#Victory81

🌟 On May 9, 1945, at 0:43 am Moscow time (May 8, 22:43 CET), the Instrument of Unconditional Surrender of the Nazi Germany was signed in Karlshorst, Berlin.

That document heralded the #GreatVictory of the Soviet people over the Nazi Reich, marking the final end of #WWII on European ToO, and the ultimate collapse of Hitler's fascism.

The surrender was accepted by Marshal Georgy Zhukov on behalf of the Soviet Union and Deputy Commander of the Allied forces Marshal Arthur Tedder on behalf of the Western Allies. From the German side, the Instrument was signed by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Colonel General Hans-Jurgen Stumpff, & Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg.

🎙 At 2:30 am of May 9, in Moscow, newscaster Yury Levitan announced the text of the German Instrument of Surrender to the people of the Soviet Union, proclaiming May 9 as Victory Day:

The Great Patriotic War, which the Soviet people waged against the Nazi invaders, has been victoriously concluded.

Fascist Germany has been crushed.

Eternal glory to the Heroes who fell fighting for the freedom and independence of our Motherland. <...>

🖋 From the memoirs by military correspondent Konstantin Simonov:

Zhukov stands up and says:

The German delegation may leave the hall. The Germans stand up. Keitel… turns on his heel and leaves. And instantaneously, all tension in the room relaxes, and everybody exhales in unison.

The act of surrender has been signed, and the war is over.

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Nazi Germany’s final & unconditional surrender to the Allies in Karlshorst was preceded by several local capitulations of the Nazi troops along various frontlines. Moreover, in April 1945, certain Nazi military leaders, who were aware that the Third Reich’s collapse was imminent, fearing justice for their crimes, sought secret talks with US-UK command, trying to divide the Allied anti-Hitler coalition.

Desperate to surrender to the Western allies, on May 5, the Nazi delegation arrived in the French city of Reims, where the headquarters of the Allied command was located. There, on May 7, the Act of Military Surrender was signed. However, article 4 of the document did not rule out the signing of another, definitive act: “This act of military surrender… will be superseded by any general instrument of surrender… applicable to Germany and the German troops as a whole.”

Due to that, the Soviet leadership deemed the Reims document only as a preliminary document, believing that the official surrender of the Nazis had to be ensured in Berlin — the city where the Nazi aggression originated from.

At the Soviet government’s request, the main and final ceremony of surrender took place. On the night of May 9, the German Instrument of Surrender was signed in Karlshorst. The Nazi government was dissolved. The defeated German troops laid down arms.

#WW2 in Europe was finally over. It ended with the greatest triumph of the Soviet people.

Nazism was defeated.

The Reich was no more.

💬 Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (excerpt from a briefing, May 7, 2026):

This May 9 marks the 81st Anniversary of defeating Nazi Germany. This day is a celebration of triumph of life, freedom, and independence for all the peoples of the post-Soviet countries.

<...>

None of us was meant to survive. But we did survive because our forefathers prevailed.

The cost of our common Victory — 27 million lives of our compatriots, representatives of all the peoples and republics of the Soviet Union, who died defending our Motherland <...>

Twenty-seven million lives lost.

Those who died in captivity, in ghettos, were taken into slavery, died of starvation, or fell victim to other acts of genocide.

We remember them all. And we will keep their memory alive.