Victory in Europe: proclamation to-day8 May 1945
The war in Europe has ended with Germany’s unconditional surrender. Victory will be announced officially by the Prime Minister in a broadcast at three o’clock this afternoon and the King with broadcast at 9 pm.
To-day will be regarded as VE Day, and both to-day and to-morrow will be public holidays.
Explanation of the delay in making the official announcement lies in the importance attached to a simultaneous announcement in London, Washington and Moscow. The first news of the surrender came from German sources. At 2 pm yesterday the Danish radio announced that the German forces in Norway had capitulated and at 2.30 the German Foreign Minister, Count von Krosigk, announced the “unconditional surrender of all fighting German troops.”
Nations rejoice at victory
8 May 1945
Scenes of rejoicing at the United Nations’ victory over Germany were last night reported from many countries.
Rome: bells rang
The great bells of St Peter’s and those of a hundred other Rome churches rang out in jubilation soon after the news that the European war had ended reached the city. Sirens, which had last were heard as a warning of the approach of Allied ‘planes, also sounded for ten minutes.
Berne: two alerts
In Switzerland, Allied flags were unfurled and crowds jammed the streets of Geneva to celebrate VE Day, but at Berne, where two air raids sounded yesterday, demonstrations were withheld until the official announcement is made.
Brussels: high spirits
At first people were quietly jubilant, but along the sunlit boulevards, where hundred of British and American soldiers mixed joyously with the crowd, spirits rose to a high pitch.
Sweden: King’s hope
King Gustav of Sweden expressed “warmest congratulations to Denmark and Norway now that our Nordic neighbours have one again become free and independent nations.” A second-floor restaurant in Stockholm last night hung six magnums of champagne out of the windows on ropes for passers-by to help themselves.
Dublin: “battle” of flags
About 3pm passers-by in the centre of the city were surprised to see students of Trinity College hoisting the Union Jack and the Red Flag over the main entrance to the university.
Paris bewildered
Shortly before six o’clock the newspapers began to come out announcing Donitz had capitulated. The sirens did not sound, however, and the crowd was puzzled, not knowing whether to believe the news.
VE Day, The Guardian, 8 May 1945.
Editorial: First light
8 May 1945
If peace be indivisible, this is not peace. Even at this moment we dare not forget that war still rages over a quarter of the globe, that British, Americans, and Chinese are being wounded or killed every hour of the day, and that many of the men who have won this victory in Europe will have again to screw their courage to the sticking-point and risk their lives in the Far East. And that is not an easy thing to do. Yet when all is said it remains a moment of immense deliverance. It is not only that for the first time for five and a half long years Europe no longer hears the sound of guns, and our ships can sail Western waters without fear of mine or submarine. It is not only that never again need women in London – or Berlin – start at the sound of the telephone because they fear the siren. It is rather the knowledge that children are playing on swings in the camp at Belsen and that all over Europe the slave workers of Germany, the prisoners, and the persecuted are trudging homewards, weary, broken, but free. We have solved nothing. We are no nearer the Golden Age. But at least we have stopped the onrush of evil. We have won the right to hope.
Bishop Butler of the Analogy would walk for hours in his garden at Bristol on the darkest nights pondering the narrow line which divides the rational from the insane. On one such occasion he stopped short and exclaimed to his companion
Why might not whole communities and public bodies be seized with fits of insanity as well as individuals! Nothing but this principle, that they are liable to insanity, can account for the major part of those transactions of which we read to history.
It is tempting to-day to explain away the events of the past ten years in some such terms. (Is not Himmler himself reported to have said that Germany was now a vast lunatic asylum?) But this will not do. We may not know the answer to the troubles of mankind but at least we know some of the causes. We have learnt, or should have learn, how dangerous is the spirit of nationalism when harnessed to the fact of power. We have seen what can happen to a great nation which surrenders to its leaders the freedom of thought and speech and conscience. We have ourselves felt the terrible power of destruction which man has acquired through science uncontrolled by wisdom. We have learnt (at what a cost!) that the platitudes of Geneva were the urgent truth, and that the brotherhood of man, the unity of nations, and the indivisibility of peace are facts which we can no longer ignore. But knowledge is not enough. Fear, hatred, nationalism and the like are not rational states but emotions which for a long time will continue to govern human behaviour and which will be fed by the chaos and misery in Europe. Hunger and unemployment are not the best schools for reason and tolerance, but they will have many pupils.
