Police Repression at Berlin’s Soviet War Memorials

Police deployment at the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin-Treptow on May 8, 2025 -- image via X

By Ralf Hohmann, Unsere Zeit. Sozialistische Wochenzeitung – Zeitung der DKP, 8 May 2026 edition. Translation by Helmut-Harry Loewen.

Soviet photojournalist Yevgeny Khaldei (1917-1997) is known as a chronicler of the Second World War. His photos depict the horrors of war, the suffering and devastation in the concentration camps, and the city of Murmansk, reduced to rubble and ashes by German bombers in 1942. But they also capture the liberation of Budapest and Vienna by the Red Army, the Red Army’s advance, and the battle for Berlin.

One photo has become a symbol of Germany’s liberation from the yoke of fascism, a sign of victory over a system responsible for the deaths of at least 27 million Soviet citizens. In the early morning hours of May 2, 1945, three Red Army soldiers from the 150th Rifle Division hoisted a red banner bearing the star, hammer, and sickle on the roof of the Reichstag in Berlin. Khaldei’s photo spread across the globe, etching itself into the collective memory of humanity. But if anyone today were to publicly display precisely this photo on Berlin’s streets on May 8 and 9, this would immediately elicit a police response.

According to the general ruling “Restriction of the Public Use of Public Spaces and Freedom of Assembly,” published on April 30, the red flag, hammer, sickle, and star are banned again this year in Berlin from Treptow-Köpenick to the districts of Mitte and Pankow. The absurd justification for this — the “approving display” ("das billigende Zeigen") of these symbols is “specifically likely to disturb the peace.” It may also “disturb the dignity of the Soviet Memorial and the commemoration of the fallen soldiers.” This is a slap in the face to all those who, on May 8 and 9, commemorate at the Soviet memorials the tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers who fell in the Battle of Berlin. At the same time, it is an insult to the peoples who, in or alongside the Red Army, liberated Europe from fascism. Year after year, the Russian Embassy in Berlin has condemned these measures as “unfounded, discriminatory, and degrading” and denounced them as a “clear manifestation of historical revisionism.”

The Berlin Police Union, on the other hand, is satisfied: “In recent years, both the approach and the implementation have nipped in the bud the very real and significant potential for conflict surrounding Russia’s war of aggression.” The regulation has been carefully coordinated with Police President Barbara Slowik Meisel and Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) such that the commemoration of liberation from war and fascism is being reinterpreted as a preparation for criminal acts. It is claimed that the solemn acts of remembrance harbour “potential and at the same time ‘optimal’ opportunities for criminal acts, ranging from high-profile actions to violence.”

Where there are “opportunities for criminal acts,” perpetrators and the instruments used in their crimes are also never far away. Objects deemed offensive are criminalized: a red star on a cap, a hammer and sickle on a lapel, an orange-and-black-striped T-shirt — it could after all be reminiscent of the colours of the banned St. George’s Ribbon. The Berlin Senate does not stop at viewing the colours red, orange, black, or even white-blue-red as suspect, nor does it shy away from police intervention regarding the alphabet: “The individual or conspicuous display of the letters V or Z” is punishable — such symbols and letters can be prosecuted under criminal law for “approval of a war of aggression” (Section 140 of the Criminal Code / Strafgesetzbuch). And anyone who thinks they can at least dare playing Russian folk music may end up like the accordionist who was pulled out of the crowd by police on May 8 four years ago for playing the love songs “Katyusha” and “Kalinka.” How could the police officer know that the musician wasn’t “playing and singing Russian marching or military songs”? Anything that sounds Russian is suspect. It also goes without saying that the “flags of the separatist regions of Luhansk and Donetsk and the areas currently under Russian control — Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea” — also pose a grave threat to the German capital’s security and order, according to the authorities.

And if anyone were to chant “Never again fascism! Never again war!”, they would be illegally siding with Russia. These measures are based on the crude view of history held by Berlin’s police leadership: “Since, according to Russian propaganda, Russian soldiers are fighting Nazis in Ukraine, there is a direct link between the victory over fascism in World War II and the Russian Federation’s current war in Ukraine.” The Berlin Administrative Court upheld this interpretation in a ruling by the First Chamber on May 6, 2025.

The groundwork has been laid. Will red flags, stars, and the hammer and sickle be banned year-round next, as the Czech Republic did in January?

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DKP Berlin, Soviet War Memorial, Berlin, Treptow Park, May 8, 2024 (Photo: DKP Berlin)

We will not comply! Statement by the German Communist Party (DKP)

Ever since the Berlin police began imposing restrictive conditions on commemorations of the liberation by the Red Army in 2022, the DKP has been taking legal action against them, including through emergency motions. Since the objection was never seriously examined but was regularly blocked for political reasons, the party decided in 2024 to file a lawsuit against the restrictions. Again, nothing happened. At the urging of the plaintiff’s attorney, the case is now moving forward—though not until after May 8–9, 2026.

On May 19 at 9 a.m., a public hearing will begin before the Administrative Court (Kirchstraße 7, 10557 Berlin) regarding the DKP’s action for a declaratory judgment against the Berlin Police’s repeatedly unlawful restrictions on May 8–9 in Berlin since 2022. Come in large numbers and show your solidarity!

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Original article: Ralf Hohmann: Katjuscha im Land der Täter verboten. Berliner Polizei setzt erneut auf Repression an den Sowjetischen Ehrenmalen. Unsere Zeit, 8. Mai 2026.