Today is a day to celebrate…..not some crap about opening the country up….but rather the defeat of the Nazis by the combined forces of the Allies….
Seventy-five years ago today, the Second World War came to an end in Europe. In the early hours of 7 May, Colonel General Albert Jodl signed the unconditional capitulation of the Wehrmacht in Rhimes, France. In the face of the advancing Red Army, Adolf Hitler had committed suicide one week earlier in the Führer bunker in Berlin. All combat came to an end at midnight on 8 May 1945.
The Second World War was the most brutal and bloody conflict in human history. The crimes and cruelties that were perpetrated surpassed anything that humanity could have imagined in its worst nightmares.
World War Two: Summary And Synopsis…….
World War II spanned six long years from 1939 to 1945. The Allied powers, principally The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, defeated the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. The scope of World War II was truly global, and its cost was tremendous.
75 years ago the Allies accepted the total surrender of the Nazi forces in Europe….thus ending what was called World War 2……
The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark—the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany.
The main concern of many German soldiers was to elude the grasp of Soviet forces, to keep from being taken prisoner. About 1 million Germans attempted a mass exodus to the West when the fighting in Czechoslovakia ended, but were stopped by the Russians and taken captive. The Russians took approximately 2 million prisoners in the period just before and after the German surrender.
Meanwhile, more than 13,000 British POWs were released and sent back to Great Britain.
Pockets of German-Soviet confrontation would continue into the next day. On May 9, the Soviets would lose 600 more soldiers in Silesia before the Germans finally surrendered. Consequently, V-E Day was not celebrated until the ninth in Moscow, with a radio broadcast salute from Stalin himself: “The age-long struggle of the Slav nations… has ended in victory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over.”
I salute those remaining members of the US forces for their dedication and loyalty….they were truly the “Greatest Generation”…..and something we may never see again.
Please take a few minutes and offer a silent thank you to those who fought to save the world from tyranny.
“lego ergo scribo”