scientific consultant of the project, Candidate of Historical Sciences, employee of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences

"Today, history is increasingly becoming one of the instruments of politics, and the history of the Second World War is an instrument for the formation of historical memory - the foundation of post-Soviet ideology."

"Historical narratives" are constructed through omissions of some facts and hyperbolization of others. And again we are told the old myths about the "pure Wehrmacht", about "knights" in SS uniforms and "national partisans".

However, the facts say the opposite: the Nazis, their allies and accomplices brought unprecedented savagery and cruelty. Soviet soldiers, officers and ordinary citizens had to renounce revenge, to oppose humanism to the barbarity of the occupiers.

This was the only way to stop the chain of violence. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were able to overcome themselves, their anger towards Nazism, were able to avoid the egoism of the victors. They not only liberated virtually the whole of Eastern Europe from Nazism, but also organized a normal life, helped to restore cities from ruins and ashes.

And the example of the first commandant of Berlin, General N.E. Berzarin, is the brightest here."