大象传媒

The war in Europe officially came to an end at midnight on May 8, 1945. The document declairing the surrender of the German forces in Northwestern Europe had been sighned at Montgomery's headquarters on Luneburg Heath on May 4. An earlier surrender document, daited April 29, had already ended the fighting in Italy on May 2.
A final surrender document which covered all the German forces was sighned by Field Marshal Keitel at a ceremony at General Eisenhower's headquarters at Reims in the persence of delegations from Great Britian, France, the Soviet Union and the United States of America.
The killing did not stop immediately,of coarse. In the chaos of the final days of the war and during the first few days of peace, fanatics and victims alike continued battle. In Berlin, small gangs of SS men had roamed the streets looking for soldiers from the regular German army who had thrown
down their weapons and attempted to flee from the advance of the Soviets. Any they caught were hanged and a sighn proclaiming
"I betrayed the Fuhrer!" left around their necks.
Leaving aside the defeated German people, most of whom were more concerned with avoiding the attentions of the Soviet Red Army than with any other consequences of defeat, the end of the war was cause for great festivity. Celebrations broke out in every Allied city that was still standing as people accepted that, in Europe at least, there was to be no more bloodshed.

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