VE Day
On May 8th, 1945, Winston Churchill took to the radio to tell the British public that almost six years of war were ended.
May 8 1945
King George VI 1936-1952
Front page of ‘Stars and Stripes’ (Paris edition), May 8th, 1945.
US Department of Defense, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
A Page from Stars and Stripes, the Paris edition, for May 8th, 1945. In distinguishing the Western Allies from Russia, the editors emphasised that Germany’s surrender was complete. On April 28th, Churchill noted that according to reports, Himmler had offered to surrender, but to Britain and the USA only — war with the USSR would go on. Another scaled back surrender was likewise rebuffed on May 3rd. Only a complete capitulation to all those whom the Germans had wronged was acceptable to Montgomery and his superiors, and their sense of justice was rewarded within days.
Introduction
VE Day is Victory in Europe Day, the commemoration of Germany’s surrender at the end of the Second World War. It is kept to this day (though with less and less pomp as each year goes by) on May 8th. The passage below collects a few of the more significant dates in the months that led up to the unconditional surrender signed at Berlin on that day (more or less) in 1945.
IN August 1943, the German assault on Russia that had begun with such confidence two years earlier faltered. By the Spring of 1944, troops of the USSR had cleared their own land of invaders and were pressing westwards.* On June 6th, 1944, the British and Americans began the Normandy Landings that overwhelmed Germany’s western front.* In January 1945, the Russians took Warsaw; on April 13th they captured Vienna; and on April 21st they reached the suburbs of Berlin. Russian and US Forces met and shook hands at Torgau on the River Elbe on April 25th, 1945.
Germany’s grip on Europe was being prised loose. Head of the collaborationist French Government in Vichy, Marshal Pétain, entered free French territory on April 26th and was arrested. Italian leader Benito Mussolini was captured and shot by partisans on April 28th, prompting the German armies in Italy to sue for peace. Despair spread to the German leadership, and on April 30th, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in Berlin. His anointed successor was Admiral Dönitz: Hermann Göring had wanted the job, but Hitler had instantly fired him for brazenly proposing it. In a broadcast on May 1st, Dönitz declared that his task now was “to save German people from destruction by Bolshevists”. But the Red Army had already entered the Reichstag, and the city was surrendered to them the following day, May 2nd.
* See The Normandy Landings.
* See an appreciation of Russia’s Heroic Stand from 1946.
