​​Memorials at Kienitz​

In the early hours of 31 January 1945, lightly armed advance units of the Red Army reached the Oder River near Kienitz and established a bridgehead to the western bank of the Oder at the ferry crossing and the harbour mill. ​This event came as a complete surprise to the local population. German troops were not stationed in the village. According to Wehrmacht reports, the Soviet Army was still believed to be far to the east. As a result, a bridgehead four kilometres wide and two kilometres deep was quickly established on the west bank. German units were hastily withdrawn from various combat sectors and marched to destroy the bridgehead again.

​The civilian population now also felt the full force of the devastating effects of the war, which they had previously only known from newsreels or reports from soldiers on leave from the front.

​On 1 February 1945, Kienitz harbour was bombed by the German Luftwaffe. Numerous refugees from the eastern provinces of the German Reich, who sought shelter on their barges in the harbour, were killed by the attack of their own air force. The population of Kienitz fled eastwards, against the actual flow of refugees, in order to escape the impending heavy fighting.

​The fighting for the village of Kienitz lasted 76 days before the Soviet Army was finally able to take the village, which was 80% destroyed. The last refugees returned to their hometown in June 1945.

​The small town of Kienitz and its wartime experience embodies all the unimaginable suffering inflicted on people during the war: the destruction of the landscape, the houses, war dead on both sides, hunger, cold, death, flight, expulsion, illness, the tearing apart of families, the loss of loved ones, imprisonment, the destruction of lives and the gnawing uncertainty of what was to come after the end of the war.

​The "T-34 tank" memorial was unveiled in Kienitz on 24 October 1970, made possible by donations from contemporary witnesses of the war. The T-34 is considered the most famous Soviet tank of the Second World War. Between 1940 and 1945, 56,400 tanks are said to have been built. This enormous number contributed significantly to the Soviet Army's victory over the German Wehrmacht in Eastern Europe.

​The stele on the Oder embankment on the way to the former ferry pier symbolises the crossing of the Oder by the Red Army. The metal stele is artistically sparse and extremely impressive. It was inaugurated in 1987.