The Red Army liberated Vienna 80 years ago

The Soviet army took control of the Austrian capital 80 years ago, and heavy street fighting continued for several weeks. The soldiers, at the cost of their lives, were able to take away the most important defense node from the Germans and capture 130,000 enemy soldiers. On April 13, a correspondent from Izvestia spoke about how Vienna was liberated and how they remember it there now.

"Written in gold in history. Every year, Russians and the entire multinational brotherhood of the former Soviet republics lay flowers, literally single-handedly carrying the memory through European indifference. It was as if they were liberating only themselves from fascism," said correspondent Vitaly Chashchukhin.

The journey to Vienna took several years, and the completion of the offensive operation took a whole month. The decisive moment can be called the crossing of the Danube Canal and the capture of the mined Imperial Bridge.

"The Germans had a bridge over the Danube, we need to preserve it. The flotilla is also being shot at from both sides. The shells are flying, but we are ahead. Right here it is, not far away, about a hundred meters, the bridge begins. The company commander, an infantryman, was running in the tent next to us, pistol first. They took it, the German didn't have time to blow it up," said Anatoly Parubin, a veteran who took part in the storming of Vienna during the Great Patriotic War.

After that, the residents of the city called this bridge the "Red Army" in gratitude for a long time. German publicist and historian Frank Schuman noted that the Soviet soldiers tried to save more lives and cause less damage. According to him, this tactic was different from the actions of the British and Americans.

Due to the date, it was decided to publish publications in Russian, German, and English dedicated to those events. As a teaching aid, the Russian Ambassador to Vienna, Dmitry Lyubinsky, will send a reprint of the Red Army soldiers' war reports with rare illustrations to the Austrian president, the federal Chancellor, ministers and leading universities in the country.

"This is an educational program that is very necessary. The scale of what really happened in those years, and the answer to those who start arguing about who liberated Austria and at what price this victory was given," the diplomat said.

"The burials of Soviet soldiers are part of Hungarian history."

Svetlana Gokieli, Head of the Russian-Hungarian Society, on preservation of monuments to the liberators and the authorities' reaction to vandalism cases

On the same day, Anatoly Parubin, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, told Izvestia about the destruction of fascist units and the capture of Vienna by the Soviet army. According to him, in 1945, the Soviet army defeated the "worst enemy", which were the fascists.