By Nelson Amaobi Osuala
9th of May 2015, Time 12:42am.
It is often said that ‘ Those who do not know History often repeat it’. It is on the above premise that I wish to educate with a view to enlightening my readers on what I may call, the events of our yesterday!
According to Google source, It was on this day in 1945, that both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day.
Cities in both nations, as well as former occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine.
The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans
surrender extreme to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers,
and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark–the German surrender was
realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany.
The main concern of many German soldiers was to elude the grasp of Soviet forces, to keep from being taken prisoner.
About one million Germans attempted a mass exodus to
the West when the fighting in Czechoslovakia ended, but were stopped by the Russians and
taken captive.
The Russians took approximately 2 million prisoners in the period
just before and after the German surrender.
Meanwhile, more than 13,000 British POWs were released and sent back to Great Britain.
Pockets of German-Soviet confrontation would continue into the next day. On May 9, the Soviets would lose 600 more soldiers in Silesia before the Germans finally surrendered.
Consequently, V-E Day was not celebrated until the ninth in Moscow, with a radio broadcast salute from Stalin himself: “The
age-long struggle of the Slav nations…has ended in victory.
Your courage has defeated
the Nazis. The war is over.”