May 8, 1945. Late in the evening- in Moscow the 9th of May had already begun in a former Wehrmacht officers’ casino in the Berlin villa section of Karlshorst, representatives of the German armed forces sign the unconditional surrender before the victorious Allied powers. The Second World War in Europe has come to an end. This point in time marked one of d1e most incisive and far - reaching events in German and European histOlY, and above and beyond iliis as well. National Socialist Germany had in the preceding years brought suffering to humanity, with well over 50 million victims of murder or casualties of war, with cities destroyed, landscapes ravaged and people uprooted and exiled evelywhere.