History Quiz

World War II ended in 1945, and that answer is right. It is also the shortest of at least six defensible answers, and the gap between the first and the last of them is nearly seven years.

The trouble is that "the war ended" describes several different events that did not happen on the same day. Fighting stopped. Surrender documents were signed, in some cases twice. Governments proclaimed that hostilities were over. And then, separately and much later, the legal state of war was ended by act of parliament and by treaty. Each of those is a real ending. None of them is the same date.

Key Takeaways

• Germany surrendered twice. The Act of Military Surrender was signed at Reims at 0241 on 7 May 1945, then signed again at Berlin-Karlshorst on what the museum there dates as "the night of May 8-9", because the Soviet command objected that the first one looked like a separate peace. The UN General Assembly declares both 8 and 9 May a time of remembrance rather than choosing between them.
• Japan accepted the Potsdam terms on 14 August 1945 in Washington, which was 15 August in Tokyo. The UK Government dates VJ Day to 15 August. Truman told reporters that day: "Proclamation of V-J Day must wait upon the formal signing of the surrender terms by Japan."
• The Instrument of Surrender was signed aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay at four minutes past nine on the morning of 2 September 1945.
• Truman proclaimed the cessation of hostilities on 31 December 1946, in a document that says in its own text: "Although a state of war still exists".
• The United States remained legally at war with Germany until a joint resolution of Congress on 19 October 1951, and with Japan until the Treaty of Peace came into force on 28 April 1952.

Why does Europe mark the end of World War II on two different days?

Because Germany surrendered twice, and the second signing ran across two calendar dates. The United Kingdom marks 8 May. The United Nations recognises 8 and 9 May together. Between the two ceremonies and the museum's own dating of the second, three dates are in play, which is where the confusion starts.

The US National Archives holds the first document and describes its signing precisely: "The unconditional surrender of the German Third Reich was signed in the early morning hours of Monday, May 7, 1945, at Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) at Reims in northeastern France." General Alfred Jodl signed for the German High Command. Eisenhower, the National Archives notes, "refused to meet with the Germans until the surrender had been accomplished", so Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith signed on his behalf. The transcript ends with the line "Signed at RHEIMS at 0241 on the 7th day of May, 1945."

Then the objection came. In the National Archives' account, "Soviet chief of staff Gen. Alexei Antonov expressed concern to SHAEF that the continued fighting in the east between Germany and the Soviet Union made the Reims surrender look like a separate peace. The Soviet command wanted the Act of Military Surrender, with certain additions and alterations, to be signed at Berlin." It was, the next day. "To the Soviets, the documents signed at Berlin on May 8, 1945, represented the official, legal surrender of the Third Reich. But the Berlin document had few significant changes from the one signed a day earlier at Reims."

So the argument was never about the terms. It was about who was in the room and whose capital hosted the ceremony, which in May 1945 was not a small question.

A third date comes out of the clock. Paragraph 2 of the Reims act orders all German forces "to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European time on 8 May and to remain in the positions occupied at that time", so the war in Europe ended at an hour written into the document rather than at the moment of the last shot. The Berlin ceremony ran up to and past that deadline. Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, which occupies the room it happened in, dates it to "the night of May 8-9, 1945", when "the supreme commanders of the Wehrmacht signed the unconditional surrender before representatives of the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain and France".

That is how one surrender produced three dates and two anniversaries. Reims fell on 7 May. The ceasefire deadline and the museum's own summary of the Karlshorst signing both fall on 8 May, and 8 May is the date the UK Government gives for "VE Day (Victory in Europe Day)". The second ceremony is dated by the museum that stands in the room to "the night of May 8-9, 1945", which is how 9 May enters the argument at all. The 7 May signing is the one nobody celebrates.

The United Nations settled the argument by refusing to settle it. General Assembly resolution 59/26, adopted on 22 November 2004, "Declares 8-9 May as a time of remembrance and reconciliation" and, "while recognizing that Member States may have individual days of victory, liberation and commemoration", invites everyone "to observe annually either one or both of these days". Both dates, officially, and no ruling on which is correct.

