The attached article is an eye-witness account of the World War II surrender proceedings in Reims, France in the early days of May, 1945. Written in the patois of the 1940s American soldier (which sounded a good deal like the movies of the time), this article describes the goings-on that day by members of the U.S. Army's 201st Military Police Company, who were not impressed in the least by the likes of German General Gustav Jodl or his naval counterpart, Admiral Hans von Friedeburg.
Surrender or not, the Germans continued killing their enemies for hours after their capitulation - you can read about that here
Click here to read how the Army intended to transfer men from the ETO to the Pacific Theater.
It is our wish to successfully give utterance to the true feelings from each era that we are able to represent on this website; for this reason, we posted the attached column by Max Lerner (1902 - 1992), in which he expresses his excitement as to how great it was to be alive in one of the Allied nations at the time of Hitler's demise.
"The two big fascist leaders in whose shadow our whole generation has lived - Mussolini and Hitler - are now lying dead amidst the ruins of their empires, one following the other in the space of a few days...We are not only the anvil. We are the hammer. To know that is to grow in stature in a great time." This report was filed shortly after the Soviet - U.S. link-up on the River Elbe and one week from the official Nazi surrender on May 8, 1945. The Red Army was in Berlin and the British and Americans were
"pressing relentlessly from all points of the compass on the Nazi Alpine redoubt. A second a third meeting between the Western and Easter Allies may have already taken place... To the south, General George S. Patton's tank columns, sweeping across the Austrian frontier, were in field radio contact with the Soviets."
Click here to read about the Soviet - U.S. link-up on the Elbe. When Tokyo heard that Nazi Germany had cried uncle and surrendered to the Allies on May 8, 1945, the Imperial Japanese spin-machine digested the news and simply decided that it was a non-event.
Articles about the daily hardships in post-war Germany can be read by clicking here.
"In the end, the German soldier faced the greatest ignominy which any soldier can receive. His own people discredited and betrayed him. The people knew the war was lost. They knew too that fanatical resistance meant that their homes and their fields were lost, too. Many an American soldier owes his life (though from the long range point of view, not his gratitude) to the very people who heiled Hitler into power. They would stool-pigeon on those SS troops who remained behind our lines to carry out guerrilla warfare."
Click here to read about the post-war trial of Norway's Quisling.
A report from Boston, Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Minneapolis, St Louis and Springfield (Mass.) as to how VE-Day was celebrated (or not) in these cities: "To get an over-all view of VE-day in America, Yank asked civilian newspapermen and staff writers in various parts of the country to send an eye-witness reports. From these OPs the reports were much the same. Dallas was quiet, Des Moines was sober, Seattle was calm, Boston was staid." | 
