It is slightly over 60 years that the Second World War, the bloodiest in human history, came to an end. Today we shall once again turn to those historic events and look at the life of a man who made that history. His name is Nikolai Berzarin. In 1945 he was the first Soviet commandant of the defeated Berlin.

Born into a working-class family, Nikolai Berzarin devoted his entire life to the Soviet Armed Forces. He was one of the youngest Soviet generals. At the age of 40, Berzarin was placed in command of an army. In the run-up to the Battle of Berlin, Nikolai Berzarin was given the country’s top distinction, the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union, and in June 1945 he received the Order of the Legion of Honor of France.

On April 16, 1945, the Red Army launched the Battle of Berlin, and in just five days, on the 21st of the same month, the Fifth Attack Army under Colonel-General Nikolai Berzarin was the first to reach the eastern outskirts of Nazi Germany’s capital. Berzarin’s army was assigned the task of great importance, namely, to seize the area of government buildings in the city’s center, including the Imperial Chancellery where Adolf Hitler’s Headquarters were located. But before the Battle of Berlin was over, on April 24, 1945, Nikolai Berzarin was appointed the city commandant and the commander of the Soviet garrison in Berlin.

“The appointment of Colonel-General Nikolai Berzarin Berlin’s commandant proved quite a landmark in his life,” says Vladimir Marochko, the Head of War History Exposition Department at the Moscow-based Museum of the Great Patriotic War on Poklonnaya Hill. “This made him and his subordinates realize their responsibility for the physical survival of Germans who were no longer to be seen as their mortal enemies. When the Commander of the First Byelorussian Army Group Marshal Georgy Zhukov gave reasons for his choice of Berzarin for that position, he took account, above all, of Berzarin’s high moral qualities.”

Kilometers upon kilometers of ruins and millions of refugees – such was the overall view of the Third Reich’s capital in the spring of 1945. The first Soviet Commandant of Berlin was faced with a mammoth task of bringing the city back to life. Berzarin never thought of avenging himself on Germans despite the dreadful crimes that the Nazis had perpetrated in his fatherland. The Fifth Attack Army troops were still fighting the enemy to seize the Imperial Chancellery when he ordered setting-up population subsistence support centres on the outskirts of the city. In the 54 days that he was in office, Berzarin saved quite a few Berliners from starving to death. “At the frontline I fought the Germans,” he said, “but once I found myself in what used to be the enemy’s rear, I took care of providing subsistence for them.”

“In an interview with The Red Star newspaper on May 1, 1945,” Vladimir Marochko goes on to say, “Nikolai Berzarin said this in commenting on the way life was being brought back to normal in the parts of Berlin under Soviet Army control: ‘…we have set up District Commandant’s offices. Local residents clear the streets of wreckage, gather weapons left over from the Nazi troops. We invite German experts to put production facilities into operation quickly. A number of electric power stations will start generating power in just two or three days. The city water supply system is due to resume operation. Up to 20 hospitals in the Soviet sector of Berlin are available to the population and to those wounded in bombing raids and shelling.

We’re also making efforts to repair and re-launch the municipal transportation system. Some areas are still under Nazi control, with the local civilians famished there. When we neutralize the Nazis, the first thing these civilians ask for is food. We have also opened the first few bakeries and food stores, and Berliners immediately formed huge lines in front of those to get food. I have ordered vegetables to be supplied to the city from nearby villages.’”

One of Nikolai Berzarin’s topmost priorities as a city commandant was to enforce law and order and guarantee security in the streets of Berlin. On the other hand, he took every possible step to keep discipline in the Berlin garrison troops. On May 7 Berzarin signed an order to set up patrol duty in the city. The order read:

“Point One. To drastically cut short looting and other forms of illegal conduct, launch an all-embracing patrolling of the districts that army units are stationed at. Point Two. Best enlisted soldiers and officers should be drafted for patrols. Point Three. Staff officers of any rank without exception shall control men on patrol duty and enforce general order in the eastern part of Berlin to cut short plundering and violence…”

