The banner over the Reichstag-the photo for which Viktor Temin was almost shot

One of the most famous photos of the Great Patriotic War was taken on May 1, 1945-it shows the Victory banner flying over the Reichstag. This picture was taken by the military photojournalist of the newspaper "Pravda" Viktor Temin at his own risk and promptly delivered to the editorial office, after which the photo was distributed to publications around the world. 

Viktor Temin is considered one of the most efficient and professional photo reporters. He filmed significant events in Soviet history: the first expedition to the North Pole, the rescue of the Chelyuskinites and the polar drift of the Papaninites, the flights of Valery Chkalov. The reporter participated in the battles on Lake Hasan and the Khalkhin-Gol River, as well as in the Soviet-Finnish war.

During the war, Temin shot for the newspaper "Pravda" and for "Red Star". During the Berlin operation, the reporter first got a place in a tank to get to the city one of the first and capture the battle of Berlin, and then it became a matter of honor for him to shoot the red banner over the Reichstag. On April 29-30, there was fighting for the parliament building, and we could only wait. The assault flag of the 150th Rifle Division appeared over the Reichstag early on the morning of May 1, and the photographer managed to take a picture at noon of the same day. 

There are two versions of how this happened: according to the first, the Po‑2 plane was provided to Temin by the command for shooting of national importance, and the air corridor was provided to him by Marshal Zhukov himself. According to the second version, the photographer simply rushed to the field airfield near Berlin and persuaded the pilot Ivan Vetshak to take off with him in the air. Temin had a special pass with Stalin's signature, which allowed him to be present on all fronts. 

On May 1, there was still fighting going on around the Reichstag, the building was surrounded by smoke, and it was dangerous to circle over it. "Due to the very difficult situation, unfortunately, we only managed to fly once near the Reichstag, where the red flag was flying," the pilot later recalled. Temin and his "Watering Can" managed to take only a few shots, while the voice on the radio ordered him to return immediately and threatened to court-martial.

After taking the picture, the photojournalist decided to fly to Moscow to print the photo as soon as possible and return to Berlin with the finished newspaper. The plane was supposed to fly to Poland, where it would have to change to a night bomber to Moscow. In order not to waste time on landing and taking off again, Temin radioed for permission to fly directly and pass through the border, but the order came too late.

To fly over the border of the Soviet Union, it was necessary to inform the anti-aircraft gunners of the password, which was changed daily, but the pilot did not know it. When the plane landed in Moscow six hours later, it was found to have 62 bullet holes. 

When the film was developed in Moscow, it turned out that the flags were not visible in the pictures, although there were at least a dozen of them in various places of the building. The newspaper took the photographer at his word, especially since the whole world had already announced the hoisting of the flag over the Reichstag. As a result, the editor-in-chief ordered the retoucher to finish drawing the flag in the most suitable place. Well, the artist had no idea how big the dome of the Reichstag was, so the banner turned out to be disproportionately huge, two or three times larger than the real one. And yet, in the morning, on the front page of Pravda, there was a photograph of the banner, and here was printed Stalin's order to take Berlin. 

On May 3, Temin loaded several thousand issues of the newspaper onto the plane and went back to Berlin, and within a few hours the Soviet soldiers had copies of Pravda. And then there was the most interesting thing — the conversation of the initiative photographer with the marshal of the Soviet Union.

Viktor Temin in memoirs

Temin actually received three Orders of the Red Star and lived a long life — 78 years. After the victory, he was present at the Nuremberg trials, at the signing of the act of surrender of Japan, and in peacetime for 35 years he regularly filmed the writer Mikhail Sholokhov. 

The story of the photo "Banner of Victory" was recalled by the journalist of "Mari Pravda" Yuri Golovin, to whom Temin handed one of the prints with a gift inscription.