Mikhail Minin

Mikhail Petrovich Minin (Russian: Михаил Петрович Минин) (July 29, 1922 – January 10, 2008) was a Russian Soviet soldier who was the first to enter the Reichstag building on April 30, 1945 during the Battle of Berlin, and the first soldier to mount the flag on the Reichstag building at 10:40 pm.

The iconic picture showing a Georgian soldier, Meliton Kantaria, fixing a pole with the hammer-and-sickle flag blowing in the wind was posed on the Reichstag roof two days later, on May 2, 1945. The night that the Reichstag was taken by Minin's platoon there was no photographer available.

Mikhail Minin was born in 1922 in the village of Vanino, in western Russia's Pskov Oblast. In June 1941 he volunteered to join the army to fight against Nazi Germany. He took part in battles to liberate Leningrad from blockade and made his way across the fronts from Leningrad to Berlin.

Joseph Stalin had urged his troops to mount the flag on the Reichstag building no later than May 1, 1945. Minin's superiors had told the soldiers that any piece of red cloth fixed to the building would symbolize that the battle was won.

Minin recalled in a recent interview in a German documentary, the "War of the Century", that by the time the building needed to be stormed, morale among the victorious Soviet soldiers was low. They knew the building could only be taken on foot and it was still heavily defended. So his commanders decided to launch a night attack and Minin was put in charge of the platoon.

“Nobody really wanted to die that night because the war was already won,” he declared. “Even a promise by our officers that those who captured the building would get the highest decoration of Hero of the Soviet Union called forth few volunteers. Except for my little company.” The four men G. Zagitov, A. Lisimenko, A. Bobrov and M. Minin made their way towards the Reichstag they were met by heavy fire.

Minin later reported

Right before reaching the attic I tore a one and half meter pipe off the wall to serve as a flagpole. After reaching the spacious attic, we faced the problem of getting to the roof. Again G. Zagitov found a solution - with his flashlight he noticed in the darkness a heavy winch and two chains going to the top. We climbed the chains and then through a tiny window got out to the roof somewhere on the western side of the building. There near a barely noticeable column Zagitov and I began setting up our Red Banner. Suddenly an explosion lighted up the roof and Lisimenko found our old reference-point - a sculpture of a bronze horse and a large woman in a crown. It was immediately decided to set the banner on the sculpture.

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Wikipedia