VE Day live: UK and Europe hold ceremonies to mark 80 years since end of second world war in Europe
Thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey begins after two-minute silence
The thanksgiving service, marking the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) at Westminster Abbey, has begun after a two-minute silence was held across the UK.
King Charles, Queen Camilla and the Prince and Princess of Wales are in attendance, along with UK prime minister Keir Starmer.
There are 1,800 guests in attendance at today’s service, including royals, veterans, politicians, officials, guests and other public figures.
Key events
Here are some images of reenactors in Paris, France, pictured before a parade as part of ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day:
Copenhagen, 7 May
Germany’s last two seaworthy big warships, the cruisers the Prinz Eugen and the Nuremberg, are lying in the north port here with their German crews aboard, having apparently made no attempt to flee when Denmark was liberated.
With them are various anti-submarine craft and 54 German merchant ships aggregating some 150,000 tons.
The entrance to the docks where the ships lie is still guarded by German soldiers armed with tommy guns and rifles, and in streets around the dock area German soldiers come and go pretty much as they please, brushing shoulders with British paratroops; the Germans ostentatiously ignore their ex-enemy’s presence, but the British and Danes are in a position to find the whole situation ridiculous.
Meanwhile discipline in some of the German warships has suffered in a fashion reminiscent in a small way of what happened in October 1918. On the deck of a minesweeper I saw a crowd of German sailors gathered drinking, singing, and playing an accordion.
When they caught sight of me they started cheering and yelling “Hullo, Tommy,” “Good old Tommy, come and have a drink.” I walked over to their ship and started to talk to them from the quayside when a petty officer appeared on deck with a tommy-gun in his hand which he pointed at me whilst ordering the men below.
A small, pale, harassed-looking German naval commander had driven up to the Hotel Angleterre in a Volkswagen and announced to the hall porter and to me that he had come to discuss the surrender of the German warships with the competent British officer.
No interest in ship
This officer was not in the hotel at the time, so that for a while there was to be observed the ridiculous spectacle of a German officer roaming through the corridors of the hotel from room to room trying to find someone competent to receive him.
For five years the British Navy and the R.A.F. had been hunting the Prinz Eugen, and under and above the seas hundreds of lives had been lost. Now suddenly there was just no interest in the ship at all.
All this business of the German crews remaining in the ships and the German troops in Denmark retaining their arms is part of a very complicated situation rising out of the fact that there are 300,000 German troops in the country and very few British to whom they can surrender.
Considerations of prestige, they say, forbid them to surrender to the Danes though when they leave the country they have agreed to leave behind their heavy weapons. Neither the Danes nor the British are much interested in German ideas of prestige and have only one concern – to get the Germans put out of the country as quickly as possible.
If this can be done by allowing the Germans to march out armed until they reach the British lines where the weapons can be collected they are willing to agree.
This is an edited extract, read more of the Manchester Guardian’s VE Day coverage
How is VE Day commemorated across Europe?
Jon Henley
For western Europe, including the UK, VE Day largely heralded the return of liberty and the triumph of democracy, and marked the end of Nazi aggression and occupation, the slaughter of a generation of young men, and the horrors of the Holocaust.
Even so, few commemorate it in the same way or even on the same day. Belgium combines its ceremonies with Armistice Day on 11 November, which marks the end of the first world war. The Netherlands and Denmark celebrate Liberation Day on 5 May. Italy, one of Germany’s wartime allies, also marks Liberation Day – victory over Mussolini’s puppet government – but on 25 April.
For much of central and eastern Europe, the end of the second world war means something very different: the beginning of life under a communist regime.
Russia itself commemorates VE Day with a huge military parade on 9 May, for the simple reason that when the ceasefire that ended the war came into force at 11.01pm in Berlin on 8 May 1945, it was already the following day in Moscow.
This year, underlining Europe’s ever-present political faultlines, the Kremlin has said Slovakia’s Moscow-friendly prime minister, Robert Fico, and Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia’s ultranationalist president, will attend, despite strong EU criticism. A counter-parade, attended by EU foreign ministers, will be held in Lviv, Ukraine.
Some other former east bloc states, from Belarus to Bosnia and Herzegovina, continue to mark Victory Day on 9 May. Many, however, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have switched to the eighth since regaining their independence, choosing not to mark the date they fell under Soviet control.
Earlier, during a thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey, UK prime minister Keir Starmer gave a bible reading and wartime favourite The White Cliffs Of Dover was sung by Zizi Strallen.
Actor Nina Sosanya read a letter written on VE Day by Janet Thornton to her teenage daughters Renee and Pippa, who were away staying in Dorset.
She told them it was the “most important day of your life and of the world”, and urged them “enjoy yourselves, shout, scream, sing, wave flags, eat, drink, lemon or barley water, and make it a day of rejoicing”.
Thornton’s grandson Colin Vallance-Owen was in the abbey to hear his grandmother’s words.
He told the BBC:
My grandmother wrote the letter on VE Day itself. She was away from her daughters. They were in Sherbourne, so she wrote it on VE Day. She seemed to have got the moment.
She felt very very seriously that this was a very, very important day for all of us.
He described Thornton, who died in 1986, as “absolutely tiny with a huge personality”, adding: “It’s a bit of history really.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticised Russia, saying “victory and true remembrance are not with those who hold ‘parades’ but with those on whose side the truth is”.
Russia commemorates VE Day with a huge military parade on 9 May, because when the ceasefire that ended the second world war came into force at 11.01pm in Berlin on 8 May 1945, it was already the following day in Moscow.
In a post on X, Zelenskyy wrote on Thursday:
In attempting to appropriate Ukraine, Russia is appropriating another nation’s memory and distorting history.
