When 57,000 German prisoners paraded in Moscow | The Parade of the Vanquished

2,136,729 views Mar 26, 2023 In mid-June 1944, the Red Army carried out one of the most powerful offensives of World War II on the Eastern Front. Known in code as Operation Bagratión, its execution meant the almost complete destruction of the backbone of the German army in the east; it was only the beginning of the so-called Soviet steamroller. At the same time, on June 17, another unusual event took place: in the center of the city of Moscow, one of the most symbolic and shocking episodes of the war took place, when 57 000 German soldiers belonging to both the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS paraded before the astonishment of many Muscovites present on the balconies of their homes and in the main avenues of the Soviet capital; however, and unlike what they once dreamed, their march on Moscow was not carried out as victors, but as defeated. The so-called Operation Great Waltz was one of the most symbolic episodes of the Great Patriotic War for the Soviets, since it meant one of the most imposing humiliations that a nation had ever inflicted on its enemy's army, and today we will learn all the details about how the Parade of the Vanquished was carried out in the summer of 1944.