Celebrating The End of War
Adolf Hitler was dead. Germany was surrendering. The war was over — at least, it was in Europe.
Despite six years of military action, entire nations laid to waste and millions of soldiers, sailors and civilians dead, people around the world took a day — May 8, 1945, 80 years ago today — to celebrate.
The End Game in Europe Plays Out
After making landfall on Normandy 10 months before, allied forces are closing in on Berlin from the west. Soviet troops are battling their way in from the east.
APRIL 21
Armored Soviet units move into the northern suburbs of Berlin. It is clear Germany doesn’t have much fight left in it.
APRIL 24
With German opposition on the verge of collapse, Adolf Hitler’s military commander-in-chief, Heinrich Himmler, contacts the head of the Swedish Red Cross and asks for assistance in arranging a meeting with U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to discuss terms of surrender to U.S. forces. Himmler’s aim, evidently, is to sour relations among the allies — specifically, the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
APRIL 25
American and Soviet forces linked up in Torgau, 85 miles south of Berlin. Berlin is now completely surrounded, trapping 30,000 German soldiers and more than 2 million civilians.
APRIL 27
Himmler receives a reply to his offer of surrender from U.S. officials: They decline, saying any surrender must apply across all fronts. In Milan, Italy, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, trying to flee the country, is captured by Italian partisans.
APRIL 28
Mussolini and his associates are executed and their bodies hung by their feet from the roof of a service station. Hitler listens to a BBC broadcast a report about Himmler’s surrender offer, flies into a rage and orders Himmler’s arrest and removal from his command.
APRIL 30
Soviet troops storm the Reichstag, the seat of government. The building is just 440 yards from the command bunker where Hitler and his partner, Eva Braun, kill themselves. Their bodies are burned to keep them from falling into Allied hands.
MAY 2
Most fighting comes to an end in Berlin as the city’s German military commander surrenders to the Soviet army. Nearly a million Axis troops in Italy and southern Austria surrender unconditionally.
MAY 4
German troops in Denmark and the Netherlands surrender.
MAY 5
The remaining German troops in Austria surrender. German Naval commander Karl Dönitz orders all U-boats to cease fighting and return to their bases.
MAY 7
At Allied headquarters in Reims, France, Gen. Alfred Jodl signs papers for an unconditional surrender of all German forces. German leaders then tell troops they must cease operations by 11:01 that evening. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin insists the signing be repeated the next day in Berlin.
German army chief of staff Gen. Alfred Jodl signs Germany’s unconditional surrender at Allied military headquarters in Reims, France, on May 7, 1945. Source: FDR Presidential Library & Museum
MAY 8
The Western allies celebrate V-E day. The Soviets will celebrate victory on the 9th.
At the insistence of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, German Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel signs a second surrender, an “Act of Military Surrender” with a few “insignificant” changes from the original, in Berlin on May 8. Source: Natoinal Archives
MAY 13
The final German units still fighting in Czechoslovakia surrender. The war in Europe is finally over.
The Devastating Cost of World War II
World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. The estimated 72.6 million people killed represented about 3% of the global population in 1940. These figures include at least 3 million Jews who died in German concentration camps and about 5 million soldiers who died while prisoners of war.
Numerous atrocities were conducted against Chinese civilians by the Japanese military. One of the most horrific was the massacre in Nanjing, where up to 300,000 civilians and prisoners of war were killed between December 1937 and January 1938.
Civilian deaths in the Soviet Union were caused by starvation and disease during episodes such as the siege of Leningrad. In addition, invading German troops committed mass killings and forced Soviet citizens to work in munitions factories.
For The U.S., The War in The Pacific Went on
The announcement of the German surrender led to celebrations in the United Kingdom, North America and the Soviet Union.
Crowds massed in Trafalgar Square and in front of Buckingham Palace, where King George VI, his family and Prime Minister Winston Churchill waved from the palace balcony. Later that evening, princesses Margaret and Elizabeth — the latter would be queen one day — were permitted to wander through celebrating crowds in the streets of London.
Celebrations in the U.S. were subdued slightly, given that flags were still at half-staff following the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12. Plus, President Harry Truman reminded the public, the U.S. was still at war with Japan in the Pacific. Fighting there wouldn’t end for another three months.
Once the initial celebrations had ended, it was time to go back to work, returning soldiers to the U.S. — or, in some cases, shipping them halfway around the world to the Pacific theater.
The Navy had 300 cargo “Liberty” ships converted into troop transports. Starting in June, more than 400,000 American GIs a month would be shipped home in what the military called Operation Magic Carpet.
On return trips to Europe, the ships carried a half-million German and Italian prisoners of war back to Europe.
The British passenger liner RMS Queen Mary brought 15,740 U.S. troops to New York City in July 1943. Source: U.S. Navy