Did World War II end on 15 August or 2 September 1945?

Both dates are defensible, and the President of the United States said so at the time.

Start with why the question has two dates in it at all. Japan's acceptance was announced on 14 August in Washington and 15 August in Tokyo, the same event on two calendars. The UK Government dates "VJ Day (Victory over Japan Day)" to 15 August, and marks it across the UK and Commonwealth. The signing that formally ended the war came on 2 September. Even the gap between them has two lengths: nineteen days counting from Washington, eighteen counting from Tokyo.

On 14 August 1945, Washington time, Truman read a statement to reporters that survives in the record of his news conference: "I have received this afternoon a message from the Japanese Government in reply to the message forwarded to that Government by the Secretary of State on August 11. I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan. In the reply there is no qualification." He added that "the Allied armed forces have been ordered to suspend offensive action", and announced a two-day public holiday, remarking that "the reason we are making it 2 days is because we didn't get to celebrate for the other".

In the same statement he set out the distinction this whole question turns on:

Proclamation of V-J Day must wait upon the formal signing of the surrender terms by Japan.

The fighting had stopped. The war, as a legal matter, had not ended. Nineteen days separate that 14 August announcement from the signature that did end it.

The National Archives' record of the Japanese surrender supplies the second date with unusual precision. On the morning of 2 September 1945, on the deck of USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu signed the Instrument of Surrender, and "the time was recorded as 4 minutes past 9 o'clock". The document runs to eight short paragraphs. It opens "We, acting by command of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan", and the surrender itself sits in the second paragraph: "We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under Japanese control wherever situated." MacArthur then signed, accepting the surrender, in the National Archives' quotation of him, "for the United States, Republic of China, United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and in the interests of the other United Nations at war with Japan". That last clause is where Australia and the rest of the Allied signatories sit.

Here is the detail that makes the point better than any argument. Truman's radio address announcing that signing is dated in the presidential papers to September 1, 1945, and headed "[Broadcast from the White House at 10 p.m.]". He tells the country that "the Japanese have just officially laid down their arms". The event he is describing as having just happened is filed under the following day, because Tokyo Bay had already turned the page. One moment, two dates, one for each side of the Pacific.

When did the state of war formally end after World War II?

Years later, and the documents that did it say so in as many words.

Just under sixteen months after the Missouri, Truman issued Proclamation 2714, which declared "the cessation of hostilities of World War II, effective twelve o'clock noon, December 31, 1946". The proclamation sets its own limits in its own text: "Although a state of war still exists, it is at this time possible to declare, and I find it to be in the public interest to declare, that hostilities have terminated."

Ending the state of war with Germany needed Congress, and Congress took until the autumn of 1951. Public Law 181 of the 82nd Congress, a joint resolution numbered H. J. Res. 289 and printed at 65 Stat. 451, is titled "To terminate the state of war between the United States and the Government of Germany". Its operative sentence resolves "That the state of war declared to exist between the United States and the Government of Germany by the joint resolution of Congress approved December 11, 1941, is hereby terminated and such termination shall take effect on the date of enactment of this resolution". It was approved on 19 October 1951, six years and five months after the fighting in Europe stopped.

Japan took longer still, and needed a treaty rather than a resolution. The State Department's Office of the Historian records that "in September of 1951, fifty-two nations met in San Francisco to discuss the treaty, and ultimately, forty-nine of them signed it", with the Soviet Union, Poland and Czechoslovakia among the holdouts. When the American ratification was deposited, Truman issued a statement dated 28 April 1952 beginning: "With the deposit of the United States ratification which brings into force the Treaty of Peace with Japan, the state of war has been terminated and Japan has been restored to a status of sovereign equality in the society of free peoples."

Date	What ended	Where it is recorded
7 May 1945, 0241	German forces surrender at Reims	Act of Military Surrender, US National Archives
8 May 1945, 2301 CET	German forces ordered to cease active operations	Paragraph 2 of the same act
Night of 8 to 9 May 1945	Surrender re-signed at Berlin-Karlshorst, the version the Soviets treated as legal	US National Archives; Museum Berlin-Karlshorst
14 August 1945 in Washington, 15 August in Tokyo	Japan accepts the Potsdam terms; offensive action suspended	Truman news conference
2 September 1945, 0904	Japan signs the Instrument of Surrender in Tokyo Bay	US National Archives
31 December 1946, noon	Hostilities of World War II formally cease	Proclamation 2714
19 October 1951	US state of war with Germany terminated	65 Stat. 451
28 April 1952	US state of war with Japan terminated	Treaty of Peace with Japan

Why does a quiz still answer 1945?

Because 1945 is true on every one of those readings and false on none.

Whichever ending you pick as the important one, 1945 contains the fighting stopping in Europe, the fighting stopping in the Pacific, and the signature that closed the last of it. The later dates are administrative in a way that matters enormously to lawyers, occupation authorities and anyone whose property was seized under trading-with-the-enemy legislation, and hardly at all to the question a quiz is asking. One year is a compression, and here the compression loses very little.

What it does hide is that "the end of a war" is not one event, and the paperwork rarely agrees with the memory. The last shot, the surrender ceremony, the public celebration and the legal termination are four different things that happened in four different months or years. The people who lived through it knew that: Truman told reporters on the day Japan accepted that V-J Day would have to wait.

So take the point, then take the year. If you enjoy this kind of date-pinning, On This Day hands you a different one every morning, and the other short quizzes sit on the same shelf.

Frequently asked questions

What date did World War II end?

The most common answer is 2 September 1945, the day Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay at four minutes past nine in the morning. The war in Europe had ended earlier, with the German Act of Military Surrender signed at Reims at 0241 on 7 May 1945 and re-signed at Berlin on 8 May. If you mean the day the shooting stopped rather than the day a document was signed, 14 August 1945 has a claim too, since Truman announced Japan's acceptance and the suspension of offensive action that afternoon. All three dates fall in 1945, and that is what makes the year the safe answer.

Why does the end of the war in Europe have two dates, 8 and 9 May?

Because there were two German surrender ceremonies, and the second one is dated across both days. The first was signed at Reims on 7 May 1945. The Soviet chief of staff, General Alexei Antonov, then objected to SHAEF that a surrender signed in the west while fighting continued in the east "look[ed] like a separate peace", and asked for the act to be signed again at Berlin. In the US National Archives' words, "to the Soviets, the documents signed at Berlin on May 8, 1945, represented the official, legal surrender of the Third Reich". Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, which stands in the building where that second ceremony took place, dates the signing to "the night of May 8-9, 1945". That straddle is where the second date comes from. The UK Government gives 8 May as VE Day. The UN General Assembly declines to pick between them, declaring 8-9 May jointly a time of remembrance while recognising that member states "may have individual days of victory, liberation and commemoration". The terms barely changed between the two documents. The venue, the witnesses and the calendar did.

Was Japan's surrender on 15 August or 2 September?

Both, for different meanings of surrender. Japan communicated its acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration on 14 August Washington time, which was 15 August in Tokyo, and Truman deemed it "a full acceptance" with "no qualification". But he was explicit in the same statement that "proclamation of V-J Day must wait upon the formal signing of the surrender terms by Japan". That signing happened on 2 September 1945. Counting from Truman's 14 August announcement, that is nineteen days of ceasefire without a concluded surrender; counted from 15 August in Tokyo, eighteen.

When did the United States legally stop being at war?

With Germany, on 19 October 1951, when a joint resolution of Congress printed at 65 Stat. 451 terminated the state of war declared on 11 December 1941. With Japan, on 28 April 1952, when the Treaty of Peace signed at San Francisco came into force. Before either of those, Truman had issued Proclamation 2714 on 31 December 1946 declaring hostilities at an end, and that document states plainly in its own text that "a state of war still exists". Hostilities ending and a state of war ending are separate legal events. Japan signed on 2 September 1945, and the American state of war ran another six years past that with Germany and another six years and eight months with Japan.

