VE day happened.
The formal closing of the European Theater of Operations came on May 8th, 1945, when German representatives, signed unconditional surrender documents for a second time, now in Berlin.
The same surrender had been completed the day before at Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims–but the point had to be made to stick, as it hadn’t in November 1918. The capitulation had to come at the heart of the German nation, Berlin, and it had to acknowledge the fact that Hitler and his Germany had been defeated not just by the Western Allies, but by Soviet Russia as well.
The cease fire began early in the morning on May 7th, though it would take time to get the word out to all combatant units, including U boats. It was then that the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force sent his famous, elegantly laconic dispatch:
“The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7.”
A few hours after Eisenhower’s cable went out, but before the news had spread to every corner of contested ground, Pfc Charley Havlat, a member of a reconnaissance platoon in the 803rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, set out on patrol. Havlat, the son of two Czech immigrants to the United States, had landed with his battalion at Omaha Beach, and fought across northern Europe, through some of the most bitter and wretched battles of the war: Aachen, the Huertgen Forest, and the Bulge.
On that last morning of the war, Havlat’s platoon was tasked with patrolling an inconsequential-seeming patch of ground in Czechoslovakia, a few miles over the border from Germany. As the men advanced down a dirt road, a German unit ambushed them. Havlat was killed almost immediately. His platoon kept up the firefight, until their radio operator finally got word that the official cease fire had begun about nine minutes before the clash had begun. (My account comes from this source.)
Private first class Charley Havlat is believed to be the last American killed in the European war.
I do not want to politicize this moment of remembrance, but I will say this: what the Allied armed forces encountered on their last push into Germany was the first direct American (and British) experience of the utter depravity of German murder-industrial complex. Any person who tolerates in the slightest way, or worse, expresses sympathy to those who pay homage to that regime, representations of its symbols, evocations of its ambitions and aims–anyone who says of a confrontation with American Nazis that “there are good people on both sides” or “the protestors have a point”–is beneath contempt. Any party that permits such a person to lead them is beyond redemption.
And with that, I plan to raise a glass this evening to a mission fulfilled.
Image: John Everett Millais, Victory, O Lord! 1871 (Not a huge Pre-Raphaelite fan usually, but sometimes they nail the sentiment, don’t you think?)
Cheryl Rofer
Thanks, Tom.
Elizabelle
Tom: wrong link for your source. Needs correcting. Thank dog what you have up is nothing incendiary
I visited Reims last year, toured the room where the May 7 surrender was signed. Eisenhower’s war room, with the maps and lists of casualties still up. Reims is more famous for champagne, but the visit to the Museum of Surrender will stick with me, always. Terrific little museum; very informative. Lots of uniforms from all combatants on display. Newspaper front pages. Former schoolhouse. Address is 12 rue Franklin Roosevelt.
https://www.reims-tourism.com/musee-de-la-reddition/reims/pcu0000000000585
Immanentize
there is a small genre of narratives, from Germany and Austria, of young men — fathers, brothers, friends — killed after May 7.
Yours is not a story of German badness, it is a story of the evils of war. Give the dead a rest
Ohio Mom
The son of two Eastern European immigrants — could have been my father or any of my uncles on either side of my family. All of them fought, all gone now.
Elizabelle
And RIP Charley Havlat. Every death was a loss, but that one hurts even more.
Lot of deaths after the Civil War ended too, weren’t there? News travels too slowly.
Immanentize
Do we know the names of the most assuredly young men whose Charley’s unit killed?
As Bill Barr says. “History is written by the winners.”
Spanky
@Elizabelle: The Battle of New Orleans was fought after the treaty ending the War of 1812 was signed in Ghent.
rikyrah
Back when we knew that the only good Nazi was a dead Nazi.
Mike in NC
There’s a memorable scene in the movie “Battleground” where an Army chaplain, his feet wrapped in rags, tells a group of GIs during the Battle of the Bulge to never let anybody tell them they were suckers to fight in a war against fascism.
Sloane Ranger
Well said, Tom! There are no two sides to this. Wasn’t it Bart Simpson who said something like there have only been 3 “good “wars, the American Civil War, the 2and WW and Star Wars?
