Tears as Russians take leave of Berlin

AMID protestations of everlasting friendship and gratitude, hundreds of Russian soldiers bade farewell to the people of Berlin at the weekend in a parade marking their final withdrawal from Germany in just two months' time.

'Your fathers and grandfathers came as victors and liberators of our city,' said Eberhard Diepgen, Berlin's Mayor, referring to the Soviet army's capture of the city in May 1945. 'They ended the tyranny, opened the concentration camps and pursued Nazi criminals. This remains the achievement of all of you.'

Many in the surprisingly enthusiastic crowd of 40,000 felt similarly. As the fresh-faced soldiers goose-stepped along the east Berlin parade route, they were cheered and clapped. As others rumbled by in armoured vehicles and anti-aircraft batteries, bystanders waved Russian flags and roses. 'No one should ever forget the enormous sacrifices the Russians made in the war,' said Maria Radoslawowa- Finger, an onlooker close to tears. 'And no one should forget what brought them here in the first place.'

The tone was upbeat. No mention was made of the Red Army's brutality during the advance on Berlin, nor of the fact that for 45 years thereafter almost 400,000 of its forces stayed as occupiers in what became East Germany.

But the history of the post-war period cast a shadow over Saturday's celebration. After the parade, sitting in the shade sharing bottles of Vodka with sympathetic Germans, Russian officers complained that they were being fobbed off with a second-rate send-off. Instead of being confined to a remote east Berlin district, they had wanted a grand parade with tanks and a march through the Brandenburg Gate together with their British, French and American wartime allies. Given the importance of the event - and the hope of future co-operation - they had hoped the subsequent Cold War antagonisms between the former allies could have been put to one side. Neither the Germans nor the western allies wanted that, however. This month, British, US and French forces held their own parade along a west Berlin avenue.

The ceremonies surrounding the final troop withdrawals - agreed as part of the terms of German reunification in October 1990 - will also be separate affairs.