In pictures: World marks 75 years since end of WWII
Victory in Europe Day — or VE Day — marks the day when General Wilhelm Keitel signed the final terms of Nazi Germany's surrender on 8 May 1945, ending World War II in Europe. In many countries VE Day is a holiday.
Remembrance while social distancing
On May 8, 2020, in front of Berlin's Neue Wache memorial to victims of war and dictatorship, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier commemorates Germany's surrender 75 years ago. Brandenburg State Premier Dietmar Woidke, Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Constitutional Court President Andreas Vosskuhle (l. to r.) take part in the ceremony amid the pandemic.
Masks and social distancing
At the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin's Treptower Park, residents lay flowers on the 75th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany. Here, too, there is no large-scale event, and instead social distancing and protective masks during the coronavirus pandemic. The Soviet Army was the hardest hit when it came to military casualties. Moscow commemorates the millions of victims on May 9.
Russia remembers on May 9
Up to 10.7 million Red Army soldiers were killed during WWII, according to the New Orleans-based National WWII Museum. An air show over Moscow's Red Square marked the 75th anniversary of Victory Day on May 9.
Pumping up for peace
Michael Fischer-Art, an artist from Leipzig, installed a large, inflatable tank on Berlin's Pariser Platz, next to the Brandenburg Gate. Marking the anniversary of May 8, 1945, he seeks to illustrate the senselessness of war.
75 roses along a border fence
Katarzyna Goral, an employee of the Polish Zgorzelec town council, places one of 75 roses onto a border fence at the town's bridge over the Neisse River. Görlitz, a city in Saxony that was part of the former province of Lower Silesia during the war, was divided along the Neisse after World War II. Since then, the eastern part of the city became the Polish town of Zgorzelec.
Soldiers of past and present
WWII veterans and soldiers currently with the army jointly remember the end of the war in Europe and lay wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Lithuanian Square in Lublin, Poland.
Shadows of the past
In Ukraine all official commemorations were cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. According to official figures, at least 8 million Ukrainians died during the WWII — a quarter of the population. Passersby stroll past a monument at the open-air World War II Museum in Kiev.
Flags and veterans
In the French city of Lille, too, the commemoration ceremony was forced to adapt to coronavirus restrictions. At the city's square, which was almost completely empty, a WWII veteran salutes the monument for victims of the two world wars.
'The war in Germany is over'
In the British town of Crewe, near Manchester, 96-year-old Bernard Morgan greets his neighbors on V-E Day, as a larger commemoration ceremony was not permitted due to COVID-19. As a young man, Morgan was a code and cipher operator for the Royal Air Force who received and printed the first original telex message: "The war in Germany is over."
75 years on: A warning for the future
Major Andy Reid of the Scots Guards, an infantry regiment in the British Army, plays the bagpipes while two Spitfires thunder over the cliffs of Dover. The low-wing aircraft were used by the Royal Air Force and Allied Air Forces during WWII.