How News Of The German Surrender Spread Around The World
On 8 May, 1945, amid the rubble of Berlin, news from London that the war was over filtered through on the radio. Red Army soldiers hunted for alcohol, female soldiers washed their clothes - an almighty party was being planned.
But one woman did not celebrate that day. Elena Rzhevskaya, a young Soviet interpreter, spent the evening too nervous to let her hair down.
Just a couple of days earlier she had been entrusted with a horrendous secret: the shattered jawbone of Hitler, rescued from the ruins of his bunker after his staff burnt his body.
‘Only two officers knew what I was carrying and I had to keep my tongue,' she revealed years later. The relic, later taken back to Moscow and examined to ensure it matched Hitler's dental records, was kept in a small satin-lined wooden box.
Berlin: Soviet soldiers raise their flag on the Reichstag with the German surrender imminent
As Soviet soldiers in Berlin's streets let off ammunition into the night sky, Rzhevskaya poured wine for her colleagues with one hand while clamping the little box to her side with the other.
‘Can you imagine how it felt? A young woman like me who had travelled the long road from Moscow to Berlin; to stand there and hear that announcement of surrender, knowing that I held in my hands Hitler's remains. For me it was a moment of immense solemnity and emotion; it was victory.'
It was not until 10.43pm, Berlin time, on 8 May, that the war was officially over in Europe - hours after Churchill had taken cheers on the balcony of the Ministry Of Health. That was when the final surrender was signed after endless wrangling between the Allies as to the correct procedure.
RELATED ARTICLES
Previous
1
Next
'Makes you proud to be British:' Duchess of Cornwall wishes... Captain Tom Moore the TV star: Former Army officer who's...
Share this article
Share
The end had been inevitable since Hitler shot himself on 30 April and the last pockets of resistance in Berlin fell to Soviet forces on 2 May. Field Marshal Montgomery took the surrender of German forces in north-west Germany, Holland and Denmark on 4 May.
The unconditional surrender of all German forces took place in the early hours of 7 May in the presence of General Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, at his headquarters in Reims, northern France.
Elena Rzhevskaya, pictured, a young Soviet interpreter, spent the evening too nervous to let her hair down. Just a couple of days earlier she had been entrusted with a horrendous secret: the shattered jawbone of Hitler, rescued from the ruins of his bunker after his staff burnt his body
One of those witnessing the momentous event - and kynghidongduong.vn thus one of the first Brits to celebrate victory in Europe - was Susan Hibbert, a secretary for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force.
She'd spent the previous 24 hours typing various versions of the surrender, and once the Germans, led by General Jodl, left the room, those remaining celebrated quietly.
‘We had champagne but we didn't have any glasses so we had to drink it out of Army mess tins. We passed them round and had a few sips,' she says.
‘It was wonderful to be part of it but we were exhausted, all I and the other secretaries wanted to do was go to bed. Then I was asked to do one more job. I had to type the signal informing the War Office in London that the war in Europe was over.'
That most momentous message simply read: ‘The mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 02.41, local time, May 7th, 1945.' The war was over. VE Day would be celebrated the following day.
This should have been the end. But Joseph Stalin insisted a show be put on in Berlin on 8 May too. So senior Allied commanders flew in during the morning and the surrender was signed once again, this time by Field Marshal Keitel, the German chief of the armed forces. The Russians were represented by General Georgy Zhukov, their most famous soldier.
Paris: US troops at the Arc de Triomphe. Fernand Picard, a Parisian engineer, recalled plunging into the Paris crowd, which were drunk on the joy of victory
Keitel ostentatiously removed his glove to sign the document, and when he left the room, he arrogantly saluted the Allies with his field marshal's baton.
Only then could Zhukov and the British representative, Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder, allow themselves to smile. The alcohol started to flow and Zhukov was seen doing the Russkaya folk dance for his generals.
