The photograph shows the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park in full view: the axially arranged memorial complex extends from the geometrically designed garden section in the foreground to the central bronze statue of a Soviet soldier on a massive stone base in the background. On both sides, granite reliefs and tall rows of trees line the main axis, conferring on the complex the character of a representative state shrine. Inaugurated in 1949, the memorial commemorates Soviet soldiers fallen in the Second World War and simultaneously serves as a burial ground for several thousand of them. In Berlin in 1955, the complex lies in the Soviet sector and exemplifies the symbolic military presence of the USSR in the divided city. As a monumental propaganda monument at the heart of Berlin, the memorial marks the ideological claim of the Soviet Union in the early phase of the Cold War.