World War II officially ended in Europe on May 8, 1945, at 11:01 PM (German time), following the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, signed on May 7 in Reims.
It left an unparalleled toll in history with more than fifty million military and mostly civilian deaths (400,000 Americans, as many British, 600,000 French, eight million Germans, ten to twenty million Soviets, etc.).
On the occasion of the 71st anniversary of the victory on May 8, 1945, Adolphe Colrat, Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, Christian Estrosi, President of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, Mayor of Nice, Eric Ciotti, Deputy, President of the Alpes-Maritimes Department, Colonel Jean-Pierre Bedu, Departmental Military Delegate of the Alpes-Maritimes, and Colonel Grégory Vinot, commander of the Gendarmerie group of the Alpes-Maritimes, celebrated the Allies’ victory and the end of World War II with a wreath-laying ceremony in the presence of veterans’ associations.
