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A Bit Forgotten: The School in France Where Germany First Surrendered
The Guardian
|May 06, 2025
Or a building that witnessed one of the pivotal moments of European history, the red-brick schoolhouse in Reims is strangely unremarkable. In May 1945, it was the Collège Moderne et Technique and the city in eastern France had been liberated for several months. Students came and went but there were two US military policemen guarding the doors.
Upstairs, Dwight D Eisenhower and his staff were coordinating the final assault on Nazi Germany from a classroom that had become the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force.
It was here, as the neat black lettering on the facade now notes, "that on 7 May 1945 was signed the act that ended the second world war in Europe".
In the museum that the HQ has now become, Arnaud Robinet, the present mayor of Reims confessed to just one minor regret. "France never appropriated that date," he said. "The date chosen for Victory in Europe Day was 8 May. Yet the Germans surrendered here, in the next room, on the seventh. It's been a bit forgotten."
This story is from the May 06, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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