A black and white picture of American soldiers waving a flag on top of a pillar with a nazi symbol

Why Germany surrendered twice in World War II

Haunted by the ghosts of WWI and an uncertain Communist future, Allied forces decided to cover all their bases.

American troops celebrate Germany's first unconditional surrender effective May 8, 1945. To avoid the possiiblity of an illegitiimate surrender, U.S.S.R. leader Joseph Stalin would organize a second surrender the following day.

Photograph by Hulton-Deutsch Collection, Corbis/Getty

On May 7, 1945, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies in Reims, France, ending World War II and the Third Reich.

Or did it happen on May 9 in Berlin instead?

Both are true. Due to warring ideologies, tussles between the Soviet Union and its allies, and the legacy of the First World War, Germany actually surrendered twice.

As an Allied victory looked more and more certain in 1944 and 1945, the United States, U.S.S.R., France, and the United Kingdom bounced around ideas on the terms of a German surrender. But it was still unclear how the military or political surrender signing would be orchestrated by the time Adolf Hitler died by suicide in a Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945,

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