Had a Zoom party this afternoon with red, white and blue bunting, drinks and nibbles. At 3pm raised a glass to those who fought and died for freedom and justice.
HumboldtBlue
I am re-reading the third book in Atkinson’s trilogy and at this point having been out of work for six months and nearly locked in for two, I can assure you I can give you an informative impromptu 45-minute lecture on the war from D-Day to Berlin. I’ve been practicing on my cat, Salad.
Some enterprising author really needs to write about the logistics of WW2. Just think of the vast scale of production that had the US Navy camped off the coast of Okinawa being re-supplied by a fleet of dedicated ships carrying everything needed to keep a fleet afloat.
At the same time, millions of Americans were on the European continent doggedly and determinedly pushing the Nazis out of Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands.
The amount of material needed to keep the millions of personnel in uniform is staggering and well worth a serious look.
Another Scott
@Spanky: Yeahbut, it’s not as stupid as it sounds.
https://www.nps.gov/jela/chalmette-battlefield.htm is an interesting place.
Cheers,
Scott.
Tom Levenson
@Elizabelle: Thanks. Fix’t.
Elizabelle
The WaPost had an excellent story, with photographs. Trigger warning: one photo of emaciated concentration camp victims, in Austria. And, FWIW, FDR had died on April 12, and Ernie Pyle on April 18.
The devastation of World War II in Europe ended 75 years ago
Victory over Nazi Germany had been won, but at a staggering cost in human lives
TomatoQueen
Last night was rebroadcast of a little bit of Smithsonian or other perpetrator fluff called Elizabeth at War or Elizabeth the Warrior Girl or Lizzie What a Badass. In late winter and early spring 1945, our Princess Elizabeth took a Truck-Fixing for Princesses course and the world has not been the same since. Sweetly absurd, but then 75 years later our girl still comforts and sustains her people. Bless her and all who sail in her.
Duane
@rikyrah: Never seemed necessary to outlaw the Nazi party before, but here we are.
Immanentize
@Spanky: We fired our guns and the British kept a comin’.
dmsilev
@HumboldtBlue: As an undergrad, one term I took a polisci class on defense issues and for the term paper I ended up writing about one aspect of logistics in the Normandy campaign: how the US Army brought the full ports (Cherbourg in particular) back into service because the temporary ‘Mulberry’ installations couldn’t keep up. It was a massive job (the retreating Germans did a very thorough job sabotaging as much infrastructure as they could).
On a smaller and more personal note, my grandfather was a tiny cog in that logistical machine; he drove a supply truck back and forth all through France and eventually into Germany.
debbie
Spent the last 20 minutes trying to find a link to a feature on BBC Newshour this morning with a woman reading from her relative’s papers about VE Day. Great descriptions of her joy that the war and the bombing were over. Even the interviewer was a bit sniffly at the end.
Mohagan
Great post. Thank you, Tom.
NotMax
Demands a contemporaneous photo.
(Also a good excuse to watch A Royal Night Out, available on Prime.)
Ohio Mom
I don’t think this post is about dead soldiers. It’s about the pivot from when the fighting stopped (as symbolically marked by Charley’s death) to when the horrors of the concentration and death camps were beginning to be fully exposed and documented.
Its about taking the moment to remember what the Nazis did and who they were, and to be disgusted that this lesson is lost on some “very good people.”
HumboldtBlue
@Elizabelle:
Slow down! I haven’t gotten there yet!
Rick Atkinson was a former journalist with the Post. And editor as well I believe.
Gin & Tonic
Maybe raise a glass also to honor those people in Eastern Europe for whom this was just the exchange of one tyranny for another. Stalin for Hitler wasn’t such a bargain.
zhena gogolia
@Mike in NC:
Leon Ames.
rikyrah
Not only is the video 😂😂😂
The replies at the video almost gave me a stomach cramp from laughing too hard 😂😂🤣🤣
https://youtu.be/AgAoZZHkNnY
Lamont Cranston
John William Waterhouse is the best painter of pretty women who ever lived.
