WEBVTT

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[piano music]

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(Narrator) May 8th, 1945, will forever be known as V-E
Day, or Victory in Europe Day.

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It's the day World War II in the European
Theater of operations officially ended.

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By the middle of April 1945, the United States
Army's 69th Infantry Division linked up

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with the Soviets at the Elbe River.

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The 3rd Army under General Patton penetrated
deep into Germany, reaching as far north as

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Austria and Czechoslovakia.

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As the Allies closed in, Adolf Hitler committed
suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30th.

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Karl Donitz became his successor, and knowing
the war was lost, he ordered Alfred Yodel

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to sign the instruments of surrender in Reims,
France, on May 7th.

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Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel then signed Germany's
unconditional surrender in Berlin on May 8th,

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officially ending six years of brutal warfare
in Europe.