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It's 70 years since World War II ended in Europe

Victory in Europe (VE) Day was declared after Germany’s unconditional surrender in Berlin on 8 May, 1945.

SEVENTY YEARS AGO today, 8 May 1945 was declared Victory in Europe Day bringing the Second World War in Europe officially to a close.

Hitler having committed suicide on 30 April in Berlin, Germany’s surrender was officially approved by his successor, Admiral Karl Donitz.

The act of military surrender was signed at Reims in north-east France on 7 May, and then in Berlin on the following day.

The war would carry on for another four months until Japan officially surrendered on 2 September, but VE Day meant at least that an end was finally in sight.

Here’s some of the scenes that unfolded around the globe after a halt was finally called to six long years of terrible war.

churchill British prime minister Winston Churchill salutes the gathered crowds at Whitehall Wikipedia Wikipedia

World War Two - UK & Commonwealth - Home Front - VE Day - London - 1945 Huge crowds throng Trafalgar Square in London PA Archive / Press Association Images PA Archive / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

WWII VE Day Harry Truman US president Harry S. Truman (standing) delivers the news of Germany's surrender to White House reporters AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

PA-8681657 Two men climb a lamp post in London's west end during the celebrations AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

PA-8668505 Crowds mass at the Arc de Triomphe on VE Day, 1945 AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

PA-8654153 The British royal family and Churchill salute crowds from Buckingham Palace (Queen Elizabeth, then Princess, is on the far left) AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

PA-8658315 Grand Central Station, New York, VE Day AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

EISENHOWER VE DAY Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander Allied forces, makes a V for victory after the surrender at Reims AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

surrender The signed document of surrender from Reims Wikipedia Wikipedia

US Police US Military Policemen reading about the German surrender in the newspapers Wikipedia Wikipedia

WWII BRITISH GUIANA VE DAY 1945 Sir Gordon Lethem, governor of British Guiana, announces Germany's surrender to the public from government buildings in Georgetown AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

WWII VE Day The Statue of Liberty, New York, illuminated for the first time in 4 years on VE Day, 1945 AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Read: This is what Dublin Bay used to look like

Read: PICTURES: Survivors of the Lusitania remember ‘murder by savages’

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33 Comments
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    Mute Marco Klugmann
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    May 8th 2015, 7:50 AM

    Let’s remember that today 70 years ago Germany and indeed the World was liberated and saved from the Hitler-fascism. Today for me as a german, that is all that counts. Many lives were lost to give me the chance to grow up in a relatively free society, Russians and Americans, British and French, Polish and Germans fighting fascism together. Their sacrifice and effort should be remembered forever on this day, on “Tag der Befreiung”. Their message is loud and clear: ‘don’t let this happen again, ever!’

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    Mute John Reese
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    May 8th 2015, 8:39 AM

    Well said but don’t forget the many thousands Irishmen who fought also on British/American and Canadian forces.

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    Mute Marco Klugmann
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    May 8th 2015, 12:08 PM

    Of course John, also the Irish, who were treated like dirt when they came home after fighting the Nazis. Never meant to forget them but then there were so many nationalities. Still sad though what those men had to go through after volunteering to put an end to terror and genocide. They should have been welcomed as heroes and not treated as traitors. Heroes, every single one of them!!!

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    Mute ÉireWarning
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    May 8th 2015, 2:51 PM

    Yes the world has been slaved by the allied victors and their Chosen One banker masters on Wall St and city of London

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    Mute Glen
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    May 8th 2015, 6:49 AM

    WW2 ended 70 years ago and he have had nothing but wars since.

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    Mute Conor O'Neill
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    May 8th 2015, 8:53 AM

    And before!

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    Mute Tom
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    May 8th 2015, 3:17 PM

    Actually we haven’t. Prior to 1945 it would appear that western Europe had never gone more than 18 years without a war….ever. We’ve now gone 70 years.

    The EU was founded on the basis that codependent countries don’t go to war. It is bad economics. You’ll always have thickos like the IRA who think otherwise but Europe has never been more peaceful.

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    Mute Matt Knowlden
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    May 8th 2015, 8:11 AM

    Very well said Marco. Remember the sacrifices on both sides.

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    Mute Peter M Buchanan
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    May 8th 2015, 7:03 AM

    The US saved our bacon in WW2….great shame what FDR & Stalin did to Poland in 1945

    46
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    Mute Jay Toner
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    May 8th 2015, 11:10 AM

    Nonsense, the US took too long to enter the war. Stalin requested help off them nearly a year and a half before they joined. By the time the US arrived the Soviets had turned the tide in the east against the Germans were pushing them back. The reality is the Soviets gave the biggest sacrifice and inflicted the heaviest blows to the Germans.

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    Mute Joe O'Brien
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    May 8th 2015, 11:48 AM

    Spot on Jay.

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    Mute benny dowling
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    May 8th 2015, 12:43 PM

    The soviets had not turned the tide in dec 1941. They had halted the german advance at the edge of moscow forcing the germans to shorten the line and regroup

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    Mute Jay Toner
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    May 8th 2015, 1:07 PM

    Yes halted their advance and forced them to regroup is turning the tide. The Germans had steamrolled through Prussia and the USSR on to the border of Moscow, halting this was massive achievement.

