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 in, victory, europe and/or day:
“One point in my public life: I did all I could for the reform of the civil service, for the building up of the South, for a sound currency, etc., etc., but I never forgot my party.... I knew that all good measures would suffer if my Administration was followed by the defeat of my party. Result, a great victory in 1880. Executive and legislature both completely Republican.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Every good cause gained a victory when the Union troops were triumphant. Our final victory was the triumph of religion, of virtue, of knowledge.... During those four years, whatever our motives, whatever our lives, we were fighting on God’s side. We were doing His work. What would this country have been if we had failed?”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“In times like ours, where the growing complexity of life leaves us barely the time to read the newspapers, where the map of Europe has endured profound rearrangements and is perhaps on the brink of enduring yet others, where so many threatening and new problems appear everywhere, you will admit it may be demanded of a writer that he be more than a fine wit who makes us forget in idle and byzantine discussions on the merits of pure form ...”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Our day will come.”
—Slogan of the I.R.A.....