There are some gripping photos that came from WWII, with this one being at the top of the list. When it was published, it became instantly popular. It shows Soviet soldiers raising their flag over the German Parliament.
As time wore on, this photograph came to be recognized as one of the most significant images of that war. But. But. Long before Photoshop, this was altered for propaganda purposes. The actual photo has less smoke, which was later added to give the image more drama and intensity.
Also, the guy at the base of the pole? Multiple wristwatches were removed from his arm, as that suggested he had been looting. You can still see he is wearing one on each arm.
The end of the war was near, and the world was breathing a sigh of relief, and cheering out loud at the same time. This photo was taken on this date, April 22, 1945.
The official “end” of WWII occurred on September 1-2, 1945.
But VE Day, Victory in Europe Day, is the day that celebrated the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces. That took place on Tuesday, May 8, 1945, marking the end of World War II in Europe.
Of course, the big troubles in all of this started with Adolph Hitler. I’ve often wondered if there are truly “evil” people on this earth, with no spark of divinity in them whatsoever. But as I researched this, I saw a photo of him with his dog, “Blondie.” So. 
Anyway, when the crap was hitting the fan for the Nazis, Hitler retreated to his Führerbunker in Berlin on January 16, 1945. It had become very clear to the Nazi leadership that the battle for Berlin would be the final battle of the war in Europe.
Then, if we jump ahead to the afternoon of April 22, Hitler suffered a total nervous collapse in his situation room. His “people” informed him that his orders had not been carried out, the ones telling SS-General Felix Steiner to counterattack. Hitler blew a gasket. Hitler launched a tirade against his commanders, calling them “treacherous and incompetent.” All of this came to a head, and for the first time, he said that the war was lost. Hitler announced that he would stay in Berlin until the end and then shoot himself.
I guess he was a man of his word. He committed suicide by gunshot on April 30, 1945, in his Führerbunker in Berlin. He had just married Eva Braun one day before. She committed suicide with him by taking cyanide. What a Honeymoon that must have been.
Hitler had given very specific instructions, both verbal and written, that their remains were to be “carried up the stairs through the bunker’s emergency exit, doused in petrol, and set alight in the Reich Chancellery garden outside the bunker.”
And then there is Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, always trying to muddy things up. He started a disinformation campaign quickly after Hitler’s death. He had it recorded that Hitler and Braun’s burned remains were recovered and interred in successive locations until 1946. It was then noted that they were exhumed again and cremated in 1970, and the ashes were scattered.
Most agree that none of this occurred. Eyewitnesses had testified that there were no bodies per se remaining after the burning, just a big lump of Nazi ashes.
The news of Hitler’s death was announced to Germany the next day on May 1, 1945. Of course, the Soviet Union presented various conspiracy theories about Hitler’s death. They maintained in the years immediately following the war that he was not dead but had fled and was being shielded by the former Western Allies.
And so we see propaganda, from start to finish, peppering our history, once again.
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“War is what happens when language fails.”
― Margaret Atwood
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“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
― Voltaire
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“All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.”
― John Steinbeck
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