Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin
On 5 March 1953, at 21:50 EET, Joseph Stalin, the second leader of the Soviet Union, died at the Kuntsevo Dacha aged 74 after suffering a stroke. After four days of national mourning, Stalin was given a state funeral and then buried in Lenin's Mausoleum on 9 March. Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrentiy Beria were in charge of organizing the funeral.
Stalin Statue (Berlin)
Stalin died in 1953. On the day of his interment, March 9, the monument was the destination of a funeral march in East Berlin which lasted over seven hours. The deposition of flowers and wreaths, flags draped with black crepe, and flags flown at half-mast on public buildings were intended to express the regard of the German population for the "Genius of Humanity", the "best friend of the German people" and the "brilliant leader of the world peace camp". On the day after Stalin's death, minutes of silence were organized in his memory in the schools.