For many people in Germany, 8 May passes almost unnoticed – just another day in the calendar. The Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, however, marks a notable exception. Each year on 8 May visitors gather to mark what they see as a moment of deep historical meaning: the liberation from Nazism by the Red Army. Why is there this difference in perception? The date that marked Germany’s surrender in 1945, ending the Second World War in Europe, still carries conflicting meanings. While for some it symbolises freedom, for others it remains obscure, even uncomfortable. This split in memory can be traced back to Germany’s post-war division, Cold War politics, and the complex process of reunification in 1990. The tension between these narratives reveals how history lives on – not only in books, but in public space, rituals and silence. 

The Museum Berlin-Karlshorst stands on historically charged ground. It was here, on 8 May 1945, that the supreme commanders of the German Wehrmacht signed the act of unconditional surrender before representatives of the four Allied powers: the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain and France. The site thus occupies a central position in Germany’s remembrance culture of the war’s end. Yet the building’s history did not end in 1945. 

The museum building at the historic site of the surrender. Photo: Harry Schnitger, Museum Berlin-Karlshorst

Originally established in 1967 as a Soviet military museum, the institution was a key element of Soviet commemorative practice during the Cold War. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the museum entered a new chapter: in 1995 it came under German-Russian joint sponsorship, with Belarus and Ukraine joining as partners shortly thereafter, in 1997 and 1998. While the museum has since evolved into a contemporary educational institution, traces of its Soviet legacy remain visible. The exterior grounds still feature military monuments, including tanks, howitzers and a Soviet-style war memorial. Today, these are no longer celebrated as heroic symbols, but are instead critically contextualised as part of the museum’s reflection on Soviet memory culture.  

Inside, the museum presents a modern permanent exhibition that offers a dual perspective on wartime history: German and Soviet societies during the Second World War. Uniquely in Germany, the exhibition examines in depth the war of annihilation waged by Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, highlighting both military and civilian experiences, occupation policies and ideologically motivated violence. 

Exhibition Hall with various exhibits. The permanent exhibition focuses on German and Soviet societies during the Second World War. Photo: Harry Schnitger, Museum Berlin-Karlshorst 

Until the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany in 2020 and the subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army in 2022, an annual museum festival took place in the grounds of the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst every year on 8 May, each time with a different thematic focus. Despite the changing themes, a festive atmosphere was a consistent feature of the event. This atmosphere was shaped by those who perceived 8 May as a ‘Day of Liberation’ or, following Soviet and Russian narratives, celebrated it as ‘Victory Day’. The tanks and heavy weaponry displayed on the museum grounds functioned as sites of commemoration, where flowers were laid in a symbolic act of gratitude. The symbolism closely echoed memory practices found in socialist Eastern Europe during the Cold War. These forms of remembrance, rooted in traditions of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), continue to be upheld by certain segments of society and remain particularly meaningful for some left-wing groups. For them, such commemorations express both gratitude for Germany’s liberation from Nazism and recognition of the Soviet Union’s role in that process. At the same time, these commemorations are used to articulate contemporary political messages – such as calls for disarmament or opposition to current military interventions. In contrast, right-wing groups have previously used 8 May as an occasion to promote revisionist historical narratives in front of the museum. Some of them have denied that Germany was liberated in 1945, instead claiming that it was occupied – and, since no formal peace treaty was signed, that it remains occupied to this day. Since the museum festival has been discontinued, and the institution has shifted its focus towards more content-driven activities on 8 May rather than public celebrations, such confrontations have apparently ceased to occur. 

Soviet heavy weaponry on display in the museum’s outdoor area. Photo: Thomas Bruns, Museum Berlin-Karlshorst 

At its peak, the annual festival at the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst attracted up to 5,000 visitors. While this may initially appear to be a substantial number, it also underscores how limited the reach of this commemoration remains in a city of nearly four million inhabitants. The modest scale of participation reveals that, for a large part of the population, 8 May is of little consequence. In this sense, the events at Berlin-Karlshorst act as a magnifying glass for observing the broader societal ambivalence towards the date – caught between feelings of gratitude and widespread indifference. What explains the wide spectrum of emotions that 8 May evokes in Germany? 

8 May in the GDR – more than just a place of remembrance 

Following the Second World War, Germany was divided into four occupation zones, each administered by one of the Allied powers. In the Soviet-controlled zone, a communist dictatorship modelled on the Soviet Union was established under the supervision of Soviet advisors. Within this context, 8 May quickly assumed a central ideological function. This became especially clear after the foundation of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) on 7 October 1949. Just six months later, on 21 April 1950, a government decree officially declared 8 May the ‘Day of Liberation of the German People from Hitler’s Fascism’. The rapid institutionalisation of this commemoration reflects the ideological weight assigned to it. In the GDR’s narrative, the founding of the socialist state was only possible because of the Red Army’s role in liberating Germany from fascism. 