Immanentize
HumboldtBlue
@dmsilev:
I think the way in which Atkinson works in the numbers regarding logistics is excellent and his descripions of what the Nazis did the Cherbourg and Antwerp really brought to life the damage.
My maternal grandfather left Jersey in 1942 and came home in 1946. He was a Lt. Col in the Ghost Army.
@Gin & Tonic:
Good point.
@rikyrah:
Mike in NC
Most of us are familiar with the story about how — when the landings on Omaha Beach appeared to be faltering — Ike whipped out a notebook and composed a memorandum placing any and all blame for the failure to establish a beachhead squarely on himself. Today you can see it in the National Archives. Few weasel politicians alive today would do the same.
NotMax
A snippet of history.
trollhattan
Thanks for this.
We did a German HS student exchange last year [thank goodness it was not this year] and when my kid was there, their visits included Dachau. It would seem the Germans are more committed to not repeating the egregious mistakes of the 20th century than some nations.
HumboldtBlue
@Mike in NC:
Emma from FL
@TomatoQueen: Legend has it she can still strip a Jeep and put it back together again.
Her Mum, though. Hitler called her the Most Dangerous Woman in Europe. When Buckingham Palace took a bomb hit, she reportedly said: “Thank God. Now we can look the East End in the face.” She propped up her man and her country.
joel hanes
I hate Illinois Nazis.
And Queens, NY Nazis
joel hanes
@HumboldtBlue:
Trump is incapable of understanding that kind of leadership, nor does he see any reason to emulate it.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@HumboldtBlue: There are several good books on logistics in War 2. This one https://history.army.mil/html/books/070/70-29/CMH_Pub_70-29.pdf is from the US Army WW2 history (one of the Green Books). You can find other logistical studies from that source as well.
Sloane Ranger
@Emma from FL:
She probably can’t do this today with the advent of computerised engines but, when I was growing up, there were newspaper stories a couple of times a year of unfortunate motorists breaking down near a Royal residence only to be saved by a passing female driver in a headscarf who would open their bonnet, fiddle around inside and get their engine working again. Said motorist would realise, at some point, that this obliging individual was the Queen.
I thought her speech was great, short and to the point, linking what we went through during the war to now and saying we’ll get through it. And, these days, she alone of world leaders has the credibility to say it.
Also, loved the rendition of “We’ll Meet Again ” at the end being sung by a mixture of professional singers and key workers of all kinds.
TS (the original)
@Immanentize:
I prefer the Churchill quote which Barr probably plagiarized
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.
randy khan
On our last trip in the Before Times (which actually was within the During Times, but we didn’t know yet), my wife, brother-in-law, and I went to Churchill’s War Rooms in London. They have left the place more or less as it was on VE Day, which is possible because apparently everyone just walked away when the Germans surrendered. And when I say they left it as it was, I mean the original maps are still on the walls, with the original pins (and pinholes, since the pins were moved around), and the furniture, decoration, and even rugs are still where they were 75 years ago. They’ve put in plexiglass barriers to keep you from trampling things, but that’s about it.
Calouste
@TomatoQueen: They should have called it “Elizabeth: Warrior Princess”.
MagdaInBlack
@rikyrah:
😄😂😄😂
Thank you ! 😂
Ruckus
@Duane:
I believe that that Germany has outlawed the Nazi party and all it stood for.
There is always a need to remind humans that being human does not make one reasonable, respectful or less hateful to or of other humans. If you are in any doubt, just look to our president, elected by less than half our voters, because they had been taught to hate a far, far more qualified woman.
There is always a need to teach humans to be better humans. We don’t need shitforbrains to know that. We have our two political parties, one of whom is the party of hate and theft. True democracy? It’s been rare in my lifetime.
Elizabelle
@Calouste: Except now “warrior” means “exposed to virus, for the economy’s sake.” Thanks, Trump.
Save our Elizabeth!
Tom Levenson
@HumboldtBlue: Richard Overy wrote about logistics quite effectively in his Why the Allies Won the War.”