Over wide areas of Europe the bridges are broken; there is no link with the past But the past was not all bad, and we must nurse the embers of our civilisation until it can blaze again as it did after other great European catastrophes – after the age of the Barbarians and the long night of the Dark Ages, and after the Thirty Years War. To-day, the people of Europe want above all peace, security, and a decent living. But they also want again that sense of freedom, progress, and enjoyment of life which gave meaning to the nineteenth century. In spite of all that has happened, in spite of our failures and hesitation, the majority still look to the West. But if we fail them again, if we do not help them by our policy and example, they will turn to the East, accepting the loss of their individual freedom as the price of security and social progress. We must prove that just as liberal democracy is a match for dictatorship in war, so in peace it can provide for its people all and more than is offered by Communism and National Socialism. But it will not be easy. If the war has tried our courage and endurance, the peace will test our wisdom and our faith.
This is an edited extract. Read the article in full.
The War’s Official End
9 May 1945
The war against Germany officially came to an end at one minute past midnight this morning after a day of victory rejoicings by the people of Britain and her allies all over the world.
Mr. Churchill’s broadcast declaration that the war had ended and that we might allow ourselves “a brief period of rejoicing” set the seal on celebrations which were already under way. The victory holiday will continue to-day before, as the King said in his broadcast to the nation last night, “we turn, fortified by success, to deal with our last remaining foe.”t
The last act of the enemy’s surrender was arranged to be staged in Berlin yesterday. The Premier announced that the agreement ratifying the surrender instrument would be signed by Air Chief Marshal Tedder, General Lattre de Tassigny, and Marshal Zhukov for the Allies, and by Field Marshal Keitel and the Army, Navy, and Air Commanders-in-Chief for the Germans.
Mr Churchill leads the crowd in song: floodlit Whitehall scenes
9 May 1945
Buckingham Palace and Whitehall were the centres of the great VE Day demonstrations here to-day. The Royal Family made several appearances on the balcony of the Palace and on one occasion were accompanied by Mr Churchill.
The two Princesses, escorted by Guards officers, left the Palace after nightfall to mingle with the great crowds outside. The Prime Minister twice appeared on the balcony of the Ministry of health, and addressed a large crowd in Whitehall. On his second appearance, made just after 10 30 p.m. when the Houses of Parliament were floodlit, he conducted the singing of “Land of Hope and Glory.”
Manchester’s victory day celebrations
9 May 1945
Manchester entered on its Victory in Europe rejoicings a little diffidently and the day was physically suited to the mood. It was at the outset grey and then, before all the flags in the city and suburbs had blossomed out, the clouds released a soft, warm rain that fell too generously for several hours.
But it did not spoil the decorations and it did not unduly damp the spirits of the young, who were the chief merrymakers and who poured from the outskirts into the city centre in their jubilant though somewhat aimless thousands we in time for the one local ceremony that served as a common focus and cue – the broadcasting of the Premier’s message from before the Town Hall.
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Editorial: past tense
11 May 1945
The war in Europe has ended, but just how or when may well puzzle the historians. The German Government surrendered unconditionally at 2 41 am. (French time) on the morning of Monday, May 7, when General Jodl signed the Act of Military Surrender at Rheims. This Act laid down that all operations would cease at 11 1 pm. (Central European time) on the evening of Tuesday, May 8, although, as Mr Churchill said in his broadcast, “in the interests of saving lives the ceasefire began yesterday (May 7) to be sounded all along the front.” But Mr Churchill also said that “hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight to-night, Tuesday, May 8”… or, to be strictly accurate, on the morning of Wednesday, May 9.
