Berlin Victory Parade of 1945

Berlin Victory Parade of 1945 was held by the Allies of World War II on September 7, 1945 in Berlin, the capital of the defeated Nazi Germany. The four participating countries were the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

The parade was proposed by the Soviet Union, following the June Moscow Victory Parade of 1945. July in Berlin also saw a British parade (the 1945 British Berlin Victory Parade). The September parade took place near the Reichstag building and the Brandenburg Gate.

Senior officers present at the parade were Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov from the USSR, General George Patton from the United States, General Brian Robertson, from the United Kingdom, and General Marie-Pierre Kœnig from France. Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and Bernard Montgomery declined the invitations shortly before the parade, and sent Patton and Robertson as their representatives. About 5,000 troops from the USSR, USA, UK and France took part in the parade (with 2,000 of the troops being Soviet). The parade was opened by marching troops, followed by the armor. Units present included the Soviet 248th Infantry Division, the French 2nd Infantry Division, the British 131st Infantry Brigade, and the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division; the forces present came primarily from the local garrisons. The armored contingent came from the British 7th Armored Division, French 1st Armored Division, and U.S. 16th Mechanized Cavalry Group. The Red Army used this occasion for the first public display of the IS-3 heavy tank, with 52 tanks from the 2nd Guards Tank Army participating.

Russian sources refer to this parade as "forgotten parade", as it was mentioned in only a few Western sources. The downplaying of the parade in the West can be seen as one of the early signs of the Cold War. The forces of four Allies also participated in another Berlin parade a year later, on the Charlottenburger Chaussee, in front of the Brandenburg Gate, on the first anniversary of the German surrender on 8 May 1946, in the Berlin Victory Parade of 1946. This parade was connected to the inauguration of the Soviet War Memorial at Tiergarten. Soviet troops would not be present at the much more widely known in the West London Victory Celebrations of 1946.