80 years since the Nazi Evil was destroyed - conquest of Berlin

 Salvete Omnes,

soldiers of the Kosciuszko 1st Infantry Division's Light Artillery Regiment hung the Polish flag on the Siegessäule in Berlin

Late April and early May 1945 was hot around Berlin in Germany.
Soviet Red armies and Polish armies defeated and reduced to ashes the Nazi forces in and around Berlin.

Polish 1st Army tanks and wagon trains, horses also went on to destroy the Nazis

For the Polish people (Christians and Jews alike & others like our Muslim Tatars) the war started on September 1939, and lasted the whole period until that May 8, 1945 (when Breslau - today's Wroclaw - defenders also laid down their arms).
Along the Soviet armies storming Berlin there was the Polish 1st Army.

Some of the soldiers storming Berlin's streets started their war in September 1939, like lieutenant Konstanty Minuszyc, who was a sailor of the Pinsk Riverine Flotilla of the Polish Navy in 1939.

Some of the platoon commanders were former NCO's  of the KOP (see the label -KOP- for more information), who in 1939 fought the Nazi Germans and Soviet Red Army.

Communist Poland's soldier medal for the participation in the capture of Berlin

On May 3 like the Red Army Soviet units, the soldiers of Polish 1st Army also met with the American Army counterparts on the Elbe River. The Nazis were finished for good.

May 2 and then May 8 and thereafter were days of rejoicing for all these boys and young men who finally brought the evil of Nazi Germany to its end. Their wives, sisters, mothers and other loved ones and common citizens were also rejoicing these days of May 1945. 

For war-ravaged Poland, reshaped on so many levels (territory and ethnic make up - Poland became a mono-ethnic state) by Joseph Stalin and with the Polish population declined from 35 million in 1939AD  to circa 23 million in 1946AD, the new era was about to began:  the era of Communist Poland, the anti-Soviet civil war, Stalinist period and social revolution along with industrialization and modernization on many levels unseen prior to 1939. 

Among the amazing developments in 1945-49 period Poland got a brand new western border on the Oder River like in  the early Piast Poland a thousand years ago, and with all these territories that for a 1000 years represented the mythical German Drang nach Osten.  Poland lost many true Polish territories  in the east, like the royal city of Lwow in Red Ruthenia, in Poland since 1340sAD. But perhaps this Stalin's induced quid pro quo helped post-war Poland to survived the Communist era, which happily finally ended in 1989AD ... 

 Ave and  pacem aeternam to all heroes...

What a year! 1000 years of Polish Crown and 80 years of conquest of Nazi Germany - vivat! 

Valete