On Day 5 of our Last Days of WW2 battlefield recce myself and my fellow battlefield guides ended the day on the Elbe River at Torgau where American forces meet with Soviet troops on 25th April 1945, a day that was later known as ‘Elbe Day’. A contemporary newsreel report is found here. It had been decided by the Allied leaders that the Western Allies would agree to stop on the Elbe to allow Stalin’s troops to symbolically capture Berlin.

A memorial was placed at Torgau overlooking the Elbe, and there is a further plaque commemorating the ‘Spirit of the Elbe’ on the Soviet side of the river.