Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –
Exactly 80 years ago, the Great Patriotic War ended. This fact was confirmed by the Act of Unconditional Surrender of the German Armed Forces. And today, on Victory Day, we will tell the story of how an engineering diploma from the Moscow Engineering and Economics Institute (now the State University of Management) allowed its graduate Arkady Pashenin to witness the signing of this historic document.
Arkady Pashenin was born on March 19, 1918, entered the construction department of the Moscow Institute of Power Engineering in 1935, and defended his diploma five days after the start of the war – on June 27, 1941. According to him, Soviet youth was mentally prepared for war. In companies, they did not discuss ways to evade, but what was better to take to the front in addition to the recommended list. And the state took care of the physical condition of the youth – in addition to standard military training, the Moscow Institute of Power Engineering had a strong ski section of the Rot Front sports society, of which Arkady Pashenin was a member. Team “Ski Patrol Races” were especially popular with students.
On July 8, the day after receiving diploma #025980, graduate Pasheshin reported to the recruiting station, where the duty officer, having familiarized himself with the documents, sent him to the military commissar. The latter looked at the diploma and sent the conscript to the Military Academy of Logistics and Supply, where he completed a three-month training course. In September 1942, Arkady Pashenin served at the headquarters of the 276th Ski Regiment when he was summoned to Moscow, to the People’s Commissariat of Defense, where he was thoroughly discussed with him about the diploma and sent to Stalingrad, to the headquarters of the 5th Shock Army, which was being formed at that time. He served there until the army was disbanded after the war.
The most dramatic turn of fate connected with the MIE diploma happened to our hero at the end of the war, near Warsaw. One winter day at the turn of 1944/45, he was summoned by the head of the personnel department of the army headquarters and again asked about the specialty of an engineer-economist. It turned out that a member of the Military Council of the army, Lieutenant General Fyodor Bokov, was looking for three personal assistants of different specialties. Officers from the operational and political departments were selected immediately, but there was no suitable candidate for an economist who could “distinguish a bakery from a sawmill.” After a ten-minute conversation with Bokov, Pashenin was accepted into the team.
As a result of the Berlin Offensive Operation, the German troops were finally defeated. It remained to formalize the situation legally. Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov chose the headquarters of the 5th Shock Army as the place for signing the Act of Unconditional Surrender, so on May 8, 1945, Fyodor Bokov and his assistants, including Arkady Pashenin, were among those meeting the Allied delegation at the Tempelhof airfield. The diplomatic service was late with instructions on the protocol of the meeting, so the staff officers decided to run for the flags of the nations themselves half an hour before the arrival of the first plane. They were unable to find the French flag right away, fortunately the plane of the Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, General Jean de Latre de Tassigny, was late, and he was met later, separately from the British and Americans. Major of the Quartermaster Service Pashenin had the honor of holding the flag of the USSR, which he remembered for the rest of his life:
“So we, three Russian officers, stood in the center of Europe with the flags of nations. The famous generals and marshals of the allied armies walked past us. Eisenhower, Montgomery, Tedder and others saluted the flags, including the flag of the USSR, which by the will of fate I, a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Economics and Law in 1941, was entrusted to hold.”
Let’s forgive Arkady Mikhailovich for the historical inaccuracy. As is well known, the Instrument of Surrender on the part of Great Britain was signed not by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, but by the Supreme Commander of the Royal Air Force Arthur Tedder. The Americans were represented not by the future President Dwight Eisenhower, but by the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force Carl Spaatz. But just imagine how exciting this moment was for what was essentially a very young officer, and sometimes even the young are deceived by memory.
The headquarters of the 5th Shock Army was located in the building of the Military Engineering School in Karlshorst, one of the eastern suburbs of Berlin, where everyone headed from the airfield. The hall of the officers’ mess was prepared for the ceremony, the furniture was brought from the Reich Chancellery building. As a staff officer, Arkady Pashenin had free access to all the rooms of the headquarters and did not miss the opportunity to be present at the signing of the Act of Surrender. The extra chairs were taken out of the hall, so everyone except the signatories watched the ceremony standing. Pashenin took a place by the wall near a small table, at which the Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany Wilhelm Keitel then sat.
The ceremony began at exactly midnight Moscow time. Hence the disagreement about the date of Victory Day celebrations in Russia and the West. When it came to Keitel, he was about to sign the Act at his desk, but Georgy Zhukov demanded that he come over and sign the Act on a side table. Jawohl (German for “Yes sir”), the blushing Field Marshal complied. This was the German word the Nazis used more often than any other at the ceremony.
The procedure ended at 00:43 Moscow time, after which the banquet began. Suddenly the question arose: what to feed the German delegation – not red caviar? Even the diplomats could not resolve it. Then they turned to Zhukov for advice, and he said: “Let’s not be petty – feed them everything that has been prepared for the banquet. And be sure to serve it on plates with the monograms of the Imperial Chancellery. And give them unlimited drinks. Let them wash down their defeat… But I think it will not do them any good!”
And so it happened: Wilhelm Keitel was executed by decision of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg on October 16, 1946. Another representative of the German government who signed the Act of Surrender, General Admiral Hans von Friedeburg, poisoned himself with cyanide the day before his arrest.
And MIEI graduate Arkady Mikhailovich Pashenin served in the Soviet Army until 1978 and retired with the rank of colonel of the quartermaster service. He was awarded five orders and five medals, including, of course, “For the capture of Berlin” and “For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.”
#Scientific regiment
Arkady Pashenin Arkady Pashenin Wilhelm Keitel signs the Act of Surrender From left to right: Arthur Tedder, Georgy Zhukov and Carl Spaatz at the banquet after the signing of the Act of Surrender
Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 05/08/2025
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.