Victory Day
V-E Day celebrates the Victory in Europe over Nazi Germany by the Soviet Union and its Allies of World War II. During the Cold War in the West, May 8 was commemorated as the day a document was signed a few minutes before midnite giving an unconditional surrender of with Angelo-American forces in France in 1945. In Russia, Victory Day is the largest national holiday celebrated on May 9, when German forces surrendered to Russian forces in the German capital of Berlin. The Allies had agreed among themselves beforehand that none would accept a separate peace with Germany. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower recognized the May 9 Berlin surrender as the authentic surrender date and document.
Upon the death of Hitler and Goebbels, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz was appointed Chancellor (the short-lived Flensburg government). Dönitz immediately opened up negotiations with the Western Powers to offer Germany's unconditional surrender. The Western Powers had previously agreed with their Soviet allies not to accept a separate peace.
On May 7, Dönitz authorized General Alfred Jodl, to sign the unconditional surrender of German forces in the West to the American and British forces in Reims. On May 9, shortly after midnight Moscow time Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed the surrender document to the Russian forces in Berlin.
May 9 has been a national holiday in the Russian Federation since its formation 1991. May 9 became a non-working holiday in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1963 and only two years later in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in 1965.