Solemn commemoration services and street parties drew huge crowds all over Europe yesterday to mark the anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat.
At the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, President Jacques Chirac laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier watched by troops from the many nations that united to crush Hitler. They included Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and the US.
Jets flew over the elegant tree-lined Avenue des Champs-Elysees, streaking the sky with red, white and blue smoke - the colours of the French flag.
Thousands of people, including Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, travelled to a former Nazi death camp in Austria to mark its liberation. At the former Mauthausen death camp in Austria, thousands took part in a ceremony to remember some 100,000 inmates killed by the Nazis.
It was the last big Nazi death camp still operating when the US third army's 11th armoured division arrived in early May 1945.
About 6,000 of the camp's victims were Spaniards, enemies of fascist Spanish leader Gen Francisco Franco. Prime minister Zapatero paid tribute to them at the camp yesterday.
Surviving war veterans joined thousands of people at events across Britain. In London, Prince Charles began commemorations at a service at the Cenotaph, laying a wreath in tribute to the fallen as dozens of former servicemen watched in Whitehall.
Poland's main celebrations took place on Saturday in the city of Wroclaw. Yesterday Prime Minister Marek Belka paid homage to soldiers who fought and died in a ceremony before Warsaw's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.