PJ
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, a big chunk of Europe had to wait 40 years for their freedom. The USA and Britain could have done more to prevent Stalin from adding Central and Eastern Europe countries to his sphere of influence, for sure. The Americans could have liberated all of Bohemia and Moravia, instead of stopping at Plzen, for one, which would have made a difference in postwar Czechoslovakia. But there was still a war to win against Japan – I doubt anyone seriously thought in May that that would be over in August – and I doubt there was much will to starting a war with the Soviets (outside of Patton) after such a long and bloody war. Would diplomatic insistence or economic pressure have caused Stalin to back down when his troops occupied all of Eastern Europe? I wonder.
One way to look at the 20th Century is as the long and bloody unwinding of European empires. What started in 1914 ended, in a way, in 1989-1992, but, in a way, we are still grappling with it. Who would have predicted in 1992 that the Republican Party would be actively working with a former KGB agent to cripple American democracy in 2020? That, on the 75th Anniversary of VE Day, the Attorney General would order charges dismissed against a US general who admitted to lying to the FBI in furtherance of Russian espionage?
kindness
My Dad & my Uncle both fought in WWII. They were Republicans. There is no way they would have stood for people waving Nazi flags at a Republican/conservative event. Them’s would’ve been fightin’ words. They died last century though and never imagined how their party would change.
raven
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world:
This was my old man’s ship in the battle that saw some 200,000 people killed.
Craig
Thanks Tom
Mohagan
@Elizabelle: isn’t the address lovely for a WWII museum. There are a lot of FDR streets in Europe.
Mike in NC
@PJ: It’s quite likely that Josef Stalin himself would be shocked by Trump’s malignant narcissism.
rikyrah
If only…
Uncle Cosmo
@Tom Levenson: Actual title: Why the Allies Won. I have a copy on my WW2 shelf. /pedant
Anyone innocent of logistical considerations who dives into a “history” of World War 2.0 that is largely silent on the subject might learn what happened in what sequence but will never understand why.
To take just one example: Why was Hitler so obsessed with Antwerp that he lobbed more V-2s at it than at London & made the goal of his longshot winter counterattack taking the city? Because, boys&girls, it was the only port capable of supplying the Allied armies – if it could be neutralized, all supplies would have to be driven from France, hundreds of miles from the front. If the Wehrmacht could have wrecked Antwerp it might have added as much as 6 months to the war in the West – & left nearly all of Germany in the Soviets’ hands by the surrender.
(ETA: I also have on my shelf a revised edition of Total War: Causes and Courses of the Second World War, by Calvocoressi, Wint and Pritchard. IMO simply the best one-volume (though massive) treatment of the subject . In the foreword to the revised edition, the primary author notes that the first edition more than likely confused most of its readers because nothing seemed to make sense, and explains there was a reason: At the time of its first publication, the Ultra codebreaking operations at Bletchley Park were still covered by the Official Secrets Act, & to mention them was bluntly to risk prison. And much of what in fact happened was critically dependent on what the Allies knew that the Germans didn’t know they knew, courtesy of the codebreakers. Now, he continues, all can be told.)
raven
@Uncle Cosmo: The logistical tail always wags the dog.
Sloane Ranger
@PJ: According to Max Hastings, British journalist and writer of WWII history books, Churchill wanted British and American forces to continue driving east after the German surrender but was told No Way by the Americans.
rikyrah
Elizabelle
@Mohagan: Yes. And we should have more FDR streets here
ETA: And a lot of John F. Kennedy streets, etc. in Europe, too.
Uncle Cosmo
@raven: Napoleon I (or maybe Frederick the Great) said, An army marches on its stomach.
Another Scott
@Sloane Ranger: PBS has been rebroadcasting The Roosevelts around here. I’ve seen bits and pieces of the episode where FDR is ill and dying. It really does make one wonder how/if the war in Europe might have ended differently if he had died and Truman was President before the meeting in Yalta, etc., etc.
(Great essay as always, Tom. Thanks.)
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Elizabelle:
Thanks for this! I read it out loud to wife, and had trouble finishing for the tears choking me up.
