May 8th of the Year 1945! (VICTORY IN EUROPE!)

V-E Day 1945: The celebration heard ’round the world

By Gerald D. Swick, Historynet

 May 8, 2019

New Yorkers shout their joy at hearing reports of Germany’s unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945. (Fox Photos/Getty Images)

Facts and summary, V-E Day, also written VE Day: V-E Day stands for Victory in Europe Day. In the Soviet Union it was called simply Victory Day and still goes by that name in states of the former USSR. Some early reports in the West also called the day V-Day, but V-E was more accurate, as the war still continued in the Pacific Theater. Today in France the day is called World War II Victory Day.

V-E Day was observed on May 8, 1945, in Great Britain, Western Europe, the United States and Australia, and on May 9 in the Soviet Union and New Zealand.

V-E Day commemorates the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allied forces in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. With their power-mad Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, dead by his own hand, German military leaders signed surrender documents at several locations in Europe on May 7, capitulating to each of their victorious foes. Germany’s partner in fascism, Italy, had switched sides in 1943, though many Italians continued to fight alongside their German comrades in Italy.

Significance of V-E Day

For just over five years and eight months a war had been raging in Europe that began with Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. By the summer of 1941, the military of Germany’s fascist dictator Adolf Hitler had conquered or subdued virtually all of Europe from Spain’s eastern border to the western border of the Soviet Union. Italy, under the control of the fascist Benito Mussolini, was allied with Germany, and the two nations fought against the British (and later the Americans) in North Africa and Italy.

While still at war with Great Britain Hitler invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941, and on December 11 of that year he declared war on the United States of America, to honor a mutual support pact he had signed with Imperial Japan. The “European War” and the war the Japanese had been fighting in Asia and the Southwest Pacific were now a global conflict — the Second World War. Upon entering the war in December 1941, the United States agreed on a “Europe first” strategy: concentrate on defeating Germany, Italy and their satellites rather than focusing the bulk of men and resources on the war in the Pacific.

V-E Day, therefore, marked a major milestone for the Allies but did not end the war — as Allied governments pointedly reminded their citizens. Attention turned to finishing the war against Imperial Japan. Continue reading to see how the news of victory in Europe was received in Allied nations around the world and by front-line troops in Europe and the Asia-Pacific theaters.

May 1945: V-E Day, held to commemorate the official end of Britain’s involvement in World War II, is celebrated by crowds at Trafalgar Square in London on May 8, 1945. (Fred Morley/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

V-E Day 1945 in the British Isles

In London, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill learned of the German surrender at 7:00 a.m. on May 7, but no official announcement was made until 7:40 that evening. The Soviet Union’s premier Josef Stalin wanted to keep to the agreed-upon schedule of holding off on announcements until May 9. Finally, Churchill growled that he was not going to give the Communist leader the satisfaction of holding up the news that was already spreading. (Germany had already informed its people of the surrender.)