The Soviet War Memorial is a war memorial and military cemetery in Berlin's Treptower Park. It was built to the design of the Soviet architect Yakov Belopolsky to commemorate 7,000 of the 80,000 Red Army soldiers who fell in the Battle of Berlin in April–May 1945. The Soviet War Memorial opened four years after the end of World War 2 in Europe, on May 8, 1949. The Soviet War Memorial served as the central war memorial of East Germany.
The Soviet War Memorial is one of three Soviet memorials built in Berlin after the end of the second world war. The other two war memorials are the Tiergarten memorial, built in 1945 in the Tiergarten district of what later became West Berlin, and the Schönholzer Heide Memorial in Berlin's Pankow district.
Together with the Rear-front Memorial in Magnitogorsk and The Motherland Calls in Volgograd, the monument is a part of a triptych.
At the conclusion of World War II, three Soviet war memorials were built in the city of Berlin to commemorate Soviet deaths in World War II, especially the 80,000 that died during the Battle of Berlin. The war memorials are not only commemorative, but also serve as military cemeteries for those killed.
A competition was announced shortly after the end of the war for the design of the Treptower park. The competition attracted 33 entries, with the eventual design a hybrid of the submissions of the architect Jakow S. Belopolski, sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich, painter Alexander A. Gorpenko and engineer Sarra S. Walerius. The sculptures, reliefs, and 2.5 meter diameter flame bowls were cast at the Lauchhammer Kunstgießerei (Art Foundry) in 1948. The war memorial itself was built in Treptower Park on land previously occupied by a sports field. The war memorial was completed in 1949. It was rumoured that the remains of the Reich Chancellery had been used for the construction of the memorial, but this was not the case.
Around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, unknown persons vandalized parts of the memorial with anti-Soviet graffiti. The Spartacist party claimed that the vandals were right-wing extremists and arranged a demonstration on January 3, 1990, which the PDS supported; 250,000 GDR citizens participated. Through the demonstrations, the newly formed party stayed true to the communist roots of its founding party, and attempted to gain political influence. The International Communist League spoke to the crowd. Them noting that "for the first time in 60 years, Trotskyists addressed a mass audience in a workers state. Participants and those listening on radio and TV heard two counterposed programs: that of the Stalinist SED, and that of the Trotskyist ICL". PDS chairman Gregor Gysi took this opportunity to call for a Verfassungsschutz ("Constitution Protection") for the GDR, and questioned whether the Amt für Nationale Sicherheit (Department of National Security, the successor of the Stasi) should be reorganized or phased out. Historian Stefan Wolle believes that Stasi officers may have been behind the vandalism, since they feared for their jobs.
As part of the Two Plus Four Agreement, Germany agreed to assume maintenance and repair responsibility for all war memorials in the country, including the Soviet war memorial in Treptower Park. However, Germany must consult the Russian Federation before undertaking any changes to the war memorial.
Since 1995, an annual vigil has taken place at the Soviet war memorial on May 9, organized by (among others) the Bund der Antifaschisten Treptow e.V. ("Anti-fascist Coalition of Treptow"). The motto of the event is the "Day of Freedom", corresponding to Victory Day, a Russian holiday and the final surrender of German soldiers at the end of World War II.
The focus of the ensemble is a monument by Soviet sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich: a 12-m tall statue of a Soviet soldier with a sword holding a German child, standing over a broken swastika. According to Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Chuikov, the Vuchetich statue commemorates the deeds of Sergeant of Guards Nikolai Masalov (1921-2001), who during the final storm on center of Berlin risked his life under heavy German machine-gun fire to rescue a three-year-old German girl whose mother had apparently disappeared
Before Soviet war memorial is a central area lined on both sides by 16 stone sarcophagi, one for each of the then 16 Soviet Republics with relief carvings of military scenes and quotations from Joseph Stalin, on one side in Russian, on the other side the same text in German: "Now all recognize that Soviet people with their selfless fight saved the civilization of Europe from fascist thugs. This was a great achievement of the Soviet people to the history of mankind".

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