For the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which was formed in 1946 through the forced merger of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Communist Party (KPD), 8 May held foundational significance in terms of political and ideological legitimisation – particularly in three key ways. First, the Soviet victory over Nazism was interpreted as the legitimate triumph of socialism over imperialism. This reading of history established a sense of historical inevitability that was used to justify the very existence of the GDR as a socialist state. Secondly, the SED cast itself as the heir to the German communists who, alongside their Soviet ‘class comrades’, had fought against Nazism. In doing so, it reinterpreted the experience of communist resistance – historically a minority stance – as a collective legacy of the East German population. This reframing transformed isolated acts of opposition into a founding myth of popular anti-fascism. Thirdly, the ritualised friendship between the GDR and the Soviet Union made it possible to acknowledge the crimes of the Nazi war of annihilation in Eastern Europe without invoking a sense of inherited guilt in post-war generations. On the one hand, this facilitated a process of externalising guilt – similar to trends seen in the early Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). On the other hand, it allowed younger citizens of the GDR to identify with what was framed as ‘the right side of history’, reinforcing the state’s ideological narrative and strengthening generational allegiance to its foundational myth. 

Until 1966, 8 May was officially observed as a public holiday in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), during which citizens were encouraged to participate in state-organised demonstrations and wreath-laying ceremonies at Soviet war memorials. However, with the introduction of the five-day working week in 1967, this and several other public holidays were eliminated. In 1985, 8 May was reinstated as a one-time public holiday by Erich Honecker, then head of state of the GDR. This decision reflected a surge in public and political interest surrounding the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War – a heightened interest that was also visible in the Federal Republic of Germany, particularly in a widely noted speech by Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker, in which he referred to it as a ‘day of liberation’.

The close relationship with the Soviet Union – often referred to as the ‘big brother’ – was further expressed from 1958 onwards through the organisation of a German-Soviet Friendship Week around 8 May. This initiative emphasised the bond between the GDR and the Soviet Union, notably through tributes to the Red Army’s role in the fight against Nazi Germany, as well as through organised visits to the barracks of the Soviet occupying forces. 

The GDR’s close relationship with the Soviet Union – frequently referred to as the ‘big brother’ – was further institutionalised beginning in 1958 through the establishment of a German-Soviet Friendship Week held annually around 8 May. This initiative was intended to symbolise and strengthen the bond between the GDR and the USSR. It placed particular emphasis on the Red Army’s role in defeating Nazi Germany and included a variety of events, such as ceremonial tributes and organised visits to Soviet military barracks, underscoring the political and cultural alignment between the two states. 

GDR leadership following the wreath-laying ceremony at the Soviet War Memorial in Treptow Park on 8 May 1973. Photo: Klaus Franke, Federal Archives, Reference: Bild 183-M0604-416 

Citizens in the GDR typically took part in commemorative events on 8 May through their workplaces or youth organisations. Across much of the country, local Soviet war memorials and Red Army cemeteries served as focal points for these ceremonies. The choice of such locations was meant to emphasise a symbolic bond with the soldiers of the Red Army – both those who had fought in the past and those still stationed in East Germany at the time. It is difficult to determine to what extent the population genuinely identified with these commemorative practices, independent of the political and social pressures of the era. Participation in such rituals was expected, and those who attempted to avoid them often faced at least social marginalisation, if not more serious consequences. This environment of obligation may help explain why these politically shaped forms of remembrance have had such enduring effects. Indeed, their legacy remains visible today in the rituals of certain societal groups that continue to mark 8 May in ways that closely mirror GDR-era practices – though now without the ideological framework or enforced participation that once accompanied them. 

8 May in the Federal Republic of Germany – a non-site of memory 

The traumatic experience of the war’s end in Germany significantly shaped a collective self-perception among much of the German population – as victims rather than perpetrators. This view was encapsulated in the concept of the ‘zero hour’ [Stunde Null], the idea that everything had been lost and that the country had to be rebuilt entirely from scratch. While this narrative offered a way to frame the post-war period as a moment of renewal, it has since been criticised by many historians for overemphasising rupture while neglecting both the continuities among former perpetrators and the suffering inflicted on others. Today the concept is critically examined in public discourse and in educational curricula. In the immediate post-war years, however, the notion of the ‘zero hour’ also served political purposes. For example, West Germany’s first Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, strategically pushed for the Parliamentary Council to adopt the new Grundgesetz [Basic Law*] on 8 May 1949 – four years to the day after the German surrender. This symbolic move aimed to overlay the memory of Germany’s defeat with the narrative of a democratic new beginning. In this way 8 May was reframed as a moment not of loss, but of hopeful political transition. Today, this reinterpretation plays only a marginal role in public consciousness, as the formal adoption of the Grundgesetz on 23 May 1949 – and the subsequent founding of the Federal Republic – has largely eclipsed 8 May in public memory. 

