49 Fun Facts About VE Day

How did Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, with their parents' permission, mark VE night in London?

Mingled incognito with the crowds: 'We stood outside and shouted, "We want the King",' Elizabeth later recalled, calling it one of the most memorable nights of her life.

Whom did Hitler marry in the Berlin bunker less than 40 hours before they both took their own lives?

Eva Braun had joined Hitler in Berlin against his orders; he married her in a civil ceremony in the small hours of 29 April 1945, and both were dead by the next afternoon.

Which personal milestone did President Truman celebrate on VE Day, 8 May 1945?

His 61st birthday fell on the day itself; in his broadcast he said he only wished 'that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day', his predecessor having died less than a month before.

Why does Russia celebrate Victory Day on 9 May rather than 8 May?

Moscow was already past midnight when the surrender took effect late on the evening of 8 May Central European time, so the Soviet government announced victory on the 9th.

In which French-ruled territory did a victory march at Sétif on 8 May 1945 end in bloodshed and reprisals?

Algeria's marchers at Sétif carried banners against colonial rule; police tried to seize them and shooting broke out, and the repression that followed is remembered as a turning point on the road to the war of independence.

Germany's first surrender was signed at 02:41 on 7 May 1945 in a schoolhouse in which French city?

Reims hosted the signing in the red-brick schoolhouse that was Eisenhower's headquarters, though he left the signing itself to his chief of staff; the building is now the city's Surrender Museum.

How did the UK government fit VE Day's 50th and 75th anniversaries into the holiday calendar?

Moved the May bank holiday: in 1995 and again in 2020 the early-May Monday off was shifted to 8 May itself, which in 2020 was a Friday.

Which New York landmark saw the biggest US VE Day celebrations, then its largest-ever gathering on VJ Day?

Times Square already held half a million people when its news 'zipper' flashed Truman's announcement of Japan's surrender; within three hours the crowd had swollen to some two million.

On which London street did Churchill tell a cheering VE Day crowd, 'This is your victory'?

Whitehall heard him from the balcony of the Ministry of Health; when he told the crowd 'This is your victory', it shouted back, 'No, it's yours!'

In which bay, aboard a US battleship, was Japan's formal surrender signed on 2 September 1945?

Tokyo Bay was the setting, aboard the battleship USS Missouri, where Japanese officials signed the Instrument of Surrender on deck; Truman then declared 2 September the official US V-J Day.

Whose first-ever radio address told Japan the war was lost on 15 August 1945, the UK's VJ Day?

Emperor Hirohito broke the precedent of imperial silence with a recorded message in court Japanese so formal, and so indirect about surrender, that many listeners were unsure what he had announced.

Which field marshal took the German surrender for Denmark and north-west Germany in a carpeted tent on 4 May 1945?

Bernard Montgomery first turned down an offer to surrender only the army group being cut off by the Soviets, then took the full surrender at 18:30 on the Timeloberg hill near Lüneburg.

Down which London road did VE Day crowds surge to reach Buckingham Palace and call for the King?

The Mall filled from Trafalgar Square to the Palace, where the King and Queen answered the crowd from the balcony and, at one point, brought Churchill out beside them.

Which British islands, freed by the Royal Navy on 9 May 1945, still mark that date with a public holiday?

Jersey and Guernsey were freed a day after VE Day: the German surrender was signed early on 9 May on the quarterdeck of HMS Bulldog, with a rum barrel for a table, and Alderney's garrison held out until the 16th.

Whom did Hitler's will name Reich Chancellor, a post he held for barely a day before his own death?

Joseph Goebbels's one official act as Chancellor was a letter asking the Soviet commander in central Berlin for a ceasefire; it was refused, and he died in the bunker complex the same day.

What else was 20 April 1945, the day Soviet guns began shelling Berlin and did not stop until the city surrendered?

Hitler's 56th birthday brought his last trip above ground, to pin Iron Crosses on boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth in the Chancellery garden, as the 1st Belorussian Front's guns opened up on the city.

Which capital saw the last major military operation of the war in Europe, fought from 6 to 11 May 1945?

