End of World War II in Europe
If you are looking for the page with the statistics about this event you can find it here:All Statistics
Refers to the surrender of Axis forces and the end of World War II and to the territorial changes that were a direct consequence of World War II but happened after the traditional end of the War.
Chronology
Interactive Chronologies with maps are available in the section Changes Navigation
May 1945: After the end of World War II, the Dodecanese Islands came under provisional British administration.
May 1945: After the End of World War II the Western European countries of Germany are reverted to their pre-war borders.
June 1945: The Third Czechoslovak Republic came into being in April 1945.
August 1945: At the Potsdam Conference the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union placed the German territories (within the 1937 Nazi Germany borders) east of the Oder-Neisse line, and with the exception of parts of East Prussia, as formally under Polish administrative control. The 1919 Versailles Treaty created Free City of Danzig was also placed under Polish administration.
February 1946: Starting on 16 February 1946 France disentangled the Saar area and established the separate Saar Protectorate.
February 1947: Romania was restored to its borders of 1 January 1941, but with Hungary giving Northern Transylvania back to Romania. The loss of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union was confirmed.
February 1947: Treaty of Paris: Italy transfers the Dodecanese to Greece, which reached its present borders.
April 1949: On 1 April 1949 (prior to the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany), the border areas in the territories of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate were temporarily divested to Belgium.
May 1949: The Federal Republic of Germany was established on the territory of the Western occupied zones, with Bonn as its "provisional" capital.
October 1949: The German Democratic Republic (or Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR), with East Berlin as its capital, was established in the Soviet Zone.
August 1963: Almost all of the German territories annexed by the Netherlands at the end of WWII were returned to West Germany in 1963 after Germany paid the Netherlands 280 million German marks. The territory was returned to West Germany on 1 August 1963, except one small hill (about 3 km2) near Wyler village, called Duivelsberg/Wylerberg.
May 1945: The entire territory of Germany is occupied by Allied forces.
February 1947: Three villages (Horvátújfalu, Oroszvár, and Dunacsún) situated south of Bratislava were transferred to Czechoslovakia.
August 1958: Belgium returned the German annexed territories on 28 August 1958 through the German-Belgian border treaty of 24 September 1956. The place Losheimergraben and the western part of the Leykaul municipality, as well as some forests, were excluded from this restoration. These areas remained in Belgium, and so did the previously Belgian municipalities of Eupen and Malmedy that had been incorporated into the German Reich in 1940.
May 1945: On May 11, 1945, the German capitulation was also completed on Heligoland. British soldiers occupied the island.
April 1949: An area of Germany of a total size of 69 km2 was allocated to the Netherlands.
January 1957: With effect of 1 January 1957 the Saar Protectorate declared its accession to the Federal Republic of Germany, as provided by its Grundgesetz (constitution) art. 23 (Little Reunification), becoming the new federal state of Saarland.
Surrender of German forces at the end of World War II.
May 1945: The German Atlantic Pocket of Saint-Nazaire surrendered.
May 1945: German forces in Bavaria surrender.
May 1945: General Franz Böhme announced the unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway.
May 1945: German forces on the Channel Islands surrender.
May 1945: At the end of World War II Greece freed its islands from German forces.
May 1945: The German garrisons of most of the last Atlantic pockets in France, in Dunkirk and La Rochelle, surrendered to the Allies.
May 1945: The Soviets forced the German units in Army Group Centre, that were located in Bohemia, to capitulate by 11 May.
May 1945: Resistance in Latvia ceases as German Sixteenth and Eighteenth Armies begin surrendering to forces of Leningrad Front.
May 1945: Soviet forces complete capture of Berlin. German forces surrender.
May 1945: German forces in North West Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands surrender.
May 1945: The Atlantic Pocket of Lorient surrendered to French forces.
The Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state after World War II.
May 1945: In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Austria was divided into four occupation zones and jointly occupied by the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France.
July 1955: The Austrian State Treaty was signed on May 15, 1955, in Vienna, Austria. The treaty was signed by the foreign ministers of the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and France, officially ending the Allied occupation of Austria and re-establishing the country as a sovereign state.
The Allies occupied Germany, but the Western allies and Soviet Union formed separate governments covering specific parts of Germany (West Germany, as well as West Berlin, and East Germany).
August 1945: The Allies divided Germany into four occupation zones.
Surrender of Japanese forces at the end of World War II.
September 1945: Nauru was finally set free from the Japanese.
January 1946: D. João, Lapa and Montanha Islands were restored to China in 1945.
September 1945: The Japanese garrison in Penang surrenders.
September 1945: The remaining Japanese forces in China surrender.
September 1945: The Japanese commander in the Philippines, Gen. Yamashita, surrendered to Gen. Wainwright at Baguio.
September 1945: Wake island was held by the Japanese for the duration of the Pacific War theater of World War II; the remaining Japanese garrison on the island surrendered to a detachment of United States Marines on 4 September 1945.
September 1945: Japanese in Sarawak surrender.
Border changes of Italy in the aftermath of World War II.
October 1947: Transfer to France of Briga and Tenda, and minor revisions of the Franco-Italian border.
February 1947: Trieste and the surrounding area were incorporated into a new independent state called the Free Territory of Trieste.
October 1954: On 5 October 1954, the London Memorandum was signed in the British capital by ministers of the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, and Yugoslavia. It gave the former Zone A with Trieste to Italy for ordinary civil administration, and Zone B, which had already had a communist government since 1947, to Yugoslavia. In addition, Yugoslavia was given several villages in the municipality of Muggia that had been part of Zone A: Plavje, Spodnje Škofije, Elerji, Hrvatini, Kolomban, Cerej, Premančan, and Barizoni.
Selected Sources
Dollinger, Hans. The Decline and the Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047. p. 239
Williams, M.H. (1989): United States army in World War II - Special Studies - Chronology 1941-1945, p. 528
Williams, M.H. (1989): United States army in World War II - Special Studies - Chronology 1941-1945, p. 530
Williams, M.H. (1989): United States army in World War II - Special Studies - Chronology 1941-1945, p. 534
