“Stalin retorted in displeasure that Soviet troops were still fighting Victory celebrations, Stalin wrote, could not begin in the Soviet Union until May 9.”Įurope is experiencing one of its most dangerous moments since then, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and threats from the Kremlin that it could resort to its nuclear arsenal, while Russian leaders toy with the idea that a third world war could break out. “Churchill cabled Stalin to explain that, since crowds were already gathering in London to celebrate, Victory in Europe Day celebrations in Britain would take place on May 8, as they did in the United States,” writes Antony Beevor in his book The Second World War. That is why Russia commemorates its victory in the so-called Great Patriotic War on Monday, while the rest of the allied countries celebrated it on Sunday.
In fact, Stalin demanded that a second surrender be signed in Berlin before Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov, which did not take effect until May 9. The lack of trust among the countries that had defeated Nazism was already very high at that time, so much so that they could not even agree on the moment in which the end of the war should be celebrated. At that time, World War II officially ended in Europe in Asia, Japan did not surrender until August.
It would take effect at 11.01 pm on May 8. General Alfred Jodl, who would end up being convicted at Nuremberg and executed in 1946, signed the unconditional surrender of Germany to the Allies in the French city of Rheims in the early hours of May 7, 1945.
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