Basic Law*- a law or set of laws given to have constitutional powers and effect. 

In the following decades, 8 May in the Federal Republic of Germany acquired a different, more controversial meaning: that of legal closure. It became the date on which the statute of limitations for numerous Nazi crimes expired. Ten years after the war, in 1955, offenses such as unlawful imprisonment became time-barred*; by 1965 the same applied to crimes including manslaughter and bodily harm resulting in death. The GDR took advantage of this development by publishing incriminating evidence against West German politicians, attempting to expose their involvement in Nazi structures. This tactic aimed to highlight the continuities between Nazi-era elites and those in post-war West Germany – although such continuities, it should be noted, also existed within the GDR itself. Contrasting itself with what it portrayed as a morally compromised and reactionary West Germany, the GDR presented its own system as ethically superior and politically progressive – a stance that was central to its state-driven culture of remembrance. 

time-barred*- That can not be brought to court because the statute of limitations has passed.

Overall, the contrasting approaches to 8 May in East and West Germany led to a striking imbalance in how the date was treated in public discourse. While the GDR actively shaped and ritualised the day through state-sponsored commemorations, the Federal Republic developed a culture of amnesia around it. In the years that followed, West German politicians often responded to symbolic or rhetorical initiatives from the East with defensive justifications or strategies of differentiation, rather than attempting to invest the date with proactive or independent meaning. A telling example is the 1965 comment by Willy Brandt, then chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), in response to the GDR’s ‘liberation celebrations’: ‘Twenty years is enough – enough of division, enough of resignation and enough of merely looking back.’ His statement reflected a desire to distance West German political discourse from what was perceived as ideologically loaded remembrance practices in the East. 

Yet, despite this reticence at the political level, critical engagement with the Nazi past was gaining traction in the Federal Republic. Thanks in part to pressure from international survivors’ associations, the first memorial sites were established in the late 1950s. In 1958 the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes was founded in Ludwigsburg to pursue criminal investigations of Nazi-era crimes more systematically. The proliferation of radios and televisions in the 1960s helped turn key events into major public moments – such as the Bundestag debate over the 20-year statute of limitations for murder in 1965 and the widely broadcast Eichmann trial of 1961*. At the same time, civil society initiatives began to emerge. One such example is the Flowers for Stukenbrock working group, formed in 1967 out of the peace movement. These initiatives focused on confronting the Nazi past, often through local investigations and commemorative actions that brought attention to crimes committed in their immediate surroundings. Notably, however, they typically did not centre their activities specifically around 8 May as a symbolic day of remembrance. A similar trajectory was followed by the history workshops that gained momentum in the 1980s. These grassroots efforts contributed to a more decentralised and personal engagement with history, even as the official political use of 8 May remained largely confined to the actions and statements of political elites. Despite the expansion of civil society efforts and academic research – both of which grew substantially from the 1960s onwards – 8 May in West Germany continued to function more as a stage for political memory initiatives than as a day of broad, participatory remembrance. 

* The Eichmann trial was the court trial of Adolf Eichmann, German-Austrian official of the Nazi Party, an officer of the Schutzstaffel (SS), and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. The trial took place in 1961 in Jerusalem. Eichmann was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.

In 1970, for the first time, a German Federal president – Gustav Heinemann – delivered an official address to mark 8 May. This marked the beginning of a tradition in the Federal Republic, with subsequent presidents generally giving commemorative speeches on this date every five years, albeit with some exceptions. These occasions were often accompanied by statements from the Federal Chancellor and representatives of all major political parties in the Bundestag. The increasing formalisation of these rituals led some conservative commentators at the time to mockingly suggest that the Federal Republic was beginning to adopt the commemorative practices of the GDR. 

One of the most notable early speeches came from President Walter Scheel on 8 May 1975. He declared that the German population had been ‘liberated from a terrible yoke’ with the downfall of the Nazi regime. However, he also introduced a critical and reflective tone, acknowledging that ‘this liberation came from outside, that we, the Germans, were not capable of shaking off this yoke ourselves, and that half the world had to be destroyed before Adolf Hitler was removed from the stage of history’. Scheel went further by underlining collective responsibility for the crimes of Nazism, stating: ‘Adolf Hitler was not an inescapable fate. He was elected.’ His speech foreshadowed key points made by Richard von Weizsäcker ten years later, but it received less attention in the memory culture. 

