Germany surrenders (V-E day)

Victory in Europe, V-E Day
After the initial success of the D-Day invasion, the Allies had recaptured France on Aug, 15, 1944, but the war wasn’t over yet.

Allied armies crossed the Belgian border in the north during this time.  Brussels fell to Canadian and British troops early in early September.  Other forces went into the Netherlands and through Luxembourg.  The Allies crossed the German border on September 12, 1944.

Allied armies closed in on Germany from all directions.  At this point, it was highly unlikely that Germany could still win the war.  In late April, the head of the Gestapo (Germany’s secret police) tried to make a peace agreement with Great Britain and the United States.  The Allies demanded that the Germans surrender.  On April 25, 1945, U.S. troops joined forces with the Russian Red Army.  On April 28, the Italian resistance (pro Allied forces) called the Partisans captured and killed Mussolini – he was hated in Italy by many of his own people because his actions and alliance with Germany led to the death of many Italian soldiers.  German forces in Italy surrendered on May 2.

On May 1, 1945, as a ruse, German radio stations announced that Hitler had died while fighting for Berlin against the Russians.  Berlin fell to Russian forces the next day.  Eventually, Allied forces found out that Hitler and his wife had committed suicide on April 30 in a bunker under Berlin and their bodies had been burned by a SS (Special Security and elite military unit of the Nazis who supervised concentration camps and served as Hitler’s bodyguards) officer named Otto Guensche who was also a member of Hitler's inner circle.

On May 2, 1945, Colonel General Alfred Jodl of the German army entered Allied headquarters.  There, he signed the terms of the unconditional surrender of Germany. The world celebrated May 8, 1945 as V-E Day – the day when the world was free of the Nazis’ threat.

World War II in Europe was over.  Only Japan remained defiant.