It was just one of the memorable scenes in an astonishing day that saw celebrations around the world from New York to New Zealand.
Elsewhere in Germany, soldiers from the 7th Armoured Division, tour shangrila the Desert Rats, celebrated in Hamburg with a church parade followed by rum punch drunk beside bonfires on which swastikas were burned.
News soon penetrated prisoner of war camps. At Stalag IV-C in the Sudetenland, where Corporal Bert Ruffle of the 1st Battalion, Rifle Brigade, had been a PoW since Dunkirk in May 1940, a man was in the middle of a song in the concert hall when a soldier bounded onto the stage shouting, ‘It's over, lads. The war is finished! We're free!' There was total mayhem.
Pictured: Adolf Hitler just before Germany's defeat
A picture of Hitler was ripped from the wall and replaced with a picture of George VI, a Union Flag was unfurled and the whole hall started singing the National Anthem. That was when Bert started to cry.
In Heemstede in the Netherlands, a neighbour interrupted eight-year-old John Schwartz's piano lesson, bursting in with the news, ‘The war is over!' People got their flags and thronged the streets where pancakes were cooked with flour dropped by the RAF.
Audrey Hepburn, John's cousin who was then 15 and would go on to be a Hollywood star, made herself sick by drinking a whole can of condensed milk. The poor girl was malnourished having spent the end of the war hiding with her mother in her grandparents' cellar.
Across Europe, the joy was tempered by the horrendous losses. Fernand Picard, tour lệ giang a Parisian engineer, wrote in his diary, ‘Today we plunged into the Paris crowd, which is drunk on the joy of victory.
'From the Gare St Lazare to the Place de la Republique, we followed the stream of people flowing along the Boulevard, draped with the Allied colours.'
But Henri Chobaut in Avignon recorded, ‘Of course last night was one great booze- up, but people are jaded from suffering for so long.'
In Rome, Sgt Len Scott in the Royal Army Pay Corps wrote a letter to his wife. He claimed that despite a certain amount of ‘feeble cheering', the celebrations in the Italian capital passed ‘as uneventfully as a church parade'.
On the other side of the Atlantic, VE Day was greeted with joy - 5,000 police were mobilised to control the crowds in Times Square in New York - alongside indifference and sadness.
That was partly because Roosevelt, the president who had dragged the United States into the war, had died three weeks before.
Taking his place, Harry Truman broke the news at a press conference in the Oval Office. ‘Our rejoicing is sobered by a supreme consciousness of the terrible price we have paid to rid the world of Hitler,' the president said, before adding, ‘I only wish Franklin D Roosevelt had lived to witness this day.'
Flags were ordered to stay at half-mast, as they had been since FDR's death.
New York: A kiss in Times Square captured the mood on VE Day. Betty Barr, who was aged 13, said they had nothing except rumours until American planes wrote in the sky 'V - V - V'
His sombre tone, however, could not quell the hundreds of thousands who gathered in downtown Manhattan. Later Truman, also celebrating his 61st birthday, wrote to his mother about the German surrender: ‘Isn't that some birthday present?'
North of the border in Canada, celebrations got completely out of hand. In Halifax the authorities closed all liquor stores and an orgy of looting and smashed glass ensued.
Many on the far side of the world felt in no mood to celebrate. As Churchill said on VE Day, ‘Let us not forget that Japan with all her treachery and greed remains unsubdued.'
In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald posed the question, ‘Since when has it been customary to celebrate victory halfway through a contest?'
Thousands of British soldiers and civilians were interned in the Far East. One was Betty Barr, aged 13, who was held with her family at the Lunghua camp for over two years.
‘We had nothing except rumours that must have come from secret radios,' Betty said. ‘And then in May 1945 we saw American planes in the sky writing "V - V - V" so we knew Germany had been defeated.'
It would not be until 14 August, after nuclear bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that Japan would surrender. For many British in Asia it was to be a long wait. But at least the end was in sight.