Victory in Europe Day — known as V-E Day or VE Day — was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (in Commonwealth countries, 7 May 1945) to mark the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, thus ending the war in Europe. The formal surrender of the occupying German forces in the Channel Islands was not until 9 May 1945. On 30 April Hitler committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin, and so the surrender of Germany was authorized by his successor, President of Germany Karl Dönitz. The administration headed by Dönitz was known as the Flensburg government. The act of military surrender was signed on 7 May in Reims, France, and on 8 May in Berlin, Germany.
Read more about Victory In Europe Day: Celebrations, Soviet Victory Day, Commemorative Public Holidays
Famous quotes containing the words victory, europe and/or day:
“I have a dream: in my dream ... Aretha Franklin, in her fabulous black-lipstick “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” outfit, leaps from her seat at Maxim’s and, shouting “Think!,” blasts Lacan, Derrida and Foucault like dishrags against the wall, then leads thousands of freed academic white slaves in a victory parade down the Champs-Elysées.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now.... [The Nazis] have made it clear that not only do they intend to dominate all life and thought in their own country, but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“The guided missiles,
The black-and-white angels follow each quirk and jink of
The evasive sheep, play grandmother’s-steps behind them,
Freeze to the ground, or leap to head off a straggler”
—Cecil Day Lewis (1904–1972)