died, which was another shock in his life. For the next five years, he supported himself with odd jobs, alms, or selling his sketches. Every day he walked around the cafe, made sketches and tried to sell drawings to buy food. Unshaven, with long hair and beard, in a dirty black bowler hat and a long coat that almost reached the ground, he looked like a downtrodden tramp.