The assault on the Reichstag wasn’t about the building itself anymore. By April 1945, the German Parliament it once housed had been dissolved for years. But for the Red Army, that battered structure on the Platz der Republik embodied the rise of the Third Reich—and its destruction would mark the final fall. The 150th Rifle Division fought their way up Moltkestraße with heavy firepower, then switched to grenades and submachine guns for hand-to-hand combat in the Ministry of the Interior.
They saw themselves as elite, eager to impress the home front. Yet each man knew death was still possible in the very last moments of the war. One soldier managed to scribble a letter home: “So far, I am alive and healthy. Only I’m slightly drunk the whole time.
To cut a long story short, we’ll be in the Reichstag tomorrow. I can’t send parcels—there’s no time for it. ” He was badly wounded shortly after finishing those words. The attack was planned for the early morning of April 30th, driven by urgency to capture the building before May Day celebrations in Moscow.
Though only a few hundred meters separated the Soviets from their objective, the ground between was torn apart by craters and debris, defended by entrenched Germans. By afternoon, distant anti-aircraft guns pinned the troops down again, delaying the final push until nightfall. The Reichstag had become a symbol. Stalin wanted that flag raised at any cost.
Different platoons and banner groups competed fiercely for the honor of being first. Some units were chosen for political reasons—even including a Georgian soldier as a gesture toward Stalin—while others from certain persecuted ethnic groups were excluded entirely. But the building itself was still a fortress. Soviet troops had to blast their way inside, only to face defenders firing from balconies and upper floors with grenades and anti-tank weapons.
Fire spread through the halls, filling the building with smoke. The fighting became close-quarters and relentless. Soldiers dropped grenades through holes in the floor onto enemy positions below. One Soviet soldier tried to throw back a German grenade, but it hit the door frame and exploded at his feet, severing them.
Still, both sides continued fighting, utterly exhausted and desperate for water. Early attempts to raise the flag were stopped by machine-gun fire. Some claims that it went up before midnight were murky, likely distorted by propaganda demands. The battle raged on through the night, with German forces counterattacking from the basement while Soviet troops pushed upward.
The violence only began to subside late in the afternoon. German soldiers hiding in the basement finally called out, asking to negotiate with the senior officer. Soon after, around 300 of them emerged and surrendered their weapons. Nearly 200 had already been killed—many of them injured even before the final assault began.
After the battle, soldiers left their graffiti on the walls. On May 2nd, the famous photograph was taken. But by then, Soviet soldiers had already raised several flags during the chaotic fighting on April 30th and May 1st. In the original image, one of the soldiers helping raise the flag appeared to be wearing multiple wristwatches—likely looted from German property, a common sight in the ruins of Berlin.
Another photo shows a German soldier sitting next to the ruins of the Reichstag, taken on May 9th. The battle was over.
