When Tokyo heard that Nazi Germany had cried
uncle and surrendered to the Allies on May 8, 1945, the Imperial Japanese spin-machine digested the news and simply decided that it was a non-event.
Articles about the daily hardships in post-war Germany can be read by clicking here.
The attached article is an eye-witness account of the World War II surrender proceedings in Reims, France in the early days of May, 1945. Written in the patois of the 1940s American soldier (which sounded a good deal like the movies of the time), this article describes the goings-on that day by members of the U.S. Army's 201st Military Police Company, who were not impressed in the least by the likes of German General Gustav Jodl or his naval counterpart, Admiral Hans von Friedeburg.
Surrender or not, the Germans continued killing their enemies for hours after their capitulation - you can read about that here
Click here to read how the Army intended to transfer men from the ETO to the Pacific Theater.
"New Yorkers milled around the Wall Street district and Times Square, and over a loudspeaker Mayor Fiorlello H. LaGuardia told them to behave themselves..."
Click here to read about the VJ-Day celebrations around the world.
"In the end, the German soldier faced the greatest ignominy which any soldier can receive. His own people discredited and betrayed him. The people knew the war was lost. They knew too that fanatical resistance meant that their homes and their fields were lost, too. Many an American soldier owes his life (though from the long range point of view, not his gratitude) to the very people who heiled Hitler into power. They would stool-pigeon on those SS troops who remained behind our lines to carry out guerrilla warfare."
Click here to read about the post-war trial of Norway's Quisling.
Assorted reports from various European capitols concerning the capitulation of Hitler's Germany:
"Finally, when Paris believed the news, it was just a big-city celebration --crowds and singing and cheers and lots of cognac and girls. People stopped work and airplanes of all the Allied forces buzzed the Champs Elysees. Pvt. Ernest Kuhn of Chicago listened to the news come over the radio at the 108th General Hospital. He had just been liberated after five months in a Nazi PW camp and he still had some shrapnel in his throat. "I listened to Churchill talk", he said, "and I kept saying to myself, 'I'm still alive. The war is over and I'm still alive' I thought of all the guys in the 28th Division Band with me who were dead now. We used to be a pretty good band."
Click here to read how the Army intended to transfer men from the ETO to the Pacific Theater.
A report from Portland, Oregon, Houston, Texas, Los Angeles and San Francisco, California as to how those cities celebrated the surrender of Germany in May of 1945.
A report from Boston, Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Minneapolis, St Louis and Springfield (Mass.) as to how VE-Day was celebrated (or not) in these cities:
"To get an over-all view of VE-day in America, Yank asked civilian newspapermen and staff writers in various parts of the country to send an eye-witness reports. From these OPs the reports were much the same. Dallas was quiet, Des Moines was sober, Seattle was calm, Boston was staid."
Eyewitness accounts of all the excitement that was V.E. Day in Paris:
"On the Champs Elysees they were singing 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary,' and it was a long way even the few blocks from Fouquet's restaurant to the Arc de Triomphe if you tried to walk up the Champs on VE-Day in Paris. From one side of the broad and beautiful avenue to the other, all the way to the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe in the Place de l'Etoile, there was hardly any place to breathe and no place at all to move. That was the way it was in the Place l'Opera and the Place de la Republique and all the other famous spots and in a lot of obscure little side streets that nobody but Parisians know."
Click here to read about the liberation of Paris.
"Hundreds of GIs were gathered at the Rainbow Corner Red Cross Club in Piccadilly when bundles of "Stars and Stripes" extras were tossed out free. The paper bore a huge banner headline, 'Germany Quits!' and contained the official Ministry of Information announcement which all England had just heard on the air."
"News of the Reich's final and complete surrender found Piccadilly, Marble Arch and other popular intersections jammed with people. At first incredulous, the cautious British worked up to a pitch of demonstrative joy..."
Click here to read about VJ-Day in London.
The citizens of Philadelphia took the news calmly. There were isolated pockets of tremendous joy, but many were wary because they had celebrated the event the previous month when a false rumor had circulated.
"Many soldiers and sailors were gathered in small groups in Market, Walnut and Chestnut streets. One said: 'Even if it's true, it doesn't mean a thing. It's over for us when we get out of this uniform.'"
An eyewitness account accompanied by a wonderful Howard Brodie sketch describing the enthusiastic rush enjoyed by all the wounded GIs in the dayroom at the 108th General Hospital in London:
"The war was over, and I was still alive. And I thought of all the boys in the 28th Division band who were with me in the Ardennes who are dead now."
Click here to read a short notice about how Imperial Japan took the news of Germany's surrender.
Attached is a page from the "Diary of Participation in W.W. II" which was compiled by the editors of THINK MAGAZINE; this page contains the printable text of a portion of
President Harry Truman's VE-Day Proclamation of May 8, 1945:
"The Allied armies, through sacrifice and devotion and with God's help, have won from Germany a final and unconditional surrender. The Western world has been freed of the evil forces which for five years and longer have imprisoned the bodies and broken the lives of millions upon millions of free-born men... Much remains to be done. The victory won in the West must now be won in the East..."
This report was filed shortly after the Soviet - U.S. link-up on the River Elbe and one week from the official Nazi surrender on May 8, 1945. The Red Army was in Berlin and the British and Americans were
"pressing relentlessly from all points of the compass on the Nazi Alpine redoubt. A second a third meeting between the Western and Easter Allies may have already taken place... To the south, General George S. Patton's tank columns, sweeping across the Austrian frontier, were in field radio contact with the Soviets."
Click here to read about the Soviet - U.S. link-up on the Elbe.
For reasons unknown, the men who ran the Allied war effort chose to ignore the fact that it was German Admiral Karl Doenitz who issued the order that German U-boats were to machinegun all Allied lifeboats after sinking their vessels. The attached journalist was right in pointing out that Doenitz was whitewashed. But it didn't stick - he was found guilty at Nuremburg and served 12 years.
When Hitler blew his brains out (April 30, 1945), what was left of the baton was passed to the Nazi fleet admiral, Karl Doenitz (1891 - 1980). This article points out that the admiral was a predictable choice for Hitler to make and no one at SHAEF was surprised.
It is our wish to successfully give utterance to the true feelings from each era that we are able to represent on this website; for this reason, we posted the attached column by Max Lerner (1902 - 1992), in which he expresses his excitement as to how great it was to be alive in one of the Allied nations at the time of Hitler's demise.
"The two big fascist leaders in whose shadow our whole generation has lived - Mussolini and Hitler - are now lying dead amidst the ruins of their empires, one following the other in the space of a few days...We are not only the anvil. We are the hammer. To know that is to grow in stature in a great time."