This difference of an hour can, of course, be explained by the difference between Central European time and British time, but it does not alter the curious fact that “officially” the war ended for Germany at 11 pm on Tuesday, May 8, and for us at one minute after midnight on the morning of Wednesday, May 9. If this were all, the matter would be simple enough. It has, however, been further complicated by the Russian insistence on a second ceremony in Berlin. The reason for this is plain. There was nothing wrong with the surrender at Rheims, but the Russians felt that it would impress their defeat more strongly on the German people if the ceremony took place in Berlin, their capital, and if the document were signed by Field Marshal Keitel himself, the Chief of the German High Command and the best known of the Nazi generals. There was also the fact that, surrender or not, the Germans were still resisting the Red Army in Czechoslovakia.
But it was one thing to agree on a second surrender and another to keep the first a secret. The Associated Press has been blamed (a little unjustly) because its correspondent at Supreme Allied Headquarters revealed the news to Britain and America. The correspondent may have been at fault, but it is clear that even if he had not sent the message the news would still have got out.
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The transition period: danger of spheres of influence
From our Diplomatic Correspondent
11 May 194
London, Thursday
While the last German units are laying down their arms all over Europe the rapid drama of events that led to their surrender gives place to a period of waiting upon political and diplomatic developments.
In the liberated countries the change over from war to the transition period should not be technically difficult in theory, though the national and international problems are enormous everywhere. Elaborate preparations have been made for this transition by the Great Powers, the Governments in exile, and their resistance movements at home. The time has now come to apply these plans. In practice the application of the blue-print seems to bring its difficulties, and, even technically, some rather delicate situations have arisen in almost every count, in East and South-east Europe, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia especially.
Future of Trieste
The Government of the new Yugoslavia is violently opposed to the occupation of Trieste by Western Allied troops. It may be that a free port and international status for the town, with Italian sovereignty in cultural questions, would best serve the Allied and European cause, especially during the years of transition. If this cannot be, then there is a case for its return to Italy because an overwhelming majority of its inhabitants are Italian.
With that view even the Italian Communists concur, although their desire for good relations with Yugoslavia is sincere, and they are prepared to make generous concessions. They admit that Yugoslavia has a just claim to the hinterland of Trieste and that a solution must be found in a partition between town and hinterland.
In other zones, Norway, Denmark, and Holland notably, the change over from the war has gone more smoothly. Fears lest Norwegians should be unable alone to handle their transition period have proved to be unfounded and there has been no need to call on Sweden for the peaceful kind of assistance that she was prepared to give. Through effective organisation between the exiled Government and its delegates in Norway, the Norwegian underground movement was able to take over Government departments and local administration from the moment the war ended.
In the conquered territories, Austria especially, difficulties again seem to be in the forefront. Although it was decided at Yalta that the control of Austria should be a joint one, with Russian, British, American, and French zones of occupation and a central Allied Control Commission sitting in Vienna, no British, American, or French representative of the Commission has yet arrived in Austria.
Allies and Germany
Whether or not there can still be a technical explanation of the delay in Austria is comparatively unimportant. The serious question is whether there is to be a united Allied policy in Europe or whether one of the Great Powers is going to prejudice this hope by a one-sided power policy towards Austria and perhaps towards Germany too. Were there disunity of purpose and policy towards Germany, then, of course, the test case for all Allied unity would be lost.
The problem is not one of experiment or compromise but of principle. The way it is handled will decide not only the future of Germany and Austria but whether there is to be real co-operation and agreement between the Allies. Will there be one Austria reorganised under the supervision of one Power and four Germanys with separate lives in the different zones of occupation.
Such a solution would play directly into the hands of the Germans, and there are still amongst them a majority who even in defeat are thinking in terms of power policy alone. It would be not only a solution against the new forces in Europe, but the best guarantee of the continuation of Germany’s imperialist consciousness which would concentrate first on the demarcation lines between the different Germanys.
During the past few weeks there has been a clear and dangerous move towards creating spheres of influence within liberated Allied and conquered enemy territory. Such weight upon Europe would stunt her natural development as a variegated but harmonious whole. All history and not least that of the immediate past has shown that the Continent cannot be dominated by one force or ideology. This was so before Hitler and remains so after him.