Without assistance from Berliners it was impossible to bring life back to normal in a city where bitter fighting was under way only recently. The Soviet Commandant did have that kind of support. According to eyewitnesses, Nikolai Berzarin was in close contact with officials of the various political parties. He would eagerly hear from these officials and would act without delay to rectify the situation. He would approve candidates for office in the city administration only if they were fit with regrads to their managerial capacity. Berzarin would never ask them political questions, what he did ask was what they thought was to be done to do away with the large-scale demolition in the city. Ernst Lemmer, an eyewitness to the developments of the period who later became a West German Government Minister, wrote in his memoirs:

“In the Rhein and Ruhr basin cities wreckage was removed at a much slower pace than in Berlin. The principal business thoroughfare of Cologne was still impassable in 1946. I was struck to see the zeal that the Soviet military command showed when trying to ensure Berliners all things required. Victualling in Berlin was better that elsewhere in the Soviet occupation zone, and even better than in West Germany…”

It was not only bread and drinking water that Nikolai Berzarin gave to Berliners. He was interested in just about everything, from organizing symphony concerts to the number of nails supplied and to the line-up of the local administration. Thanks to his energetic measures city traffic resumed operation in a record-short time. The first Berlin subway trains started running just 12 days after the city fell to the Soviet troops. Cultural life, too, was getting back on track. The Berlin Chamber Orchestra gave its first public concert on May 13th. In May as many as 30 cinema theatres showed feature films, documentaries, and newsreels. Berlin schools resumed classes. The first post-war soccer game was played on May 20 for 10 000 fans to watch. Berzarin went in for sports himself, he was a good skier, motorcyclist, and horseman. Thanks to his assistance the Berlin race track resumed trotting races shortly after the war. Four years later the first races named after Nikolai Berzarin were held, eventually becoming a tradition.

“Nikolai Berzarin was the first Russian General I met in person,” recalled Bishop Otto Dibelius. “He was totally different from the way I fancied he was… I saw a man who was respectful of the Church.” Actually, it was not only Bishop Dibelius who was taken aback by atheist Berzarin’s stand on religion. The Berlin Education Department officials were likewise amazed to hear the Soviet General say “I want your children to be brought up in the spirit of respect for God.” It was none other than Berzarin who annuled all restrictions imposed by the Nazis on the celebration of religious holidays.

Berzarin’s post of Berlin’s commandant was a very special one. The Allied agreements of September 1944 provided for joint city management, so he had to abide by both the interests of his country and the inter-allied decisions.

“The first Soviet city commandant Nikolai Berzarin fully realized the responsibility he had to shoulder during the period of transition from war to peace in Berlin,” Vladimir Marochko, a staff member of the Central Great Patriotic War Museum on Poklonnaya Hill, goes on to say. “Once the city’s western sectors were handed over to the United States, Great Britain, and France in July 1945, the Allied Commandant’s Office assumed responsibility for the whole of Berlin. The Allies endorsed the emergency measures Berzarin had taken to bring life in Berlin back to normal and kept them going in the western sectors under their control.”

There was hardly a street in Berlin that Berzarin did not walk on. When he was Berlin’s commandant, he was out and about around the clock. He chose not to rely on reports, but to make sure that things were being done properly. Berliners remembered him as “a smiling general wearing an impeccably-looking uniform overcoat.” To travel faster about the city, Berzarin used a captured enemy motorcycle that he always drove himself. He drove it, too, on the tragic day of June 16, 1945, when he crashed into a military truck convoy at full speed. Nikolai Berzarin and his orderly in the back seat were killed in the accident.

In 2002 Berlin played host to a meeting between city residents and the Fifth Attack Army veterans who fought in the Battle of Berlin under the command of Colonel-General Nikolai Berzarin in the spring of 1945. The participants in the meeting pointed out that Berzarin was the first one to give Berliners hope for a speedy restoration of life to peace-time standards. As Berlin’s commandant, he died not at his office table, but in the street of a city he was building up from ruins. Nikolai Berzarin is on the list of Berlin’s honorary citizens. After all, the first one will always be the first…