Soviet Forces Complete the Capture of Berlin
On this day · 2 May 1945
After days of street-by-street fighting, the German capital fell to the Red Army, sealing Nazi Germany's collapse in Europe.
On 2 May 1945, the garrison defending Berlin surrendered to the Red Army, ending one of the most destructive urban battles of the Second World War. After Soviet armies encircled the city in late April, the fighting collapsed into close-quarters combat, with defenders squeezed into shrinking pockets among the ruins.
Following Adolf Hitler’s suicide on 30 April, the garrison commander, General Helmuth Weidling, ordered an end to resistance. Soviet troops occupied the Reichstag and raised the Soviet flag over its roof, an image that became the war’s defining symbol of victory in Europe.
By 2 May 1945, the capital of Nazi Germany was in Soviet hands.
The capture of Berlin came at staggering cost: the wider Berlin operation left tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers dead or missing. The fall of the city left the Third Reich without a capital or leadership, and the unconditional surrender of all German forces followed days later, ending the war in Europe.
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