As the world celebrates 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany, Victory in Europe Day events this year take place under the shadow of the war in Ukraine and shifting global allegiances. While Emmanuel Macron presides over solemn tributes in Paris, China's Xi Jinping and Brazil’s Lula da Silva travelled to Moscow for Russia’s Victory Day parade – a reminder of the deepening rifts reshaping the post-war world order.
The Nazi surrender did not end World War II because the war against Japan continued in the Far East. However, it was a moment of celebration for the servicemen and women who had battled Adolf Hitler’s army, as well as for people across Europe who had been bombed, invaded and subjugated since the invasion of Poland in 1939.
When the surrender was announced, people poured into the streets of London, New York and Paris to celebrate in what the BBC described at the time as a “mood of thanksgiving".
In France, the day is known as 8 mai 1945, and is a public holiday. Later on Thursday French President Emmanuel Macron was to preside over a wreath-laying ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe.
The commemoration will also see a parade of veterans' associations, and music performed by military bands from France, the UK, Canada, the US, Cameroon and Germany.
UK kicks off party to mark 80 years since end of WWII
When is VE Day?
While most Western countries celebrate the anniversary on 8 May, General Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, actually accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany at 2:41am local time on 7 May in a ceremony at Reims, in eastern France.
Although the news had leaked by that evening, the official announcement was delayed until the following day. The United States, the United Kingdom and France were trying to work out differences with the Soviet Union, which felt the surrender did not recognise the sacrifices its troops had made in securing victory.
A revised surrender agreement was signed around midnight on 8 May in Berlin, satisfying Soviet concerns. Russia celebrates what it calls Victory Day on 9 May, as do many former Soviet states.
This year, Russian President Vladimir Putin has unilaterally ordered a three-day truce with Ukraine – which he called a "humanitarian" gesture – from Thursday, to coincide with Russia's Victory Day parade on Friday.
The Kremlin said the move would test Kyiv's readiness for peace, but Ukraine has dismissed it as theatrics and instead called for a 30-day ceasefire.
It was not clear whether either side was observing the ceasefire, even with world leaders – including China's Xi Jinping, Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Serbia's Aleksandar Vucic – in Moscow for the Victory Day commemorations.
It appeared relatively quiet overnight, although Ukraine's military said early on Thursday that Russian forces had launched air strikes in the eastern Sumy region. Kyiv did not report any damage or casualties.
The Netherlands celebrates Liberation Day on 5 May, marking the 80th anniversary of its liberation by Allied troops from Nazi occupation, after a brutal five-year occupation. Similarly, Italy celebrates what it too calls Liberation Day on 25 April.
The US has not historically celebrated VE Day, as the country remained at war with Japan for several months after the conflict came to an end in Europe.
In Berlin, events on 8 May centre on commemoration of those who fought against Nazism as members of the German resistance.
The road to victory
By the time France fell to the Nazi Blitzkrieg on 25 June, 1940, Hitler’s forces controlled most of Europe and were threatening to invade Britain.
But the war in Europe began to turn in early 1942, when the Soviet Red Army defeated German forces attempting to take Moscow. Hitler suffered another crushing defeat in February 1943, when German forces surrendered at the Battle of Stalingrad.
Invading the Soviet Union was “"probably not Hitler’s best idea," said Rob Citino, distinguished fellow at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans. “They were counterpunched in front of Moscow, and in a war [in which] the Germans had taken very few casualties up to now, they suddenly had added a million and they never recovered from it.”
Then in 1944 the Western Allies and the Soviet Union launched twin offensives that forced Germany to fight for survival on two fronts. The Allies began their march across Europe with the D-Day landings in northern France on June 6, 1944. Two weeks later, the Soviets began their push toward Berlin.
France pushes for Unesco status for D-Day beaches and Carcassonne fortresses
As 1944 turned to 1945, "victory [was] all but certain," Citino said. "But something else is certain: there's still a lot of soldiers, a lot of military personnel, on both sides who are going to die." The Red Army alone lost around 3 million soldiers in 1945 – or about 70,000 a day – he estimated.
Soviet forces began their assault on Berlin on 16 April, 1945, while the Allies were still fighting their way across western Germany.
