Originally Posted by
Pali
When Germany surrendered it was already after midnight Moscow time. This was the reason why Soviet block celebrated on 9th of May during Cold war and Russians do so even today.
Thanks for setting me straight on that, Pali. In my ignorance of the history, I was misinterpreting something I had heard said yesterday on BBC Radio 4 by Max Hastings, the journalist and historian of WW2. He put the Russian date of May 9th down to the fact that there had had to be a second surrender ceremony in Berlin. The first one at Reims had been rejected as illegitimate by Stalin because it did not include the Soviets. That is correct. But what he omitted to explain was that the Berlin ceremony was held on the very late evening of May 8th GMT and Berlin time, by which time it was May 9th in Moscow.