Soviet tanks down Letná

JAN 01 1945 · 12:00

Red Army T-34 tanks of Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front in Prague, 9 May 1945. Place: Letná plain; Czech Bridge; Old Town Square; the suburbs Figures: Marshal Ivan Konev, 1st Ukrainian Front · Lieutenant Ivan Goncharenko, first tank into the centre (killed at Manesův most) · Andrei Vlasov, captured 12 May · Edvard Beneš, returning from London via Moscow on 16 May Konev's tanks have driven from Berlin in five days, 350 kilometers across Saxony and northern Bohemia, fueled and crewed past exhaustion. The lead T-34 of the 63rd Tank Brigade enters Prague from the north before dawn on May 9. By six in the morning Soviet armor is on Letná plain, where the giant statue of Stalin will rise five years later and stand for seven. Citizens come out with lilac. The trees are in full bloom; the photographs of liberation across Prague are photographs of tankmen covered in lilac sprigs. Lieutenant Goncharenko's tank, leading the column toward Old Town, is hit by a Panzerfaust at the Manesův Bridge. He is killed; his crew survives. He is the first Soviet officially buried in Prague liberation cemetery.