Opinion: Commemorating The End of WWII

On May 9, 2025, Russia (formerly Soviet Union) commemorated the end of the Second World War, 1939-1945.

The event, which took place in Moscow on Friday, was attended by over two dozen world leaders, including the President of China, Xi Jiping and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

President Vladimir Putin presided over a massive parade of tanks, missiles and troops through the Red Square.

The West commemorates the end of WWII  – known as VE (Victory in Europe Day) on May 8 – a day before Russia’s event.

This discrepancy stems from a time zone difference.

While Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers (Britain, France and USA) was signed on May 8, 1945 at 23:01 CTE (Central European Time), that time would be May 9 in Moscow.

Moscow Time is GMT+3 while CET is GMT+1. This means when it was May 8 at 23:01 in Europe, it was already May 9 in Moscow.

NB: GMT stands for Greenwich Meridian Time, which is Zero (0) hours, or the starting time.

Victory in Europe Day, variably called *Victory over Fascism Day*, *Liberation Day*, or *Victory Day*, is the day celebrating the formal acceptance of Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces on *Tuesday, May 8, 1945*.

In the UK, it is often abbreviated as *VE Day*, a term which existed as early as September 1944, in anticipation of victory.

The day marked the official surrender of all German military operations.

The initial surrender took place at Reims, France when the successor of Adolf Hitler, *General Alfred Jodl*, signed the unconditional surrender on Tuesday, May 7, 1945.

However, due to complications with the Soviet Union, a second ceremony was held in Berlin where *Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Colonel-General Hans-Jurgen Stumpff, and General-Admiral Hans Georg von Friedelburg signed on behalf of the General Armed Forces.

One might ask how did we get here? It all has to do with the outbreak of WWII.

Although the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (China) of September 18, 1931 is the precursor to WWII, Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and the subsequent declaration of war on Germany by Britain is regarded as the outbreak of this global conflict.

Not until Adolf Hitler launched *Operation Barbarossa* on Sunday, June 22, 1941, did Germany formally invade the Soviet Union with an estimated 3.9 million troops.

For almost four years, till the Allies Powers launched *Operation Overload* on June 4, 1944, the Soviet Union fought Nazi Germany almost single-handedly.

Operation Barbarossa was a massive, lightning military attack of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany.

It consisted of:

– 148 divisions, including 17 Panzer divisions;

– 3.8 million personnel;

– 3,350 – 3,795 tanks;

– 2,270 – 5,309 Luftwaffe (German Airforce) aircraft;

– 7,200 – 23,435 artillery pieces;

– 600,000 horses, and;

– 600,000 vehicles.

The overall commander of Operation Barbarossa was Adolf Hitler as the Supreme Commander of the *Wehrmacht* (German Armed Forces).

However, the German Army High Command – Oberkommando des Heeres (OKW)- was responsible for planning and executing the operation.

Key commanders at the front included Fedor von Bock (Army Group Centre), Wilhelm von Leeb (Army Group North) and *Gerd von Rundstedt (Group South).

Operation Overload, or D-Day, was the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on June 4, 1944, marking the largest amphibious assault in history.

More than 133,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, supported by over 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft.

The operation aimed to establish a foothold in mainland Europe and ultimately defeat Nazi Germany.

The invasion force landed on five beaches: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.

Paratroopers and gliders dropped into Normandy ahead of the ground troops.

Allied intelligence conducted extensive deception operations to mislead the Germans about the timing and location of the invasion.

But, on the day of invasion the Allies lost about 10,000 soldiers.

However, the Allied invasion of Normandy was a turning point in World War II, paving the way for the liberation of Europe and the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany.

Too little, too late?

The Soviet Union viewed Operation Overload with a mix of relief and criticism.

While they recognized the strategic significance of opening a second front in Europe, they also criticized the Allies for delaying its implementation.

Russian leader *Joseph Stalin* (literally, “the man of steel”) had been pressing for a second front since 1941 as it would relieve pressure on the Eastern Front where the Soviet Union was facing the brunt of the German war effort.

However, the Allies delayed the invasion, leading to a long period of Soviet forces bearing the burden of the war.

Operation Bagration was a code name for the 1944 Soviet military campaign fought between June 22-August 19, 1944 in Soviet Byelorussia in the Eastern Front two weeks after the start of Operation Overload in the west.

It was during this operation that Nazi Germany was forced to fight simultaneously on two major fronts for the time since the war began.

The Soviet Union destroyed 28 of the divisions of Army Group Centre and completely shattered the German frontline.

The overall engagement is the largest defeat in German military history  with around 450,000 German casualties, while 300,000 other German soldiers were cut off in the Courland Pocket.

Courland Pocket- was a pocket located on the Courland Peninsula of Latvia on the Eastern Front of World War II from October 1944 to May 1945.

