Because the German surrender to the Allies was formally ratified in Berlin just after midnight local Soviet time on May 9, the USSR marked Victory Day one day later than Western Europe. Moscow erupted in fireworks and weeping crowds after nearly 27 million Soviet dead. The date remains the most solemn holiday in Russia and much of the former Soviet Union.
In the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst, past midnight on the night of May 8 into May 9, 1945, German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed the unconditional surrender document a second time, this version satisfying Soviet insistence on a ceremony conducted on German soil in the presence of the Red Army. Because Moscow ran two hours ahead of Berlin, the moment fell already on May 9 there, splitting the Allied victory into two separate calendar commemorations that persist to this day.
When word reached Moscow, Radio Moscow announcer Yuri Levitan broke into programming to read the surrender announcement, and the city convulsed with spontaneous joy: strangers embraced in Red Square, soldiers fired rifles into the air, and Stalin ordered a thirty-gun salute fired from every Soviet city holding the rank of 'Hero City.'
The human cost that preceded this night dwarfed that of any other combatant nation—estimates range from 24 to 27 million Soviet dead, military and civilian combined. That reservoir of grief and pride is why Victory Day, May 9, still commands the largest military parade in Russia each year, red carnations laid at eternal flames from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.
Key people: Wilhelm Keitel, Joseph Stalin, Georgy Zhukov