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    Mute Niall
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    May 8th 2015, 7:50 PM

    If it wasn’t for the Soviets you mean. Take the Soviets out of the war and the Nazi’s would of won.

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    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
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    May 8th 2015, 9:54 PM

    Second guessing history can be a fool’s errand.
    Without the Soviet’s there would have been no Luftwaffe and no Blitzkrieg.
    Without the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact Poland would have provided a much more substantial obstacle to Nazi ambitions. And without both the Blitzkrieg and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact the Nazi’s may have had their asses handed to them as soon as they crossed the Polish border. The Nazi’s would be a minor footnote of history and most Germans Polish-speaking today. But that would be second guessing history.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipetsk_fighter-pilot_school

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    Mute Pat O'Dwyer
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    May 8th 2015, 6:34 AM

    Europe is on the brink of a new war if they do not stand up to US war mongers. The military industrial complex , who earn billions from war, desperately needs a new war, somewhere, anywhere ,for it’s survival.
    A very good article from Paul Craig Roberts : “The Choice Before Europe” .
    Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments.
    “Just as there is no evidence of the Russian military in Ukraine, there is no evidence of Russian forces threatening Europe or any discussion or advocacy of restoring the Soviet empire among Russian political and military leaders.”
    “ Washington continues to drive Europe toward one or the other of the two most likely outcomes of the orchestrated conflict with Russia. Either Europe or some European Union member government will break from Washington over the issue of Russian sanctions, thereby forcing the EU off of the path of conflict with Russia, or Europe will be pushed into military conflict with Russia.”
    More :
    http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2015/05/06/518028the-choice-before-europe-paul-craig-roberts/

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    Mute Pat O'Dwyer
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    May 8th 2015, 6:47 AM

    Also a very good article from prominent American historian Stephen Cohen : Ukraine the Epicenter of Global Geopolitical Transformation :
    “We take what’s a cliché, but a meaningful one: what if Russian or Chinese military bases showed up in Mexico and/or Canada? We would object very, very adamantly, maybe go to war over it. We threatened to do so when the Soviet Union put missiles in Cuba. So it seems to me a benign, healthy, modern day position that no great power wishes to have foreign military bases on its borders. Everybody says that’s true in the West, except when it comes to Russia.”
    Read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150502/1021650592.html#ixzz3ZS7cGXzO

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    Mute Glen
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    May 8th 2015, 6:50 AM

    Very well said.

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    Mute Robin Hilliard
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    May 8th 2015, 10:00 AM

    Let’s hope that Putin doesn’t celebrate the occasion by invading any more of Ukraine and having his military and its proxies murder any more of its inhabitants.

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    Mute Stephen Doyle
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    May 8th 2015, 8:22 AM

    There was a WW2? Why hasn’t discovery channel mentioned this??

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    Mute Jay Toner
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    May 8th 2015, 11:19 AM

    Seventy years later US warmongers are pushing Europe again into war this time with Russia.

    If Russia went to Canada and Mexico and start behaving like the US are in eastern Europe all he’ll would break lose. You can’t go to a superpowers borders and crank up the tensions by persuading countries along their borders to join a crazy military alliance like NATO and accept missiles and expect that superpower to bow down.

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    Mute James Darcy
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    May 8th 2015, 9:04 AM

    I remember the war I was 19 at the time back then we didn’t go back packing packing around Europe
    We bombed the shit out of it

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    Mute Colin C
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    May 8th 2015, 9:37 AM

    You’re 95 years old?

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    Mute Conor O'Neill
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    May 8th 2015, 6:39 AM

    They went to war to save Poland . Look how that turned out!

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    Mute Pearse Mc Mullen
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    May 8th 2015, 7:40 AM

    Not true Conor – “They” were DRAGGED into a war to protect Europe, Poland was the line in the sand, but all the European leaders knew what was coming down the tracks,
    God, Just to think how hard it was to commit your country to the protection of others, knowing full well that millions of your countrymen and women will be killed,Injured,Maimed and orphaned .
    different era, Different generation, And to be brutally honest about it – Far more courageous generations than we have now.
    For the most part nowadays leaders are content to sit on the sidelines, commenting and posturing from without.

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    Mute ÉireWarning
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    May 8th 2015, 2:54 PM

    And the allied victors obeying the orders of the Chosen One banker masters on Wall St and City of London have been debt enslaving, bombing, maiming, sanctioning, murdering, raping and slaughtering their way around the world since before and after WW2. I don’t take their version of WW2 history, plent of solid evidence which shows their lies online.

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    Mute Tom
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    May 8th 2015, 3:11 PM

    Ok…New roll of tin foil for this guy’s hat please.

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    Mute John
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    May 8th 2015, 2:29 PM

    And the shower that lost are now running Europe. Adolf would be proud.

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    Mute Tom
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    May 8th 2015, 3:10 PM

    This is why your life is shit. You compare democratically elected government’s who work well together to mass murderers.

    You should hang your head in shame.

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    Mute John
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    May 8th 2015, 3:25 PM

    My life is shit because German banks gave Irish banks billions but when s**t hit the fan their democratically elected govt made sure the Irish people paid their banks back so f**k you and your shame. The shame lies elsewhere not with me. BTW the nazis had plenty of support from the German people. They weren’t dragged kicking and screaming into that war.

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    Mute Rory Murphy
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    May 8th 2015, 8:28 AM

    I hate sequels!

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