VE Day: The Silence After Six Years
On May 8, 1945, the guns in Europe fell silent and millions flooded the streets to celebrate the end of the war they had lived through.
WOW Score
With Berlin fallen and Hitler dead, Germany signed unconditional surrender. May 8 was declared Victory in Europe Day across the Allied nations.
Cities erupted in celebration even as they reckoned with the devastation. In London, crowds thronged Buckingham Palace; in New York, Times Square filled.
The relief was immense, but sober the Pacific war continued, and the full scale of the Holocaust was only beginning to be understood.
"Churchill told the crowds they could say they were the masters of their fate. For one day, a shattered continent simply rejoiced."
Victory in Europe ended the Nazi Reich and freed occupied peoples, but left a continent in ruins and a war still raging in the Pacific. VE Day marked both triumph and the beginning of reconstruction and the Cold War divide.
The Full Story
The Surrender
After Hitler's suicide and the Battle of Berlin, the new German leadership capitulated. The instrument of surrender was signed in Reims and Berlin.
A Bittersweet Joy
Celebrations mixed elation with grief for the dead and missing. Many families still awaited news of loved ones, and the war in Asia went on.
The Day After
VE Day was a beginning as much as an end: of occupation, of trials, of rebuilding, and of the new division of Europe between East and West.