With the city in ruins and the Red Army advancing street by street, Hitler retreated to his bunker under the Reich Chancellery, where he died by suicide on 30 April.
The first surrender had come on April 29 at the Palace of Caserta, outside Naples, where British Field Marshal Harold Alexander accepted the surrender of German and Italian forces in Italy and western Austria. Five days later, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery accepted the surrender of German forces in northwestern Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands at Luneberg Heath, south of Hamburg.
Finally, there was the unconditional surrender of all Nazi forces in Europe, which was signed first at Reims and again in Berlin.
A bittersweet celebration
"[VE Day] was just a big letting off of steam and a massive relief for so many people," said Dan Ellin, a historian at the University of Lincoln in England. "But then, of course, for others, there wasn’t an awful lot to celebrate. For thousands of people, the victory was tinged with sadness because for them, their loved ones were not going to come home."
The world also had to confront the reality of the Holocaust, after the advancing Allied armies had uncovered the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps where millions of Jews had been slaughtered.
Roma push France to recognise Holocaust-era genocide
Furthermore, VE Day did not bring with it the end of the war. The Japanese were still fighting ferociously to defend their home against any invasion, and many Allied soldiers expected that they would be deployed to the Far East as soon as the war in Europe ended.
"I bet you every single Allied soldier in Europe, after toasting victory in Europe, they sat down and said, ‘I’m going to Japan. This isn’t over yet'," Citino said.
In the end, most were spared another fight when Japan surrendered on 2 August, after the US dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing an estimated 214,000 people.
Voices of the veterans
This year’s VE Day events have taken on increased significance because they are likely to be the last major commemoration to include significant numbers of Second World War veterans.
With even the youngest of those men and women approaching their 100th birthdays, many have said they feel impelled to tell their stories and honour their fallen comrades.
Mervyn Kersh, who is 100, said VE Day should be a reminder to today’s leaders that they must stand up to bullies and despots, wherever they may be. "You can’t have peace without strength," he said. "It’s no good just remembering. You’ve got to do something."
Thousands of UK children write to WWII veterans ahead of VE Day
Renée Guette, 98, and 97-year-old Andrée Dupont both joined the French resistance in 1943, aged 16. Dupont became a liaison officer, transporting messages and weapons, using only her bicycle. Guette was a postal worker who smuggled ration coupons and messages to resistance fighters.
In April 1944, Dupont was arrested along with other members of her village's resistance network, including her father and her aunt. "I was folding the laundry at around 10 at night. I heard knocking on the doors and knew what was happening right away," she remembered.
Guette was caught four days later by a French agent of the Gestapo. "He told me, 'So, a young girl from a good family who took a turn for the worse,'" Guette recalled. "And I told him that he hadn't turned out any better. And he slapped me."
The two teenagers met at a prison in Romainville close to Paris. They heard the news about D-Day, but the glimmer of hope it offered was soon crushed.
"We thought we were saved. But the Germans needed us to work in the war factories," explained Guette. Both girls were transferred to the HASAG Leipzig sub-camp linked to the Buchenwald concentration camp. It held 5,000 women forced to manufacture weapons.
France, Germany to cooperate more closely on defence
By mid-April 1945, weeks before the Allies accepted Germany's surrender, the Nazis evacuated the Leipzig camp, and inmates began the so-called "death marches" – intended to keep concentration camp prisoners out of Allied hands.
Guette spoke of walking all day and night with bloody feet, surviving on rapeseed and potatoes. She recalled washing for the first time in months in the Elbe river – and a bullet whizzing past her left ear during fighting between German and American soldiers.
When victory in Europe was formally declared, the pair found themselves back in France. Guette headed home on the train, while Dupont went to Paris, where she found her mother. Her father eventually returned from the camps, but her aunt had been killed in the gas chambers.
Alan Kennett, 100, a British army mechanic who worked on Spitfire planes, landed in northern France on D-Day. He said he was proud to represent the veterans.
"I just remember those that didn’t come back. That’s the thing that sticks in my mind," he said. "I’m lucky. I got out. There’s a lot that didn’t, believe me. Luck of the draw. It shouldn’t be forgotten."
(with newswires)