Richard von Weizsäcker’s speech during the commemorative session for the 40th anniversary of the end of the war in 1985. Federal Archives, B 145-Bild-00013491 

This shift in the public perception of 8 May was largely shaped by the context in which Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker delivered his now-famous 1985 speech. Just days earlier, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, alongside visiting US President Ronald Reagan, had taken part in a highly controversial visit to the military cemetery in Bitburg, where members of the Waffen-SS were also buried. The visit sparked a widespread public outcry, both domestically and internationally. In response to the mounting criticism, the opposition in the Bundestag called for a presidential address to mark the 40th anniversary of the end of the war. It was within this politically charged atmosphere that Weizsäcker pronounced the phrase: ‘8 May was a day of liberation.’ Although the concept of liberation was not new – having been invoked in the GDR and by earlier West German politicians – Weizsäcker’s framing of it was widely perceived as a turning point. In the context of the Bitburg controversy, his words were interpreted as a deliberate counterpoint, an effort to reshape the collective narrative. The speech also represented a conscious engagement with the East German memory discourse. Weizsäcker acknowledged this by stating: ‘We Germans observe this day among ourselves […]. We must find the criteria ourselves.’ His aim was to bridge the opposing interpretations of history in East and West Germany by articulating a more unified, nationally inclusive remembrance. However, Weizsäcker’s concept of liberation was not only political – it carried a moral and pedagogical dimension. Liberation, in his vision, was also a process of ethical purification, grounded in the remembrance of the crimes committed under Nazism. This remembrance, he argued, was essential to safeguarding democracy and preventing historical regression: ‘Those who refuse to remember inhumanity become susceptible to new contagions.’ Because of this approach, historian Cornelia Siebeck has referred to Weizsäcker as ‘the founder of today’s consensus on memory’ in Germany. His speech marked a defining moment in the Federal Republic’s engagement with the Nazi past and contributed significantly to the emergence of what is often described as Germany’s ‘Erinnerungskultur’ – its culture of remembrance. 

That said, the broader development of political discourse surrounding 8 May should not obscure a key fact: these presidential speeches took place only every five years. For much of the post-war period, 8 May remained a relatively marginal date in the public consciousness of the Federal Republic, overshadowed by other events and rarely marked by widespread civic participation.  

8 May after the reunification 

The broad spectrum of attitudes towards the end of the war – ranging from indifference to gratitude – that emerged in the aftermath of 1945 could not be reconciled by the historical and political measures taken after the reunification of Germany in October 1990. The commemorative concept of the ‘Day of Liberation of the German People from Hitler’s Fascism’, which had been ideologically instrumentalised in the GDR, was adapted in a modified form in reunified Germany. Weizsäcker’s interpretation of 8 May as a day of liberation remained influential, but critics have pointed out that this framing risks portraying Germans primarily as the liberated, as victims of Nazism, thereby obscuring the role of German perpetrators and the structural responsibility of the German Reich. Following the historically charged 50th anniversary in 1995, public debate in Germany turned towards the question of whether a dedicated national day of remembrance should be established to commemorate the war and its victims.

To avoid the complexities and potential controversies associated with 8 May – including its varying personal and regional meanings – Federal President Roman Herzog, acting on a proposal by Ignatz Bubis, then chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, designated 27 January as the official day of remembrance for the victims of Nazism. The date marks the liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration and Extermination Camp in 1945. Another possible date under consideration was 9 November, but it was dismissed due to the multiplicity of significant events associated with it in German history – including the November Revolution of 1918, the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 – each carrying vastly different historical meanings. As a result, 8 May was not formally established as a national day of commemoration and continued to be interpreted primarily as the day of liberation from Nazism. However, this interpretation tends to overlook the fact that it was Germany itself which was the aggressor that waged a war of destruction from 1939 to 1945, causing millions of deaths across Europe and beyond. It also risks marginalising the memory of German perpetrators and their victims. At the regional level, especially in the federal states formed from the former GDR, commemorative traditions from East Germany reemerged in the years following reunification. In these areas, 8 May regained significance.

In 2002, the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania declared 8 May an official day of remembrance, naming it the ‘Day of Liberation from Nazism and the End of Second World War.’ Brandenburg followed in 2015, and in Berlin, 8 May was declared a one-time public holiday in 2020, with plans to repeat the observance in 2025. The debate around 8 May was revived in 2020 when Holocaust survivor Esther Bejarano, then chair of the German Auschwitz Committee, called for the day to be recognised as a nationwide public holiday, commemorating the liberation of humanity from Nazism. Among historians, the proposal sparked mixed reactions. Some expressed concern that such a holiday would risk simplifying the complex historical significance of the date. Others, like historian Martin Sabrow, supported the idea and advocated for the terminology used in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, arguing that a dual name – ‘Day of Liberation from Nazism and the End of the Second World War’ – would reflect the historical ambivalence inherent in that day. Despite these initiatives, the proposal failed to generate lasting public engagement, and the debate over 8 May as a national holiday remained largely confined to a circle of experts and memory activists. This continues to be the case today. Although calls for such a holiday are regularly voiced, they have yet to gain significant traction in broader society or among political decision-makers. 

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