After the Cold War

If one wants to survey the Soviet anti-fascist vista that imposed itself both physically and metaphorically throughout Communist Eastern Europe after 1945, there is no better vantage point than the Treptow Monument in central Berlin. Situated in the Treptower Park on the banks of the River Spree, the monument’s centrepiece is an immense 40-ton statue of a Red Army soldier. Saviour, liberator, protector, this imposing figure – head fixed nobly high, trampling a swastika underfoot and shielding a small girl in his arms – exudes an aura of principled ferocity that was an emphatic statement about Communism’s victory over Nazism.