and was promoted to Colonel General for his success in breaking through German lines in the Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive. After conquering Chișinău in August 1944, the Belorussian and Ukrainian Fronts began their march on Berlin. Commander of Berlin During the Battle of Berlin, Berzarin's 5th Shock Army reached the eastern outskirts of Berlin on 21 April 1945, making them the first Soviet Army to do so. On 24 April, he was appointed commander of the city by Marshal Zhukov, in an echo of the Tsarist tradition of rewarding the first commander to enter a city with command over it. By his "Order No. 1" on 28 April, Berzarin assumed all governmental power. He worked to re-establish order in the ruined German capital, creating a city police force and supplying the population with food, water, gas and electricity, as well as re-opening schools and theatres. Berzarin was responsible for the looting of many art treasures from Berlin, most notably those stored in the Zoo Tower. On 17 May, he appointed non-partisan Arthur Werner the first post-war Mayor of Berlin presiding over a civil city government. On 16 June 1945, after only 55 days in office, he was killed in a motorcycle accident when he collided with a truck convoy near his office in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde, aged 41. Rumors that scattered Nazi Werwolf forces had assassinated him were never established. Berzarin is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Awards and honours Honorary citizenship In 1975 Berzarin posthumously was bestowed honorary citizenship of East Berlin. After German reunification he was formally removed from the roll of honorary citizens by the Senate of Berlin in 1992. Upon a resolution by the Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus parliament, he regained his honorary citizenship in 2003, in view of his merits concerning the supply of the local population. Detractors of the re-awarding claimed that Berzarin was a Stalinist and involved in Soviet war crimes being responsible for the deportation of 47,000 Balts in 1940. These accusations, however, were proven wrong later on, as Berzarin was deployed in Vladivostok at the questioned time. From 1947 until 1991 Petersburger Straße in Berlin-Friedrichshain, a section of the Inner Ring Road, was named Bersarinstraße in his honour, the Bersarinplatz roundabout bears his name up to today. In April 2005, a road bridge in Berlin-Marzahn was named after Berzarin, in the area where his army reached the Berlin city limits in 1945. A birch