During Operation Bagration, Army Group North retreated to the Courland Pocket and was renamed Army Group Courland on January 25, holding off six Red Army offensives until the German Instrument of Surrender was signed on May 8, 1945.

Army Group Courland were in a communication blackout and did not get the official order until May 10, becoming one of the last German groups to surrender in Europe.

The Encirclement of Berlin during the Battle of Berlin in April 1945 involved Soviet forces led by *Marshal Zhukov* and *Marshal Konev*, using a pincer movement to surround the city.

This was part of the broader Soviet offensive aimed at capturing Berlin before the Western Allies with the aim of demonstrating Soviet military strength and gaining a strategic advantage in post-war negotiations.

The encirclement was completed on April 23, 1945 when Konev’s First Ukrainian Front and Zhukov’s First Belorussian Front linked up effectively trapping the German garrison within the city.

The encirclement led to the fall of Berlin, with the city’s garrison surrendering on May 2, 1945.

This feat, however, was arrived at after a series of battle successes:

1) The Battle of Seelow

The Battle of the Seelow Heights was part of the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation (April 16-May 2,1945).

A pitched battle, it was one of the last assaults on large entrenched defensive positions of WWII.

It was fought over three days, from April 16-19, 1945.

Close to 1,000,000 Soviet soldiers of the 1st Belorussian Front (including 78,556 soldiers of the Polish 1st Army), commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, attacked the position known as the “Gates of Berlin”.

They were opposed by about 110,000 soldiers of the German 9th Army, commanded by General Theodor Busse, as part of the Army Group Vistula.

This battle is often incorporated into the Battle of the Oder–Neisse.

The Seelow Heights was where some of the most bitter fighting in the overall battle took place, but it was only one of several crossing points along the Oder and Neisse rivers where the Soviets attacked.

2) Bartle of Oder-Neisse

The Battle of the Oder–Neisse was itself only the opening phase of the Battle of Berlin.

The result was the encirclement of the German 9th Army and the Battle of Halbe.

3) Vistula-Oder Offensive

In January 1945, the Red Army made a major advance into German-held territory, capturing Kraków, Warsaw and Poznań.

The Army had built up their strength around a number of key bridgeheads, with two fronts commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev.

Against them, the German Army Group A, led by Colonel-General Josef Harpe (soon replaced by Colonel-General Ferdinand Schörner), was outnumbered five to one.

Liberation of concentration camps

Within days, German commandants evacuated the concentration camps, sending the prisoners on their death marches to the west, where ethnic Germans also started fleeing.

In a little over two weeks, the Red Army had advanced 480 kn (300 miles) from the Vistula to the Oder, only 69km (43 miles) from Berlin, which was undefended.

However, Zhukov called a halt, owing to continued German resistance on his northern flank (Pomerania), and the advance on Berlin had to be delayed until April.

The offensive was a Soviet victory, leading to the liberation of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.

Soviet and Polish troops advanced into most of the pre-war Polish territory.

The Red Army claimed 626,000 casualties, 295,000 killed, and 147,000 taken prisoners.

4) Battle of Halbe

The Battle of Halbe was an offensive lasting from April 24-May 1, 1945 in which the German Ninth Army – under the command of General Theodor Busse – was destroyed as a fighting force by the Red Army during the Battle of Berlin.

After heavy fighting, about 30,000 German soldiers – just over one third of those originally in the pocket – reached the comparative safety of the Twelfth Army’s front lines.

The rest were either killed or captured by Soviet forces.

5) The Battle of Berlin

The Battle of Berlin, designated as the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, was one of the last major offensives of the European theatre of World War II.

After the Vistula-Oder Offensive of January-February 1945, the Red Army had temporarily halted on a line 60km (37 miles) east of Berlin.

On March 9, Germany established its defense plan for the city with *Operation Clausewitz*.

The first defensive preparations at the outskirts of Berlin were made on March 20, under the newly appointed commander of Army Group Vistula, General Gotthard Heinrich.

When the Soviet offensive resumed on April 16, two Soviet fronts (army groups) attacked Berlin from the east and south, while a third overran German forces positioned north of Berlin.

Before the main battle in Berlin commenced, the Red Army encircled the city after successful battles of the Seelow Heights and Halbe.

On April 20,1945, Hitler’s birthday, the First Belorussian Front led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, advancing from the east and north, started shelling Berlin’s city center, while Marshal Ivan Konev’s First Ukrainian Front broke through Army Group Centre and advanced towards the southern suburbs of Berlin.

On April 23, General Helmuth Weidling assumed command of the forces within Berlin.

The garrison consisted of several depleted and disorganized Army and Waffen-SS divisions, along with poorly trained Volkssturm and Hitler Youth members.

