72ND ANNIVERSARY
On this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United
States celebrated Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both
nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe,
put out fl ags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi
war machine.
The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops
throughout Europe fi nally laid down their arms: In Prague,
Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the
latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans con-
siderably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near
Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark—
the German surrender was realized in a fi nal cease-fi re. More
surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern
Germany.
The main concern of many German soldiers was to elude
the grasp of Soviet forces, to keep from being taken prisoner.
About 1 million Germans attempted a mass exodus to the West
when the fi ghting in Czechoslovakia ended, but were stopped
by the Russians and taken captive. The Russians took approx-
imately 2 million prisoners in the period just before and after
the German surrender.
Meanwhile, more than 13,000 British POWs were released
and sent back to Great Britain.
Pockets of German-Soviet confrontation would continue
into the next day. On May 9, the Soviets would lose 600 more
soldiers in Silesia before the Germans fi nally surrendered.
Consequently, V-E Day was not celebrated until the ninth in
Moscow, with a radio broadcast salute from Stalin himself:
“The age-long struggle of the Slav nations… has ended in vic-
tory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over.”
UK remembers the 50th anniversary in 1995
with a Lancaster bomber dropping poppies
in front of Buckingham Palace.
US military policemen read about the German
surrender in the newspaper Stars and Stripes.
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