The result would be a decisive Soviet victory – the death of Adolf Hitler and the coup de grâce to National Socialism. This bitterly contested battle, however, would leave Berlin almost unrecognisable to visitors fortunate enough to have witnessed the German capital in its pre-war splendour. A city that still today bears the scars of the street-by-street, house-by-house, cellar-by-cellar fighting that would become emblematic of the most symbolic battle of the war.
More than 80,000 Soviet soldiers would die before this battle was over and this tour includes access to two huge Soviet memorials – Treptower Park and the Tiergarten – that were established after the war to commemorate these dead. We additionally visit the German Russia Museum in Karlshorst, where less than a week after the end of the Battle of Berlin the instrument of surrender of Nazi Germany was signed.