JARF kirjutas: ↑T Jaan 02, 2024 11:02 pm Kaks Mark V tanki mis sakslased said tervena olid viidud Berliini näitusele. Nad osalesid Berliini lahingus Reichstagi kaitsmisel. Isegi netis on pilte nendest. Üks sai pommi tabamuse.

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield_on ... efence_of/

These two Mark V tanks were amongst about 60 (plus some Medium Mark As) sent to Russia by Britain in 1919, to help the White (i.e. Tsarist) Army fight against the Red Army. British troops accompanied them, officially to train the Russians, but they ended up actually manning the tanks in battle on occasion. After some successes, the tanks gradually fell into Soviet hands, and the British troops returned home, leaving the tanks behind.

Somehow the Soviets managed to keep at least some of them running throughout the 1920s, but by 1931 all civil war period tanks were in depots, various tank schools or academies, doing limited guard duty, or were on firing ranges. In 1938, the last 15 Mark Vs were finally pensioned off, and two were sent to each of the following cities, to be preserved as memorials: Kharkov, Leningrad, Kiev, Archangel, Rostov-on-Don, Smolensk, and Voroshilovgrad. Six of those 14 are still in existence (2017).

In Smolensk, the Mark Vs were put on display on either side of the gates to the cathedral, and they remained there until the city was captured by the Germans in 1941. There are numerous photographs of German troops inspecting or posing with them.

At some point, it was decided that these vehicles should be taken to Berlin and put on display as part of an exhibition of captured Soviet/Russian weapons and other militaria. The smaller items were placed in the Zeughaus, the former arsenal in Berlin which had been converted to a military museum, while larger items such as artillery were set up nearby, in the public park called the Lustgarten, facing the cathedral. Hitler visited it on March 21st, 1943 (which is/was Heldengedenktag, a day of remembrance for the German dead of WWI). Incidentally, there was a plot to assassinate him during that visit, but he unexpectedly cut the tour short, and the plot failed. In fact, Hitler had visited Smolensk a week earlier, so we can't rule out the possibility that he saw the Mk Vs and ordered that they be moved to Berlin.

The two tanks were placed in a row of artillery pieces. They can be positively identified by a comparison of their camouflage and other markings with those of the tanks in Smolensk.

That's how they got there. The remaining question is: what part did they play in the Battle of Berlin?

There are about twenty photographs of one or both of these tanks in the Lustgarten, not all of them widely circulated. They can be placed in chronological order by the study of the increasing damage to the tanks and their surroundings. (It should be noted that one of the photographs offered in support of the theory that the tanks played some active part in the fighting shows neither the Lustgarten nor a tank, and can be disegarded)

The collection of photographs begins with shots of the tanks in peaceful surroundings with trees in leaf. Then we see the cathedral burnt out by an incendiary bomb and some damage to the surrounding area. That damage occurred in 1944. Next are some photographs of Soviet soldiers, male and female, posing alongside the tanks, which show only light damage. That must be in 1945. These troops are unarmed and appear to be in a leisurely mood, which indicates that they are in control of the area and that no fighting is taking place nearby.

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