May 2, 1945: The Fall of Berlin

May 2, 1945: Nazi Generals Hans Krebs (47 years old) and Wilhelm Burgdorf (50) commit suicide in the Bunker of Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who had done so there 2 days earlier (56). Martin Bormann (44), Hitler's private secretary, tries to escape, but doesn't get far, and also kills himself.

It's all over. Berlin has fallen. The Soviet Red Army raises the Red Flag over the Reichstag, the home of the German national legislature. It's just a matter of what remains of the Nazi government surrendering. What Hitler called "The Thousand-Year Reich" was dead after 12 years.

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had seen the photograph of the U.S. Marines raising the American flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima, and wanted a similar picture of the Soviet red banner with the yellow hammer and sickle over Berlin. He got it. The photographer was Yevgeny Khaldei. The soldier was 18-year-old Aleksei Kovalov -- no relation to the later hockey player of the same name. He later became a fireman in Kiev. Both men were Ukrainians, and both lived until 1997.

In late 1941, the Soviets were, perhaps, a mile away from losing the Eastern Front of the European Theater of World War II. Now, they had won what they called The Great Patriotic War.

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May 2, 1945 was a Wednesday. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The NHL season had ended 10 days earlier, when the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-4 at Yankee Stadium.

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-8 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Boston Braves, 3-1 at Ebbets Field.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 4-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Jim Wilson pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* A doubleheader was split at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The St. Louis Cardinals won the opener, 4-2. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the nightcap, 11-1.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 2-1 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the St. Louis Browns, 2-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

* And the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds were rained out at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The game was made up on June 8. The Cubs won, 7-3.