My Uncle J was a medic and ambulance driver with the Free French in North Africa and wherever they fought after that part of the war was over, and finally came home with jaundice and a Croix de Guerre. His brother, my uncle G was a CPO on a cruiser in the South Pacific.
My mom’s big brother, my uncle B was a gunner in a heavy bomber in the South Pacific, and could barely speak of his war experience. I have learned more from my cousin who heard about it while his dad had PTSD flash-backs and nightmares at 3 am.
To think, we relished crushing the Nazis in Germany, and now we worry that they are taking over America, via Trump and his fascist minions.
We need to hang more Nazis as soon as possible! I don’t normally believe in capital punishment, but I will make an exception in the case of Nazis, all of them.
Thanks for this moving history!
Lapassionara
Thanks, Tom.
tokyokie
What I don’t understand about contemporary Nazis, Illinois ones and otherwise, is don’t they have any recollection on how things worked out for them in the end? The Third Reich lasted but a few of the 1,000 years it boasted in its mythology and German-speaking countries were reduced to rubble. Is that what these dimwitted losers want? But as I heard Larry King say once to a white supremacist on his radio show back in the day: “You’re not discriminated against because you’re white. You’re discriminated against because you’re stupid.”
Anyway, earlier today I read an account by the radio operator who sent out the first notice of the German surrender. Eisenhower had three radiomen standing by to relay news to various locations, but he deliberately chose the youngest, who was only 20, to send the first notice because “He wanted him to talk about it for the rest of his life.” The guy’s 95 now, and still doing so.
Elizabelle
@J R in WV: So glad you and Mrs. JR enjoyed the article. It was especially good, wasn’t it?
There’s a story about DDE embedded within, about the toll of D-Day. It’s got audio with still photo of Eisenhower addressing his troops but … the closed captioning has howlers in it. I don’t think anyone ever checked it closely. Freezers of men, etc.
Anyway, I had never heard of Hermann Richter before. A mini Mengele. Some famous artist has the name now.
And yes, we need to swat the fascists today down so hard they don’t try this again for several generations. Seriously. Some of these people need prison and execution for treason would be just. They’ve installed an illegitimate POTUS who is killing thousands of Americans through negligence and indifference during a pandemic. Destroying our government infrastructure that was built up over time to serve the public good.
They must bear a cost. Germany is better for what it did in the Third Reich’s aftermath. We need to be severe too, even though our situation is nowhere near that … but it’s a good lesson on dealing with discredited and malevolent ideology.
HumboldtBlue
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Yeah, I have the Green Book bookmarked and completely spaced on that. Thanks for the links.
@Tom Levenson:
Thank you, sir, I dropped your name to a former HSU President during an exit interview as we talked about the need for better science education and I told her I was learning from this guy who posts on a blog I read. She mentioned she wanted to write books on how to better teach science. She was also very unpopular, so take that for what you will.
@Uncle Cosmo:
Thank you.
Matt McIrvin
@tokyokie: Once, when I was still willing to do such things, I got into an argument on another social media platform with a “white nationalist” who got very upset when I evoked the memory of World War II. He insisted liberals were stupid for equating his type with Hitler. I think he was upset because Hitler lost. He thought he was much, much smarter. This time for sure!
He sure liked to “joke” about how the stormtroopers were coming to exterminate me though. Always that kidding-not-kidding about mass murder
I wonder where the American mass graves are, that they’ll find a few years from now?
p.a.
My uncle (by marriage) fired the last official shot of the European theater. Same action maybe.
http://www.cutbankpioneerpress.com/news/article_e7354e12-a4bd-56b2-b3cf-3accb1b6965a.html
Captain C
frosty
@HumboldtBlue: “re-supplied by a fleet of dedicated ships carrying everything needed to keep a fleet afloat.”
Look up Ulithi. A huge staging base for the amphibious island attacks.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven: Amateurs talk tactics. Professionals talk logistics.
frosty
I’ve been following WW2today.com for years. They went thru the war on 70th anniversaries and started again for 75th. Lots of history I didn’t know. Check it out.
