Generalissimo Stalin directed every move... made every decision... He is the greatest and wisest military genius who ever lived... - Georgy Zhukov

Many indeed were the thoughts that whirled through my head in those minutes of rejoicing! The fearsome battle at Moscow where our troops had made a stand to the death without letting the enemy through to the capital, and Stalingrad lying in ruins but unvanquished, and the glorious Leningrad which had repelled the furious onslaught of the enemy and which had withstood a terrible blockade, and Sevastapol which had fought so heroically against hand-picked Nazi troops, and the triumph of victory at the Kursk Salient, and the thousands of devastated villages and towns, the many millions of human lives sacrificed by the Soviet people who had heroically stuck it out during those grim years.
And here at last was the most cherished goal, for the sake of which our people had borne such immense suffering- the complete rout of Fascist Germany, the rout of the monstrous Fascism, and the triumph of our just cause.

The Battle for Berlin was a life or death struggle. From the very depths of Mother Russia, from Moscow and from the Hero Cities of Stalingrad and Leningrad, from the Ukraine, from Byelorussia, from the Baltic, Caucasian and other republics our men had come here to finish the just war against those who had encroached upon the freedom of their country. Many of them still bore the fresh wounds of previous battles. In Berlin the wounded did not leave the battle-field. They all pressed forward yielding to no one the right of way. It was as if there had been no four years of grim fighting, as if everything had risen afresh in order to accomplish this great deed and to hoist the banner of victory over Berlin. In all actions our soldiers displayed great inspiration and daring. The maturity of our army and its growth during the war years were fully reflected in the Battle of Berlin.

West of Maloyaroslavets I met the commander of the local fortified area, Colonel Smirnov, who reported on the progress of fortification work, the availability of worker battalions and the equipment of the military units capable of defending the approaches to Maloyaroslavets. After I had instructed him to organize reconnaissance and to get his fortified area into fighting shape, I drove on to Medyn. I found no one there except an old woman who was rummaging around a house that had been hit by a bomb.
"Granny, what are you doing here?" I asked. She stood there with wide-open, wandering eyes and disheveled gray hair and said nothing. "What's the matter, Granny?" Without replying, the woman went back to digging. Another woman, half-dressed and carrying a half-filled sack, appeared from the ruins. "Don't bother asking her," she said, "she won't say anything. She has lost her mind with grief."
She told me that two days before German plans had bombed and strafed the town. Many people had been killed. The residents were getting ready to leave for Maloyaroslavets. The old woman had lived in this house with a little grandson and granddaughter. She was at the well getting water when the raid began. She saw a bomb hit her house. Somewhere under the ruins were the bodies of her grandchildren.