Seventy years ago a huge chapter in the world’s greatest armed conflict came to a close.
The Red Army reached Berlin on its march from what was then known as the Soviet Union. It had beaten back the Third Reich and in a race to the German capital city with the force led by American and British troops advancing from the west, they crossed the “finish line.”
They accepted the Germans’ surrender and the war in Europe came to a close.
It’s called Victory in Europe Day. V-E Day.
The millions of men from allied nations performed acts of heroism against the Nazi war machine that cannot be forgotten.
Those men are all old now. They’re in their late 80s and 90s. They’re dying by the thousands daily. Those who remain — be they American, British, French, Russian or from any of the nations allied in the fight against tyranny — deserve our eternal gratitude.
It’s been said in the seven decades since the surrender that our side — the Americans and Brits — should have gotten to Berlin first.
But the Red Army got the jump on the American-led forces advancing from Normandy. They turned back the Nazis at Stalingrad in winter of 1942-43. Our forces wouldn’t land on the French coast until June 6, 1944. By the time our men slogged ashore, the Red Army had begun its advance on Germany.
As it turned out, the Soviets were able to claim Berlin as their captured capital and the carving up of Germany into western and eastern regions — independent of each other, with the east being controlled by the communists in Moscow — would become a source of tension that helped trigger a Cold War that lasted until 1991.
But the struggle that engulfed Europe had come to an end. There would be smaller conflicts that flared immediately after World War II. Greece fought a civil war between royalists and communists. Hungary would erupt in rebellion against the Soviets in 1956. Czechoslovakia would do the same in 1968.
But on May 7, 1945 — with Adolf Hitler dead in his bunker under the ruins of his city — the good guys defeated the 20th century’s most evil tyranny.
World War II wouldn’t end until September 1945. We still had another enemy to fight in the Pacific. The European fight, though, was over.
The task of rebuilding a shattered continent would begin.