Soviet Soldier in Iconic WWII Photo Dies at 93

Hoisting the Soviet flag atop the Reichstag in Berlin. Photo by TASS/Yevgeny Khaldei

Abdulkhakim Ismailov, one of three soldiers to appear in a famed photograph of the Red Army invading Berlin at the end of World War 2, has died. He was 93.

May, 1945. As the Russian army rolls through a destroyed Berlin and over the Nazi’s defeated Third Reich, soldier Abdulkhakim Ismailov finds himself atop the Reichstag, Berlin’s House of Parliament, hoisting the Hammer and Sickle flag. He had fought through the deadly Battle of Stalingrad three years earlier, all the way to the center of Nazi Germany, and now found himself in front of a camera. The result, of course, would be one of the war’s most memorable images.

50 years later, Ismailov was finally identified and honored by his country. In 1996 he was decorated as a Hero of Russia, and on Tuesday he passed away in his home town of Chagar-Otar in Russia’s southern region of Dagestan.

Soviet photojournalist Yevgeny Khaldei said later he had set the shot up, even admitting to sewing the flag together from tablecloths and doctoring the images afterward. Still, many believe the picture to be the Soviet equivalent of the iconic photograph of American Marines placing the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima.