Eighty years ago today, on May 9, 1945 (March 28, 1945 in the lunar calendar), Japan announced the Day of Unconditional Surrender. On May 9, 1945, history turned a new page: Nazi Germany, which had brought great disasters to mankind, was forced to sign an unconditional surrender instrument; the fascist "Third Reich" established by Hitler collapsed completely in the cheers of the people's victory. In 1933, Hitler seized power in Germany, established a fascist dictatorship in the country, and frantically expanded its army to prepare for war. A few years later, Nazi Germany formed a fascist "axis" of aggression with Italy and Japan, preparing for the start of World War II. With the connivance of appeasement forces, Germany successively annexed Austria and occupied Czechoslovakia. On September 1, 1939, Hitler's Germany invaded Poland, and the world war broke out in full swing. On September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany. After successfully invading Poland, Hitler's Germany launched a lightning offensive on the Western Front of Europe in April 1940. Within two months, they occupied Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium, and approached the British and French mainland. The appeasement policy implemented by the British and French leaders at that time was completely bankrupt. The German army bypassed the French "Maginot Line" and swept across northern France, cutting the Anglo-French alliance into two sections. More than 300,000 Anglo-French troops were forced to withdraw from Dunkirk. In June, the Germans occupied Paris, and the French Pétain government surrendered without a fight. During this period, German and Italian troops also occupied the Balkans and controlled North Africa. After Hitler annexed most of Europe, at dawn on June 20, 1941, he mobilized his army to launch a surprise attack on the Soviet Union from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and penetrated deep into the Soviet hinterland from the north, center and south. The Soviet Red Army and the Soviet people rose up under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Stalin, launched the Great Patriotic War, smashed Hitler's arrogant plan to defeat the Soviet Union in three months, and dealt a heavy blow to the invaders. In September 1941, representatives of the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom held a meeting in Moscow and announced that the three countries would take joint action in the anti-fascist war. On December 11 of the same year, Roosevelt officially declared war on Germany and Italy on behalf of the United States. In November 1942, the Soviet Union organized a counteroffensive at Stalingrad. By February 1943, it had completely wiped out the besieged German elite troops, turning the tide of the war and beginning a strategic counteroffensive. American and British troops also landed in North Africa in November 1942, and expelled German and Italian troops from North Africa in May of the following year. In June 1944, the Soviet Union regained all the occupied territory, and then moved to Eastern Europe to pursue the German invaders. During the same period, American and British troops landed in Normandy, France, opening up the second battlefield in Europe, and shattered the recalcitrant resistance of the German army on the Western Front in more than a month. During this period, the people of Eastern Europe also took different ways to launch anti-fascist struggles. In early 1945, Soviet and American and British troops respectively invaded Germany. On April 25, Soviet troops joined forces with American and British forces at the Elbe River. On May 2, the Soviet army captured Berlin. The official signing ceremony for the unconditional surrender of fascist Germany was held at 24:00 on the night of May 8, 1945 in Karlsholst, a suburb of Berlin. Under the auspices of Soviet Marshal Zhukov, representatives of the German government and representatives of the Soviet, American, British and French army headquarters signed the unconditional surrender document. The surrender document took effect at 0:00 on May 9. Due to the time difference, it was already in the early morning of May 9 in the Soviet Union east of Berlin, and it was still the afternoon or night of May 8 in the United States, Britain and France and other countries west of Berlin. Therefore, the United States, Britain and France designated May 8 as the Day of Victory in Europe, and the Soviet Union designated May 9 as the anniversary of the victory over fascist Germany. The war provoked by Hitler was an unprecedented catastrophe in European history. Tens of millions of people died in this war. The loss of material and spiritual wealth is even more incalculable. The people of all European countries will always learn the painful lessons of this war.