Did every country sign the peace treaty with Japan?

No. The State Department's Office of the Historian records that fifty-two nations met at San Francisco in September 1951 and forty-nine signed, with the Soviet Union, Poland and Czechoslovakia declining. The same page records that they "objected to the promise to support the Republic of China and not do business with the People's Republic of China that was forced on Japan by U.S. politicians". The practical consequence is that the Second World War has no one moment at which it ended for everyone at once, even in the narrow legal sense, because the parties concluded their peace on different dates and some outside that treaty altogether.

Sources

• US National Archives, Milestone Documents, "Surrender of Germany (1945)", citing the Act of Military Surrender, 5/7/1945, Records of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Record Group 218: archives.gov/milestone-documents/surrender-of-germany. Source of the Reims date and location, the Jodl and Bedell Smith signatures, the note that Eisenhower refused to meet the German delegation, the quoted Antonov objection and the Berlin re-signing, and the transcript lines quoted from paragraph 2 and the signature block.
• US National Archives, Milestone Documents, "Surrender of Japan (1945)", citing the Instrument of Surrender, September 2, 1945, Record Group 218: archives.gov/milestone-documents/surrender-of-japan. Source of the eight-paragraph description, the two quoted passages from the document, the named Japanese signatories, the time recorded as four minutes past nine, and MacArthur's acceptance on behalf of the four Allied powers.
• Harry S. Truman, news conference of 14 August 1945, in the Public Papers of the Presidents, via the American Presidency Project: presidency.ucsb.edu. Source of the quoted acceptance statement, the suspension of offensive action, the two-day holiday remark, and the sentence that proclamation of V-J Day must await the formal signing.
• Harry S. Truman, "Radio Address to the American People After the Signing of the Terms of Unconditional Surrender by Japan", dated September 1, 1945 and headed as broadcast from the White House at 10 p.m., American Presidency Project: presidency.ucsb.edu. Source of the date discrepancy between the Washington broadcast and the Tokyo Bay ceremony, and of the quoted line about the Japanese having just laid down their arms.
• Proclamation 2714, "Cessation of Hostilities of World War II", 31 December 1946, American Presidency Project: presidency.ucsb.edu. Source of the noon effective time and of the quoted acknowledgement that a state of war still existed.
• Public Law 181, 82nd Congress, H. J. Res. 289, "Joint Resolution To terminate the state of war between the United States and the Government of Germany", approved 19 October 1951, United States Statutes at Large volume 65 page 451, via govinfo: govinfo.gov. Source of the title and of the operative sentence quoted, transcribed from the scanned page.
• Harry S. Truman, "Statement by the President on the Termination of the State of War With Japan", 28 April 1952, American Presidency Project: presidency.ucsb.edu. Source of the date the Treaty of Peace entered into force and of the quoted opening sentence.
• Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, "The historic location" and "The German Surrender in May 1945": museum-karlshorst.de. The museum occupies the former Wehrmacht officers' mess where the second signing took place. Source of the "night of May 8-9, 1945" dating, the quoted description of the Wehrmacht commanders signing before Soviet, American, British and French representatives, and the statement that the war in Europe ended on 8 May 1945 at Karlshorst.
• UK Government, "VE Day and VJ Day 80th anniversaries": gov.uk. Source of the quoted expansions "VE Day (Victory in Europe Day)" on 8 May and "VJ Day (Victory over Japan Day)" on 15 August, and of the statement that these are marked across the UK and Commonwealth.
• United Nations General Assembly resolution 59/26, "Commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War", adopted 22 November 2004: documents.un.org. Source of the quoted declaration of 8-9 May as a time of remembrance and reconciliation, the recognition that Member States may have individual days of victory, liberation and commemoration, and the invitation to observe either or both.
• US Department of State, Office of the Historian, "Occupation and Reconstruction of Japan, 1945 to 1952": history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconstruction. Source of the San Francisco conference figures, the named holdouts, and the quoted account of what those three objected to. The page displays a notice that the Milestones series has been retired and is no longer maintained.