{"id":9797,"date":"2020-05-09T00:39:49","date_gmt":"2020-05-09T07:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=9797"},"modified":"2020-05-09T00:39:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-09T07:39:49","slug":"the-devastation-of-world-war-ii-in-europe-ended-75-years-ago-the-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=9797","title":{"rendered":"“The devastation of World War II in Europe ended 75 years ago”, The Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Michael E. Ruane,\u00a0<\/span>May 7, 2020<\/p>\n

Victory over Nazi Germany had been won, but at a staggering cost in human lives<\/em><\/p>\n

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The phone on Gen. Omar Bradley\u2019s bedside table rang at 4:45 a.m. He sat up and turned on the light. He had a pistol by his pillow, and the windows in his quarters near Kassel, Germany, were covered by blackout curtains.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Outside, under his command, more than 1 million American soldiers were fighting their way across northwestern Europe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Bradley\u2019s boss, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower<\/a>, was on the line, calling from his office in Reims, France.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cBrad,\u201d Eisenhower said. \u201cIt\u2019s all over.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nazi Germany had surrendered at 2:41 a.m. The tragedy of World War II in Europe had ended.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It was May 7, 1945, seventy-five years ago Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bradley rose, went to a map and wrote the notation \u201cD+335\u201d \u2014 335 days since Allied soldiers had come ashore at Normandy on D-Day, historian Rick Atkinson wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Eleven months of bitter fighting at sites like Omaha Beach \u2014 where the small town of Bedford, Va., lost 20 of its sons on D-Day<\/a> \u2014 and places across Europe such as Saint-Lo and Falaise in northwestern France; Bastogne in Belgium; the Dutch town of Arnhem and the vast minefield of the H\u00fcrtgen Forest near the Belgian-German border.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A voice from D-Day surfaces on rare radio recording.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Eight-hundred miles of scarred landscape lay behind, marked with the graves of tens of thousands of American, British, Canadian, French and German soldiers, airplane pilots and crews.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There were more graves in Italy, around places such as Anzio and Monte Cassino, in North Africa at the Kasserine Pass, and across the scorched expanse of Russia and Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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All born of the war against Adolf Hitler\u2019s Germany. Hitler had shot himself in the head<\/a> a week earlier, sitting on a brocade couch in the study of his underground bunker in Berlin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe evil doers \u2026 are now prostrate before us,\u201d British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said the next day, May 8, the official Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day. \u201cWe may now allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Delirious crowds jammed New York\u2019s Times Square, where a model of the Statue of Liberty had been set up. People thronged London\u2019s Trafalgar Square and the Champs Elysees in Paris, which had been freed from Nazi occupation only the previous August.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Parisians
Parisians march through the Arc de Triomphe, jubilantly waving flags of the Allied Nations as they celebrate the end of World War II on May 8, 1945. (AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cLa guerre est finie! La guerre est finie!\u201d \u2014 \u201cThe war is over!\u201d \u2014 yelled citizens of Paris, where four years earlier Hitler had stood in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.<\/p>\n

People danced, wept, hugged, kissed, drank, waved flags, climbed lamp posts and paraded arm-in-arm through the streets. Bands played. Church bells rang. In jubilant London, a Jeep was photographed with 19 celebrants crammed on board.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In one British city, a coffin containing \u201cHitler\u201d was carried on a hearse toward a huge bonfire, as musicians played a dirge. On arrival, the coffin was thrown into the flames, and then the hearse was, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIT\u2019S OVER OVER HERE,\u201d crowed the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes. \u201cGERMANY QUITS!\u201d said the Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho. The Philadelphia Inquirer rushed out an extra edition with a one-word front-page headline: \u201cVICTORY.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI only wish that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day,\u201d President Harry S. Truman told Americans. Roosevelt, who had led the country through all but the last few weeks of the war, had died April 12.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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President Harry S. Truman announces the Allied victory and Germany’s unconditional surrender. (AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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In Washington, Maj. Keith Wakefield of the Australian Military Mission was mobbed by celebrants when he drove downtown. \u201cLasses of all shapes and sizes invaded our car,\u201d he recalled later, according to historian Martin Gilbert.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lawns around the Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson monuments were teeming with joyous people,\u201d Wakefield wrote to Gilbert years later. \u201cWe \u2026 joined a raucous motorcade through Rock Creek Park finishing up at the Wardman Park Hotel where we drank several toasts to fallen companions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In Brnenec, Czechoslovakia, Oskar Schindler bade farewell to the 1,000 Jews he had sheltered from the Nazis in his factory and then fled the approaching Soviet army.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In Newport News, Va., that day, a ship docked carrying three sisters who were the first survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp to land on American soil, Gilbert wrote in his book, \u201cThe Day the War Ended.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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They were Isabella, Regina, and Berta Katz, of Kisvarda, Hungary. Their mother had been killed at Auschwitz.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIn our battered being we carried the innocent, charred souls of millions of children, women and men,\u201d Isabella recalled later. \u201cAnd we thank this America, this best of all countries, for putting its healing arms around our weeping hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On the front lines, soldiers were numb.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt has been a long and bloody trail,\u201d Hal Boyle, an Associated Press war correspondent, wrote from Germany. \u201cIt has drained much from the men \u2026 much from their bodies, and much from their spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Battle of the Bulge saw the snow stained red.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sgt. Benjamin Ferencz, a future Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor, wrote his fiancee: \u201cThere were no wild shouts, no hurrahs, no tearing of paper and confetti. \u2026 The end of the war is being greeted as just the end of another day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nine months earlier, war correspondent Ernie Pyle had written: \u201cOur feelings have been wrung and drained; they cringe from the effort of coming alive again. Even the approach of the end seems to have brought little inner elation. It has brought only a tired sense of relief.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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(By May 7, Pyle had been dead for three weeks, killed on April 18 while covering the Battle of Okinawa, in the Pacific, where the war would go on for four more months.)<\/p>\n

