![](\"https:\/\/lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com\/docsz\/AD_4nXeTd1zIbs5TAgEUpC6qxU8cYTvvA__XxwNcJTRpQg27Np3JHrdv0jZ9FmTGRThzKe56x0Wh_RTajKXslcvQJMgwY-AcZYqUDfPdR26lGC2RqzjzmE-NzDQATkoEy3n9ySKNVgijJw?key=A-B7EW6FOAGHlyHRQGMCyJLG\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\nby Dom Califano<\/p>\n\n\n\n
VE day, or Victory in Europe Day, is a day celebrated by many on May 8th to commemorate the victory of Allied and Soviet troops in their defeat of Germany in World War II. This timeline will tell some of the major events leading up to the defeat of Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
April 16th: Soviet troops start their attack on Berlin, the German Capital City<\/p>\n\n\n\n
April 20th: American troops capture Nuremberg<\/p>\n\n\n\n
April 21st: The Ruhr Pocket is captured by Allied Forces
April 24th: The Soviet Army completes it\u2019s encirclement of Berlin<\/p>\n\n\n\n
April 27th: Mussolini is killed by resistance fighters and publicly hanged upside down<\/p>\n\n\n\n
American troops reach Genoa, though most of the city was already captured by Resistance Forces<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soviet Troops capture the airports within Berlin, stopping supplies from being flown in<\/p>\n\n\n\n
April 29th: Hitler designated Karl D\u00f6enitz as his successor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
April 30th: Hitler and his wife take their own lives in the F\u00fchrerbunker![](\"https:\/\/lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com\/docsz\/AD_4nXfY4i9rDk56Ik9sHD9_6jHD-6YKXxAvu6lmOVXTiXKKPcA6-Y-N30LHQ_Fr9K1bnahk73uk0Uf_RpCBaXOXq7iYWH5oucaRur4mPKxiM_T9tvAWK2bYclwkw791i7w5Oz-q3ssg?key=A-B7EW6FOAGHlyHRQGMCyJLG\")
May 2nd: The Battle of Berlin ends in Soviet Victory<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yevgeny Khaldei takes the picture shown and is named \u201cRaising a Flag Over the Reichstag\u201d the picture is a symbol of Soviet victory over Nazi Germany<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allied Spring Offensive in Italy ends with the surrender of German troops in Italy<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May 3rd: British troops capture Hanover<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May 4th: German troops in\u00a0 North Western Germany, The Netherlands,\u00a0 and Denmark surrender which goes into effect at 8AM on May 5th<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Innsbruck, Salzburg, and Berchtesgaden is captured by American troops<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May 5th: 350 thousand Axis troops surrender in German-Occupied Norway<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Bratislava-Brno offensive begins by Soviet and Romanian Troops<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May 6th: Breslau is captured after a three month siege of the city by Soviet Troops<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May 7th: Alfred Jodl and Hans-Georg signs unconditional surrender, Germany has capitulated to Allied forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May 8th: Victory Day in Europe is celebrated by Western Allies, and at 11:00PM the German Instrument of Surrender is signed, signifying the end of the 3rd Reich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At 9 AM (Local Time) Truman announces the German surrender in the Oval Office and declared May 13th to be a national day of prayer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At 12:30 PM (local time) Karl D\u00f6enitz announced surrender to the German People in a speech broadcast<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At 3 PM (Local time) Churchill announces German surrender in a radio broadcast<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Independent State of Croatia is dissolved and reincorporated into Yugoslavia<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May 9th, Stalin issues his VE Order in the Soviet Union, congratulating Soviet troops on defeating the German army<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the German Reich surrendered, the Western Allies and Soviet Union celebrated their triumph over evil. Germany is split up into four occupation zones controlled by the French, British, Americans, and Soviets. Poland annexes Silesia, Pomerania, Pozan, as well as the southern portions of East Prussia and Russia, then known as the Soviet Union, takes the northern part. The Soviet Union makes puppet-governments in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria. These actions by Stalin angered the United States, which began the Cold War. While Austria was allowed to reunite in 1955, Germany officially reunited quite recently in October of 1990 with the fall of Communism at the end of the Cold War. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Dom Califano VE day, or Victory in Europe Day, is a day celebrated by many on May 8th to commemorate the victory of Allied and Soviet troops in their defeat of Germany in World War II. This timeline will tell some of the major events leading up to the defeat of Germany. April 16th: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ve-day.jpg?fit=365%2C202&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcv2KD-BX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2355,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353\/revisions\/2355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}