Dagaetch
I know it’s technically not KIA, but my grandfather was killed in a traffic accident in November 1945, outside Brussels. He was going to complete the paperwork for his unit to come home. War sucks, full stop. People go off to war. Some of them die. And it doesn’t really matter whether they die at the beginning or the end, from a bullet or from a car wreck, my grandmother got the same telegraph as every other wife or mother.
frosty
@randy khan: I visited the War Room in 2014. The pinholes on the map where they tracked the Atlantic convoys! Same map!!
Scott Alloway
@Sloane Ranger: We’ll meet again. Makes me tear up at 70. My father softly sang that after my mother’s memorial service, standing near me. Both were Navy at Moffit in San Francisco at the end of the war.
allium
@Calouste: There’s a parody RPG called Diana: Warrior Princess whose premise is that in the far future, people will have as muddled a view of current* times as episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess did of ancient history. It’s centered on Princess Diana and her sidekick Fergie as they motorcycle around the land of England, dodging the plots of Queen Elizabeth and her sorceress Thatcher, and attempting (with the occasional help of the barbarian hero “Red Ken” and American gunslinger Wild Bill Gates) to defeat the evil war god Landmines once and for all.
* (written in 2003)
J R in WV
Tom,
Thanks so much for this post. As a kid I didn’t really understand war. Now I do, as I passed pretty close to one back in 1970-73. Tragic in every way, even for the winners. My father flunked his entry exam when he volunteered, and went back home to work in the family business for his dad. All my uncles went away to war, as I mentioned above.
Nazis (which includes the Imperial Japanese high command!) were defeated in 1945, a lifetime ago. And now here they are again. Dammit!
You all stay safe, take care. We are having visitors suddenly to look at damage from the dammed tree, so I hope the odds are with us as we have to fix what is broken. Ceiling in guest bedroom is soggy wet sheet rock… can’t be left as is.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Why does Aaron have a giant bagel strapped to his waist? I thought only matzoh was allowed in the desert, plus that looks like a Noah’s “bagel” and everyone knows those are the least authentic, most waterlogged excuses for bagels ever.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Lamont Cranston:
JWW had an ‘ideal’ and he stuck with her.
Elroy's Lunch
I posted a text to friends last night with a photo of “Germany Surrenders” on the front page of May 7, 1945 issue of The Baltimore News-Post as reminder of the end of WWII. My wife’s mother’s boyfriend/fiancé (she demurred, preferring to wait until the war was over) was killed towards the end of the Battle of the Bulge.
Isadore S. Jachman
We take Tom’s words to heart.
Barry
@Gin & Tonic: “Maybe raise a glass also to honor those people in Eastern Europe for whom this was just the exchange of one tyranny for another. Stalin for Hitler wasn’t such a bargain.”
Who here wouldn’t know which to take, given that unpleasant choice?
Barry
@Mike in NC: “Most of us are familiar with the story about how — when the landings on Omaha Beach appeared to be faltering — Ike whipped out a notebook and composed a memorandum placing any and all blame for the failure to establish a beachhead squarely on himself.”
He had already written it and had it in his wallet.
Barry
@Emma from FL: “Legend has it she can still strip a Jeep and put it back together again.”
BTW, that’s not hard. I drove and worked on a Jeep in the early 1980’s, and they are great shade-tree mechanic machines.
leeleeFL
@TomatoQueen: I have always felt so! The Royals set a great example for stiff-upper-lipping and doing your bit. And I have watched the Queen do much the same thing at other moments. She missed the mark on some occasions, and was called on it by PMs or Aides. When that happened, she often adjusted her sail to keep the Ship of State afloat. Not a bad legacy, methinks!
leeleeFL
@Barry: Knowing that bit of History changed my viewpoint on the man. Still did not like some stuff he did while President, but I had to admire the character and honor it took to be ready to fess up to such a collossal mess up. I have tried to be braver in some situations I have encountered because of it.
Also too, in answer to another Post: Outlawing Nazis was a moral obligation, not unlike executing or imprisoning the Southern Traitors of the Civil War. We did neither, to bind up wounds. We need to start ripping off Band-Aids to save Civilization.