\u201cNot a man among us would want to go through it again,\u201d recalled Sgt. Bruce Egger, whose pocket Bible, a gift from his parents, had once blocked a piece of enemy shrapnel. \u201cBut we are all proud of having been so severely tested and found adequate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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An old soldier wonders why he survived.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For the Americans, the war in Europe had technically lasted about 3\u00bd years, since Germany declared war on the United States on Dec. 11, 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But for Britain and France and much of Europe, it had started with the German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, followed by the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The British had seen their army barely escape the Germans at Dunkirk, in France, and had withstood the Luftwaffe\u2019s bombing campaign known as the Blitz.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The French had endured military collapse, the humiliation of surrender and the sight of German soldiers marching through Paris.<\/p>\n

The Soviets had seen untold slaughter at battles like that of Stalingrad, the loss of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and had experienced the full extent of German atrocities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And Jews had suffered the Holocaust.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Two days before Eisenhower\u2019s call to Bradley, American soldiers had liberated the concentration camp at Mauthausen, in Austria, a few miles from where Hitler had grown up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Emaciated prisoners are seen May 7, 1945, at the Ebensee concentration camp in Austria. (AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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There, 95,000 people had been starved, gassed and worked to death in a rock quarry, and a Nazi doctor named Hermann Richter had cut out prisoners\u2019 stomachs, livers or kidneys to see how long they might live.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe things I saw beggar description,\u201d Eisenhower wrote after he and Bradley visited the concentration camp at Buchenwald in Germany. \u201cThe visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were \u2026 overpowering.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The first transport of Jews to Auschwitz was 997 teenage girls. Few survived.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But now it was over.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The German general, Alfred Jodl \u2014 who was a top aide to Hitler and was later hanged as a war criminal \u2014 signed the unconditional \u201cAct of Military Surrender\u201d early that Monday, May 7. The signing took place in an overheated classroom on the second floor of a large brick school building that had become Allied headquarters in Reims.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Seventeen reporters and photographers, and an 11-man Allied delegation crowded into the floodlit room, which had a large oak conference table, Atkinson wrote in his 2013 book, \u201cThe Guns at Last Light.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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(American Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower\u2019s chief of staff, had initially barred the press. But other U.S. officials overruled him, author Ray Moseley wrote in his book, \u201cReporting War.\u201d<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pale and balding, Jodl, who had helped engineer the Nazi oppression of so many in Europe, now stood in his dress green uniform and black boots, and asked for mercy for the German people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI can only express the hope that the victor will treat them with generosity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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His eyes were \u201csuffused with tears,\u201d the Australian war correspondent Osmar White wrote. \u201cHis face had withered into bitter lines of humiliation and despair.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jodl was then ushered in to see Eisenhower, who was waiting in his office nearby.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cDo you understand the terms \u2026 of surrender you have just signed,\u201d Eisenhower asked.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Yes, Jodl replied.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou will \u2026 be held responsible if \u2026 [they] are violated,\u201d Eisenhower said. \u201cThat is all.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The surrender story was supposed to be held off by reporters until the formal announcements the next day, May 8.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But when German radio broadcast the news later on May 7, Associated Press reporter Edward Kennedy, who had covered the signing, felt that the news was out and filed his story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The news bulletin sent by Associated Press reporter Edward Kennedy announcing the German surrender May 7, 1945. (AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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It got him in deep trouble with the military and it infuriated colleagues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But it made sensational headlines across the country and landed his byline on one of history\u2019s biggest scoops. A plaque in his honor in a California park reads: \u201cHe gave the world 24 hours more of happiness,\u201d Moseley wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The official surrender proclamations came the next day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In London, a little boy broke from the crowd cheering Winston Churchill in the lobby of the House of Commons. \u201cPlease, sir, may I have your autograph?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Churchill took out his glasses, wiped them clean and signed the boy\u2019s autograph album, according to biographer Andrew Roberts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The prime minister handed the book back, ruffled the boy\u2019s hair and said, \u201cThis will remind you of a glorious day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pfc. Clarence K. Ayers of Evansville, Ind., reads the news of V-E Day as newly arrived German prisoners stand on a New York City pier on May 8, 1945. (John Rooney\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Read more:<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How Eisenhower, armed with only a typewriter, planned the U.S. response to Pearl Harbor<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The few words people actually heard of Churchill\u2019s powerful \u2018fight on the beaches\u2019 speech<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How technology helped win the Normandy invasion and World War II<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Michael E. Ruane is a general assignment reporter who also covers Washington institutions and historical topics. He has been a general assignment reporter at the Philadelphia Bulletin, an urban affairs and state feature writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a Pentagon correspondent at Knight Ridder newspapers.<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Michael E. Ruane,\u00a0May 7, 2020 Victory over Nazi Germany had been won, but at a staggering cost in human lives The phone on Gen. Omar Bradley\u2019s bedside table rang at 4:45 a.m. He sat up and turned on the light. He had a pistol by his pillow, and the windows in his quarters near Kassel, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9797"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9798,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9797\/revisions\/9798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}