For quite a few years now, every May 9th, I've been watching it every single year.

This year of 2019 commemorates the 74th anniversary of the end of WWII.
Sadly, because of the bad weather and clouds over Moscow, no aircraft this year.

But the colorful uniforms (the reds, yellows, blues, the golden, the whites, the grays and blacks, there's a huge variety of color!), the beautiful military awards (many on the veterans chests), and the unmatched precision of the ground troops parading, as well as the overall ambiance, makes it, IMO, a worthy parade to watch:





Cheers!

Dolf

Though this is an old post I'd like to add an interesting story about this parade.
In 1945 they also held their victory parade and in this parade they presented all the banners that where captured from the germans.
When you take a good look at the picture of the parade you also see the LAH standarte but...without the cloth.

Later all these banners were displayd in the Moskou war museum and the Standarte was "completed" with a very common german flag simply because they didn't know what kind of cloth was originally on the standarte.
In case of the LAH this was a very distinctive, one of a kind, banner.


After the wall fell down many US militaria collectors and dealers went to the SU and one of them ( George Peterson) noticed the mistake and got access to the storage-rooms of the museum. After opening many crates he found the original banner that belonged to the LAH standarte. They had it for all these years but didn't know what it was. Never been to the museum but if they corrected the mistake the complete Standarte should be on display now.

Thanks for that additional info Hans. The book I read about the missing banner sort of implied that it had been hidden or preserved by LAH members, adding to the myth of the division. If it is correct what you quote it shows that reality is often less mysterious than we like to think!

Cheers
Adrian

Video(s) of the 1945 Victory Parade, for those interested.


Narration and subtitles in English (but poor video quality) :





In Russian, but a slightly better video quality:





Marshal Zhukov led the Parade on a white horse. Rumors are that Stalin was too scared to fall if riding the horse himself...



IMO, the true victors of WWII. Excellent article published today on RT exactly about this:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/465991-ww2-europe-soviet-liberation-nazi/



Cheers!

Dolf

Hi, never heard that version could it be you are referring to the Blutfahne that was carried by Jacob Grimmiger. That was the "1923-Putsch" blood-stained flag that was a "sacred" object. That one dissapeared and was never found. What's the book you're reading?



Here's the full story.
https://ihffilm.com/der-standarte-des-fuhrers-the-leader-s-standard-essay-by-blaine-taylor.html

I think it was “Hitler’s Teutonic Knights”, a book about the SS panzer division, but it’s a long time ago I read it.

Cheers,
Adrian

Well, that could very well be because before Peterson discovered the banner they indeed did think an LAH member took it.
I would love to know if the banner is on display in the museum.

Dolf, great footage !!!
I've always been interested in WW2 and had quite a large and specialized collection. Even contributed to a few books. Turned out to be a good investment when I sold the stuff. Every now and then some of my former items show up on internet..
https://militarycollectiblesinc.com/product/sa-white-summer-tunic/