Remembering VE Day 80 years later
In this May 7, 1945 file photo, Gen. Alfred Jodl, center, signs the unconditional surrender of all German armed forces in a French schoolhouse, ending World War II in Europe and the Holocaust. AP/File Photo
Eighty years ago at a school in Reims, France, German Army Field Marshall Jodl signed a five paragraph “Act of Military Surrender.” The Russians wanted the surrender documents signed again, in Berlin, and that happened the next day, May 8, 1945. It would be known as V-E — Victory in Europe.
There would be three more months of fighting in the Pacific before Victory Over Japan, but it was the beginning of the end of the greatest calamity ever to befall humankind. A historian and author who has written about World War II joins the program.
GUEST
Peter Fritzsche
Professor of History, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Author, Hitler’s First Hundred Days: When Germans Embraced the Third Reich (2020)
Author, 1942: When World War II Engulfed the Globe (coming Sept 23, 2025)
Member, Illinois Holocaust & Genocide Commission