Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1945. WAR IN EUROPE ENDS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 134, 8 May 1945, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1945. WAR IN EUROPE ENDS.

Tmc Avar in Europe lias ended. That is Hie very good news of today. It was not unexpected once the announcement avus made that the Germans would capitulate in doorway. The declaration did not come, hoAvever, in the grand manner arranged by the Allies—by a simultaneous anouncement from the capitals of Great Britain, the United States, and Soviet Russia. A Danish radio station, probably not without some embarrassment to Shaef and to the leaders of the three major PoAvers, gawe the news first to the Avorld—that Admiral Doenitz had ordered the unconditional surrender of all the German fighting forces and that Germany had accepted the Allied terms. The later' announcement from a news agency source that the surrender had been signed at General Eisenhower’s headquarters in Rheims confirmed the radio report. So ends the Avar in Europe, a conflagration the like of Avhich, it wi,U be devoutly hoped, Avill never again come to disrupt peace and bring torture, misery, starvation, and death to millions of people. Hitler launched his Avar for Avorld domination at the height of his power. He and his regime had worked Avith the utmost deceit and cunning for the day in September, 1939, when Poland felt the Aveight of the first blitzkrieg. Ilis Avar machine Avorked'with faultless precision. Poland fell in the first few Aveeks and Russia, later to become a leading PoAver in the war against Nazism, when she fell a victim to Hitler’s treachery, aided the process. The blitzkrieg of 19-10 added France, the Loav Countries, Denmark and Nonvay, to the States under German domination. Hitler Avas supreme, but only on the Continent. His supremacy Avas further emphasised by the conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece, and there it ended Avhile he sought to subdue Russia. The Soviet sold territory for time and Stalingrad avus the grave of Hitler’s hopes. The bloAvs there struck against Nazism echoed and echoed over all the country and did not cease until the fall of Berlin and the destruction of the Third Reich, which Hitler succeeded in “dragging down with him in a colossal sacrifice to his colossal vanity.’’

In the hour of victory Ave can all recall Avith pride that Britain, standing alone in Europe but looking to the NeAA r World, not in vain as it ultimately proved, defied the monster of Nazism. Almost fiA-e years ago Mr Churchill, meeting the House of Commons on the formation of his Government, proudly declared : “We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. Wo have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, Avhat is our policy? I will say: It is to wage Avar, by sea, land, and air, with all onr might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage Avar against a monstrous tyranny, never surpasesd in the dark, lamentable catalogue of lniman crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one Avord-: It is victory, .victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, A’ictory, however long and hard the road may be ; for without victory there is no survival.”

So today there is the victory and survival Mr Churchill spoke of: in those memorable Avords. For it men and women' have died,

countless thousands of them, innocent civilians, but always in the front line and full of faith for the future. It has pleased God to grant the victory to the United Nations, a band of freedom loving peoples who ultimately gathered to destroy Nazism, and whose strength and courage and will to victory finally made it possible. May it please God also to grant that the peace to come when Japan is defeated will be the peace the victory has nobly earned.