Over the course of the next week, the Red Army gradually took the entire city.

On April 30, Hitler killed himself. The city’s garrison surrendered on May 2 but fighting continued to the north-west, west, and south-west of the city until the end of the war in Europe on May 8 (May 9 in the Soviet Union) as some German units fought westward so that they could surrender to the Western Allies rather than to the Soviets.

Operation Clausewitz (Fall Clausewitz) was the code word initiating the defense of Berlin by Nazi Germany during the final stage of the European Theatre of World War II.

Clausewitz was established in a March 9, 1945 document, “Basic Order for the Preparations for the Defense of the Reich Capital (German: Grundsätzlicher Befehl für die Vorbereitungen zur Verteidigung der Reichshauptstadt)”, a 33-page document containing 24 separate points.

The second point of the document, in full (translated) is: “The Reich capital will be defended to the last man and to the last bullet.”

It has been referred to as the Nazis’ last stand against the Soviets.

The document divided the city of Berlin into nine operational defense zones (A to H, as slices of the outer city of Berlin and Z, its center, corresponding to the government district).

It further divided the region into four concentric rings: an outer exclusion zone, extending well past Berlin’s city limits; an outer defense zone extending roughly to the city limits; an inner defense zone extending out to the Berlin Ringbahn; and the Citadel (German: Zitadelle), again, zone Z.

In addition to the establishment of defense zones, this document also described the overall mechanism by which Berlin would be converted to a front line city.

This included:

– The evacuation of all Wehrmacht and SS offices in Berlin;

– Evacuation of the central command post of the capital from General Command on Hohenzollern to L-Tower of the Zoo bunker no more than six hours after the issuance of Clausewitz, and;

– The imposition of martial law for the civilian populace, and offences under which the death penalty was authorized.

The document also outlined the destruction of thousands of documents that were deemed “essential” to the Nazi war machine, this including documents pertaining to military and civilian logistics and installations, medical research, and other technological research.

Adolf Hitler ordered the execution of Fall Clausewitz on April 20,1945.

This set into motion preparations according to the *Basic Order plan*, and would have been followed later by the code word “Kolberg”, meaning full preparations should have been completed and the battle would have started.

On July 17, 1944, Stalin organized a parade of captured German prisoners of war in Moscow.

Known as Operation Waltz and/or the *Parade of the Vanquished*, it showcased the Soviet victory during Operation Begration.

Approximately 57,600 German soldiers and officers were paraded, including 19 generals.

The parade was a display of Soviet power and a symbolic representation of the defeat of Nazi Germany.

The captured generals included *Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus*, the commander of the German Sixth Army.

His capture and the surrounding of his army in Stalingrad was a major turning point in the Eastern Front.

Field Marshal Ewald von Kleist was also captured and died in captivity.

Also captured was Franz Halew, who served as the Chief of the Army General Staff.

Numerous other generals, including commanders of divisions and corps were captured by the Red Army.

The estimated total deaths from the Second World War were 50-85 million.

Of these, 21-25 million were military deaths, while 50-55 million civilians lost their lives.

Causes of death: The high mortality rates were as a result of massacres, the Holocaust, strategic bombings, starvation, disease, and the causes of nuclear weapons.

Soviet Union: 27 million personnel and military lost;

China: 3-3.75 million civilian and military deaths;

USA: Over 292,000 killed and missing plus over 671,000 wounded;

UK: Over 264,000 military deaths, plus 277,000 wounded;

France: Around 567,000 deaths, both military and civilian deaths.

This included 217,600 military and an estimated 350,000 civilian deaths.

Add to this some 400,000 civilians killed by Allied forces during the early stages of Operation Overload;

Poland: Over 5.8 million deaths, including civilian and military;

Other Allied Nations: Significant losses were also sustained by other Allied countries like the British Commonwealth, Greece, The Netherlands and former Yugoslavia.

Germany: An estimated 6.6-8.8 million deaths, both military and civilian.

Military deaths are estimated at 5.3 million with an additional 900,000 conscripted from outside pre-war Germany.

The German government reported 4.3 million dead and missing military personnel.

Japan: Japan lost between 2.6 and 3.1 million, both civilian and military. Military deaths are estimated at 2.1 million while between 500,000 to 1 million civilians were killed.

Many Allied soldiers were taken prisoner of war, with France and the Soviet Union having particularly high numbers of prisoners.

The tragic WWII evokes poignant memories of loss and pain such that we should renew our vow of “never again!”.

This war of catastrophic proportions made people re-think whether Carl von Clausewitz was right to define war as “the pursuing of diplomacy by other means.” No wonder any talk – faint as it is – of another world war sends shivers down many people’s spines. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).