In 1945, the city of Brno was liberated by the Soviet Union’s Red Army. Today, Brno’s city officials and representatives commemorated the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Brno. Photo credit: Zenon Moreau.
Brno, Apr 26 (BD) – The commemoration took place at the honorary graveyard in Brno’s Central Cemetery (Ústřední hřbitov) on Friday morning. In attendance were Mayor Markéta Vaňková, First Deputy Mayor Petr Hladík, Deputy Mayors Tomáš Koláčný and Oliver Pospíšil, and the Secretary of the Brno City Council, Pavel Loutocký
In 1939, Bohemia and Moravia were annexed by Nazi Germany, which was rapidly expanding. All Czech higher education institutions were closed down soon after, including four major universities in Brno.
On April 26, 1945, Brno as the capital of Moravia was liberated by the Red Army, which was led by Marshal Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky in the Bratislava-Brno operation. The next day, the Nazi German administration of the city was abolished, and was replaced by the newly created and Czech-led “Národní výbor města Brna” (People’s Committee of the City of Brno).
According to the online encyclopedia of Brno (Encyklopedie Brna), the city was heavily affected by previous air raids, as well as direct combat in the city streets. Out of 26,280 houses, 1,277 were completely destroyed; 1,160 houses were severely damaged to the extent that they had to be torn down; whilst there were 2,775 that were heavily damaged, and 8,504 were damaged lightly.
Thus, a total of 13,723 houses were damaged – essentially, every other house in Brno. The damage was estimated at more than half a billion crowns.
Video: Red Army in Brno. Source: BRNOmycity // YouTube.
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