FUN WITH MAPS ISSUE 2026-076

By Steve Kovacs (Introduction by Chuck Gibson)

LOVELAND, OH (May 8, 2026) – This edition of Fun with Maps celebrates a surrender taking one step toward the end of WWII in 1945.

The End, Part 1

On May 8, 1945 Germany surrendered to the Allies, bringing the end of World War II hostilities in the European theater.  Also known as V-E Day, Victory in Europe.  Japan formally surrendered on September 2, 1945.

Signing for Germany was Field Marshall Keiter, chief of the German Armed Forces.  One year later he was executed in Nurnberg as a war criminal.

The defeat of the Nazis liberated Europe from oppression.  Well, not exactly.  For about 100 million people one form of oppression was replaced with another form of oppression. 

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviet Union, Stalin with Churchill and Roosevelt demanded a buffer zone be established between the west and the Soviets. Stalin didn’t call it that and only asked for Poland at first.  That was followed by gaining political control of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania and Romania.  Soviet domination came to an end in 1989-90 in those countries.

This 1951 map of Europe from the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune shows the countries under Soviet control in red.

Steve Kovacs and his wife Theresa reside in Loveland, Ohio where they raised their two children. He is a passionate collector of antique maps. Visit his antique map boutique world-on-paper online. Watch for his daily feature Fun with Maps here on Loveland Beacon.