On May 7, German Gen. Alfred Jodl signed the document of surrender at the Reims headquarters of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, supreme allied commander of Allied forces in Europe. Germany had originally tried to strike a deal to surrender only to the Western allies, but not Russia, but ultimately gave in to demands that it surrender unconditionally on all fronts.
"With this signature, the German people and armed forces are for better or worse delivered into the victor's hands," Jodl said.
The surrender took effect at 11:01 p.m. May 8, on what was declared V-E Day. It was a day marked by widespread celebration and, in some corners, somber reflection.
In his victory order issued that day, Eisenhower praised the men and women in uniform who made V-E Day possible. "Your accomplishments at sea, in the air, on the ground and in the field of supply have astonished the world," he said. "You have taken in stride military tasks so difficult as to be classed by many doubters as impossible. On the road to victory you have endured every discomfort and privation and have surmounted every obstacle that ingenuity and desperation could throw in the your path."
The road to victory was "marked by the graves of former comrades" who paid the ultimate sacrifice, Eisenhower said, noting that 186,000 Allied troops were killed during the 11 months between D-Day and V-E Day. More than a half million Allies were wounded, and more than 100,000 remained missing, later to be declared dead.
"Each of the fallen died as a member of a team to which you belong, bound together by a common love of liberty and a refusal to submit to enslavement," Eisenhower said.
"No monument of stone, no memorial of whatever magnitude could so well express our respect and veneration for the sacrifice as would the perpetuation of the spirit of comradeship in which they died," he said.
In his address to the nation that day, President Harry S. Truman urged the American people to "refrain from celebrating and dedicate themselves instead to the solemn task which lies ahead" - the war still raging in the Pacific.