Prague's own uprising began on 5 May, and the Soviet offensive to relieve it ran three days past VE Day; the Army Group Centre troops facing it were trying to fight west to surrender to the Americans.

Sent to seek a west-only surrender, which general instead signed Germany's full capitulation on 7 May 1945?

Alfred Jodl signed only after Eisenhower threatened to close Allied lines to surrendering Germans and resume bombing; at Nuremberg the tribunal sentenced him to death.

How did President Truman's 9 am broadcast on VE Day describe Germany's surrender?

A victory only half won: 'Our victory is but half-won,' Truman said, since 'the West is free, but the East is still in bondage'; Churchill's broadcast likewise allowed only 'a brief period of rejoicing'.

What sentence did the Nuremberg tribunal hand the grand admiral who had succeeded Hitler as head of state?

10 years in Spandau Prison was the sentence; he served every day of it, was released on 1 October 1956 and titled his memoirs 'Ten Years and Twenty Days'.

When Stalin made 9 May a working day again in 1947, which holiday got the day off instead?

New Year's Day became the day off under the December 1947 decree that sent Soviet workers back to their jobs on 9 May; Victory over Japan Day, 3 September, had lost its holiday earlier that year.

At what time on 8 May 1945 did Churchill's broadcast allow Britons 'a brief period of rejoicing'?

3 pm in London was 9 am in Washington, where Truman went on air at the same hour; Churchill allowed 'a brief period of rejoicing', then warned that Japan 'remains unsubdued'.

What did NKVD troops throw down beside Lenin's Mausoleum at the end of the 24 June 1945 Victory Parade?

Captured German standards, among them the banner of Hitler's SS bodyguard division, were thrown down beside the mausoleum on a day so wet that the flypast had been cancelled.

Which news agency's Paris bureau chief broke the 36-hour embargo on the surrender, making it front-page news on 8 May?

Associated Press man Edward Kennedy was stripped of his accreditation and eventually fired; in 2012 the agency's president apologised, calling it 'a terrible day for the AP'.

In which Canadian port did VE Day celebrations on 7–8 May 1945 turn into a looting rampage by thousands of servicemen?

Halifax's naval commander had let thousands of his sailors ashore for the night while the liquor stores stayed shut; a Royal Commission under Justice Roy Kellock laid the blame squarely on him.

Which French city marks 8 May twice, for VE Day and Joan of Arc lifting its siege the same day in 1429?

Orléans marks both at once: Joan of Arc rode into the besieged city on 29 April 1429, and nine days later the English abandoned a siege begun the previous October.

What is the 9 May march begun in 2012 called, in which Russians carry portraits of relatives who served in the war?

Immortal Regiment processions were dreamed up by three journalists who noticed fewer veterans each year; since 2012 they have been held in cities as far apart as Washington, Dushanbe and Berlin.

The EU's Europe Day shares 9 May with Russia's Victory Day; which 1950 statement does it commemorate?

The Schuman Declaration proposed pooling French and West German coal and steel so that war between the two would be 'not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible'.

Whose 1938 Buckingham Palace balcony appearance did George VI echo by inviting Churchill out beside the royal family?

Neville Chamberlain had stood there beside the King and Queen on his return from Munich in 1938; seven years on, a crowd shouting 'We want the King!' saw Churchill given the same place.

From which city's radio station did Germans first hear, on the night of 1 May 1945, that Hitler was dead?

Hamburg's Reichssender interrupted its programme to announce the death and introduce the new head of state, who claimed Hitler had died a hero defending the capital.

Which country moved its official Victory Day from 9 May to 8 May in 2015, breaking with a date kept since 1945?

Poland's Sejm voted the change on 24 April 2015, ahead of the 70th anniversary, after the Institute of National Remembrance argued the 9 May date had been imposed in line with Russia.

Why did Germany's leaders want 48 hours before their surrender took effect?

To let troops flee the Soviets was the aim of Hitler's successor, Karl Dönitz, who had already been surrendering piecemeal in the west to buy time for soldiers and refugees streaming away from the Red Army.

Victory Day became a normal working day in 1947; which Soviet leader restored the day off in 1965?

