The Soviet Flag over the Reichstag is one of the most iconic photos taken during WW2. Indeed, it was the European version of the Iwo Jima flag raising for the Americans, and the Soviets would ultimately wish to have a similar recreation.

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This, is one of the most iconic photos of the Second World War. But what most people don't know, is that this. is. Faked.... Modified. Edited. Whatever you want to call it. And we're going to look into the reasons for why and how.

Raising a Flag over the Reichstag was taken on May the 2nd 1945, during the Battle of Berlin. The men in the photo, while originally heavily disputed, are that of 18 year old Aleksei Kovalev (Coo-Yev) who is attaching the flag, 35 year old Abdulkhakim Ismailov steadying Kovalev, and 29 year old Leonid Gorychev (Go-RE-Shev) whi.. Wait. Where is he? Nope, nope, nada. Ahh. Here he is.

Gorychev, hell, a third person in general was originally never reported. Indeed, Official Soviet Reports did not credit any of the men listed above. Instead, they named Junior Sergeant Meliton Kantaria and Sergeant Mikhail Yegorov as the men that hoisted the Soviet Banner over the Reichstag. When the wider shot was released months after, a third man, Lieutenant Commissar Alexei Berest would be shoo-horned into the reports. It was only years later that the original photographer Yevgeny Khaldei (Haldy) would come forward with the names of Kovalev and Ismailov. Gorychev would go unaccredited all the way until a television documentary in 1995, when Kovalev would recount the names of the men that were with him during that iconic photo.

So. With the naming controversy out of the way. Why was this photo edited afterwards? It's simple, PR and propaganda purposes. See, if you compare the two photos side by side, the differences are pretty hard to spot, but, there were two of them. One of them, the more obvious one, is that smoke was added into the background, copied over from another photo. Khaldei added the smoke from another image, in an effort to make the photo as a whole more dramatic. However, the second change was much more subtle. See. The photo was going to be published in May 13th edition of the Ogoniok (A-Gen-yook), Russias longest running weekly magazine, which unfortunately, closed its doors permanently in December of 2020 due to persistent financial troubles. Anyway, the editor of the magazine at the time noticed that Ismailov had two watches on, one on either wrist. This would imply looting which was punishable by execution. To avoid this, Khaldei would go over the photo and using a needle, blot out the second watch, covering it up in hopes of avoiding any mention of it.

Of course, the question still got asked, and the original response, was that the item was actually a Adrianov (E-dri-an-ov) compass, essentially just a wrist held compass that was common in the red army, and it wouldn't be until the late 70's that the truth about the watch would be made official. Thus, ending the tale of how one of the most iconic photos of WW2, the Soviet version of the Iwo Jima photo, was faked.

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