As Europe once again hurtled towards all-out war in the summer of 1939, a monster began terrorising the women of the Nazi capital city. Preying on his victims – lone females often on their way home from work – under cover of darkness for almost two years before being caught. His preference for hunting on Berlin’s train network earning him the sobriquet: the S-Bahn Murderer.
When viewed backwards, it is conceivable to see history as one straight line – twisting and turning through time but inevitably leading directly to the present day. The events that furnish this past, however, are not merely stations on a journey: but junctions – where the course of history is settled, as each new trajectory is plotted. The past, as we know it, as is much a matter of what is – as what could have been.
Earlier this year, we covered the anniversary of the British Victory Parade that took place on July 21st 1945 – this month we take a closer look at the Allied Victory Parade of September 1945 when the four Allied powers gathered their troops to celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany.
The thump of the 3rd Royal Horse Artillery’s 25-pounder-guns at 10 am on Saturday, July 21st 1945 was intended to represent the last time that British artillery would be fired on the streets of Berlin – and the start of the British Victory Parade.
As the largest engagement of the Second World War to take place on German soil, the Battle of Berlin would prove to be the desperate last stand of Hitler’s regime; the bloody coda to a war long lost & ultimately the coup de grâce to National Socialism. Join us as we explore the bloody details of these important seventeen days in the spring of 1945 in our day-by-day coverage of the Soviet invasion of the Nazi capital.
Intended to establish the framework for lasting post-war peace it instead ensured the division of Europe for the next 50 years and set the stage for the coming Cold War. To learn more about the first – and final meeting – between the Big Three (Truman, Stalin, Churchill), check out our blow-by-blow coverage of the Potsdam Conference, held near Berlin over seventeen days in the summer of 1945.
In our ‘Mythbusting Berlin’ series we explore some of the most commonly asked – and most controversial – questions about the German capital; and the characters & events that have come to define the city’s unique history. Challenging popular misconceptions and exposing the unusual; the profound; and the strange along the way.
Every city has its long list of must-see sights and must-do things – Berlin is no different. Our 99 Berlin Experiences series examines the experiences in Berlin that could be considered essential. Either because of the historical significance of a certain location or landmark, or perhaps more interestingly the exact process of conducting oneself in the city. Consider these all a right of passage in the German capital – collect them all and you might be able to consider yourself a real Berliner.