That is why not only today, on the Day of Remembrance and Victory over nazism, but always, it is worth remembering: Ukrainians made their great contribution to that victory. They stopped a global evil with their own blood.
Because more than 8 million Ukrainians fought against nazism – not only as part of the Soviet army. Tens of thousands served in the Allied armies. Hundreds of thousands fought in partisan units and resistance movements.
In that war, we had no rear – all our land was one continuous frontline, a staging ground, an open wound. Every city, every village suffered. Every home and every family.
And we will not surrender this memory to a new, Russian nazism – just as we will not surrender our present to it. Victory and true remembrance are not with those who hold ‘parades’ but with those on whose side the truth is. Let us honor our contribution to the fight against evil. And our present, in which we are fighting it once again.
Here are some more images from today coming in via the newswires:
Scotland fell silent to remember its wartime heroes, with a series of events taking place around the country to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day.
At the Scottish parliament and at public spaces including train stations, a national two-minute silence was observed at midday.
Holyrood presiding officer, Alison Johnson, said:
We honour the generation that gave so much to secure our peace and freedoms.
We owe it to them to strive for that peace, to remember and to encourage future generations to remember.
Party leaders also marked the anniversary in a series of tributes before first minister’s questions.
John Swinney paid tribute to his uncle Cpl Tom Hunter of 43 Royal Marine Commando, who died on 3 April 1945 in Comacchio, Italy. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for offering himself as a target to German guns in order to save his own troop during the battle.
According to the PA news agenvy, the first minister said:
I think of my uncle, Thomas Hunter, killed in Italy protecting his comrades 35 days before the end of the war.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said:
None of us here can truly appreciate the selfless sacrifice, duty and bravery of the greatest generation who fought and died for our freedom.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said:
We remember those who gave everything for the fight against fascism, the greatest tyranny we have ever faced.
Scottish Green co-leader Lorna Slater said: “We cannot be complacent in the face of growing threats of fascism, international violence, hatred and oppression,” while Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton added:
We must rededicate ourselves to the promise of that peace and its furtherance for our children and theirs to come.
A service of thanksgiving took place at Glasgow Cathedral at 1pm, with guests including representatives from the military, veterans’ organisations, emergency services and religious groups.
Members of the Royal British Legion, the Royal Air Forces Association, and the armed forces charity the SSAFA took part in the service, along with their families.
Archbishop of York warns ‘good’ that came after VE Day is ‘under threat again’
Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, has warned the “good” resulting from the second world war is “under threat” as King Charles led the UK in commemorating the 80th anniversary of VE Day.
Cottrell paid tribute to “those whose sacrifice made our victory possible” against Hitler’s Nazi regime, and said he is praying again for “peace in Europe” amid Russia’s three-year invasion of Ukraine, reports the PA news agency.
He spoke during a service of thanksgiving to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, with a number of veterans among the Westminster Abbey congregation featuring the king, Queen Camilla, Prince and Princess of Wales and prime minister Keir Starmer, who read the lesson.
In his address, the Cottrell said:
Today, on this 80th anniversary, we give hearty and mighty thanks for those whose sacrifice made our victory possible. We pray again for peace in Europe.
We salute those who were so committed to the ideas and ideals they fought to uphold, that in the postwar era rebuilt the world to reflect those beliefs.
From the National Health Service to the United Nations itself, we strove to build a world that shows how we belong to one another and have responsibilities to each other across boundaries of class, race and nation.
Those first outpourings of joy on the first VE Day led to something good, because in our opposition of what was worst in us, we discovered what was best.
All this good is under threat again in our world today.
Europe’s major nations including the UK are planning on stepping up spending on their armed forces in response to the changing world order ushered in by US president Donald Trump. Russia is seen as a growing threat in eastern Europe and there is economic uncertainty for many nations coming to terms with the US’s new tariffs.
Deborah Cole
Berlin for the first time observed a public holiday on VE Day, as Germany’s political leaders gathered in the Bundestag lower house of parliament for the central ceremony marking what many Germans call a day of “liberation” from the Nazi dictatorship.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the chamber Germany must never heed the call of extremists trying to shake off the burden of responsibility for the second world war and the Holocaust.
“It was Germans that unleashed this criminal war and dragged Europe with it into the abyss,” he told the assembled guests including newly elected chancellor Friedrich Merz, who earlier laid a wreath at a memorial for victims of war.
“It was Germans who committed the crimes against humanity of the Shoah. And it was Germans who were unwilling and unable to throw off the yoke of the Nazi regime.”
It was the first major ceremony on VE Day in the Reichstag building, its walls still covered in graffiti left by Red Army soldiers during the Battle of Berlin, since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The ambassadors of both Russia and Belarus were barred from participating.
“Tomorrow we will see the victory parades in Moscow in the name of liberators from back, supposedly justifying a war against Ukraine today,” the speaker of the Bundestag, Julia Klöckner, said.
“What an abuse of history! Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol. And again girls and women fall victim to sexual violence, used as a weapon of war.”
Steinmeier acknowledged the role of Soviet forces in defeating Nazi Germany, noting that at least 13 million Red Army soldiers, including Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and others, lost their lives in the fight, and as many civilians.
“But the liberators of Auschwitz have become new aggressors,” he said. “With the war against Ukraine, Putin left our European security order in rubble. It was the source of our hope that we had learned the lesson from the horrors of war once and for all.”
King Charles, the queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales and other members of the royal family met veterans in the nave at the end of the service.
William was seen placing his hand on one veteran’s shoulder as he chatted to the former serviceman who stood to speak with the prince and Kate.
The princess crouched down to meet one woman, holding her hand as she chatted to the veteran, who was wearing medals and sat in her wheelchair.
King Charles was seen deep in conversation with a number of veterans, bending close to speak to them.
