With Hitler dead and his dream of a Third Reich to last for a thousand years crumbling, on this day in 1945 Germany's Generaloberst Alfred Jodl signed his country's Instrument of Surrender on behalf of German President Karl Dönitz's Flensburg government, effectively ending World War II in Europe; the signing of the document, at Reims in France on the 7th and again in Berlin on the 8th, ushered in a two-day celebration in most of the world, which was (and indeed still is) known as V-E Day.
In October 1946, following his appearance at the Nuremberg Trials, Jodl was executed for conspiracy to commit crimes against peace.
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