80 years after Germany surrendered, we're still learning the real lessons of World War II

A week passed between Hitler's death and the signature with which the Germans renounced hostilities: fighting and negotiations took place in the middle

80 years after Germany surrendered, we're still learning the real lessons of World War II

Eighty years on, few people are alive who remember World War II. Anne Frank would have turned 96 this June; Senator Bob Dole, a veteran of the Italian campaign in 1945, died four years ago. But the legacy of the war remains an active, living one — and there are still lessons to learn from it, decades after the Allies declared victory in Europe on May 8, 1945. The war is today invoked most often by the proper nouns that have come to stand in for …

80 years after the surrender of the Wehrmacht, any willingness to defend is still under suspicion in Germany. The social attitude towards the military must change – and also towards one's own country.

When VE Day was first celebrated 80 years ago, much of the continent was still in ruins and its people were mentally broken. There was some confusion about Germany's surrender, as Western powers were reluctant to officially announce it until the Soviet Union's whims were fulfilled.