Leonid Brezhnev, six months in power, brought back the day off for the 20th anniversary and staged the first Victory Day parade on Red Square since June 1945.

Why did Britain wait until 26 July to declare the result of its 5 July 1945 election?

To collect servicemen's votes from overseas, the count waited three weeks; Churchill broke off the Potsdam conference to hear the result, and Labour's landslide sent Attlee back in his place.

What did East Germany call 8 May when it made the date a public holiday in 1950?

Day of Liberation, Tag der Befreiung, was a yearly state ritual in the East; in the West, President Richard von Weizsäcker took up the same phrase in a famous speech on the 40th anniversary in 1985.

In which port near the Danish border did Hitler's successor run a rump government until its arrest on 23 May 1945?

Flensburg's Mürwik naval academy housed the three-week cabinet, which the Western Allies simply ignored until British troops rounded it up.

In which Dutch town's Hotel de Wereld did German and Canadian generals settle the surrender in the Netherlands on 5 May 1945?

Wageningen's mayor still lights a fire outside the hotel on the night of 4–5 May, and the actual document was signed a day later in a university auditorium because nobody had a typewriter.

Which country, home to many immigrant Red Army veterans, made 9 May an official day of commemoration in 2017?

Israel's Knesset passed the law in July 2017 but left schools and businesses open; the date had long been marked unofficially by Red Army veterans among the country's Soviet-born immigrants.

In which country was the Battle of Odžak, often called Europe's last of the war, fought until 25 May 1945?

Yugoslavia's Battle of Odžak pitted Partisans against Croatian forces, whose remaining soldiers escaped into the forest when it ended.

Which Soviet photographer staged the 2 May 1945 flag-raising over the Reichstag with a flag stitched from red tablecloth?

Yevgeny Khaldei's picture ran in Ogonyok on 13 May; before publication a watch on one soldier's right wrist was edited out of the image.

Because Eisenhower outranked Zhukov, which RAF air chief marshal signed the Berlin surrender for the Western Allies?

Arthur Tedder, Eisenhower's deputy at SHAEF, signed because the Supreme Commander technically outranked the Soviet marshal presiding; the French and American generals present signed only as witnesses.

Which Labour minister, urged by Churchill to share the applause, replied 'No, Winston, this is your day'?

Ernest Bevin then conducted the throng in 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow'; within three months he was Foreign Secretary in the government that replaced Churchill's.

Which SHAEF chief of staff, later the head of the CIA, signed the 7 May surrender on Eisenhower's behalf?

Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower's brusque 'hatchet man', had also signed Italy's armistice for him in 1943; he went on to be ambassador in Moscow and then to run the CIA.

Whose unauthorised Soviet signature on the 7 May surrender gave the Kremlin its pretext to demand a repeat ceremony?

Ivan Susloparov had been seconded to SHAEF, but no confirmation of his authority had arrived; six hours after the signing came word that the act was unacceptable and must be repeated in Berlin.

Which German admiral alone attended all three May 1945 surrender signings: the tent, the schoolhouse and Berlin?

Hans-Georg von Friedeburg signed for the navy in Berlin after negotiating the Lüneburg surrender and witnessing the one in France; he became a British prisoner on 23 May 1945 and died the same day.

Where in Italy was the partial surrender of German forces there signed on 29 April 1945, taking effect on 2 May?

Caserta's short, military-only wording became the template a week later, replacing the long surrender text the Allied governments had agreed for Germany in 1944.

In which country did Germany's cut-off Courland Pocket hold out until the surrender of May 1945?

Latvia's Courland Pocket was cut off when the Red Army reached the Baltic in October 1944; its army group then beat off six Soviet offensives and laid down its arms only with the general surrender.

In which Vienna plaza has the Mauthausen Committee staged Austria's VE Day 'Festival of Joy' since 2013?

Heldenplatz is where Hitler proclaimed Austria's annexation in March 1938; the festival now celebrates his defeat on the same square.

What did a 2025 presidential proclamation name 8 May in the United States, with no federal holiday attached?

Victory Day for World War II was the name in President Trump's proclamation, signed on 7 May 2025, which said the day celebrates 'the unmatched might, strength, and power of the American Armed Forces'.