The photograph shows the over-life-size bronze statue of the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park in worm’s-eye perspective: a Soviet soldier cradling a child, with lowered sword, standing on a powerful round pedestal of light stone adorned with relief sculpture. Several visitors can be seen on the steps of the base, paying their respects at the memorial. Inaugurated in 1949, the memorial served simultaneously as a war cemetery for approximately 7,000 fallen Red Army soldiers and as a central propaganda structure of the Soviet occupation power in divided Berlin. As a monumental symbol of Soviet presence and interpretive authority over victory in World War II, it stood in deliberate contrast to the western sectors of the city. The photograph documents that the memorial was visited by civilians in 1955 and illustrates the political iconography of the Cold War in the Berlin urban landscape.