The War Ends
- Grades
- Grades 9-12
- Time
- About two 50-minute class periods
- Includes
- 11 ready-to-teach files
- Format
- Word (.docx) · PowerPoint (.pptx)
- Slide deck
- Guided notes
- Guided notes teacher key
- Activity + answer key
- Quiz + answer key
- Exit ticket + answer key
- Teacher guide
- Teacher presentation notes
What students do
- Sequence the events from V-E Day on May 8, 1945 through Japan's formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri
- Analyze General MacArthur's opening remarks from the September 2, 1945 surrender ceremony
- Explain what the Potsdam Declaration demanded of Japan and what it deliberately left out
- Compare how Germany's four occupation zones and Japan's single occupation under MacArthur were governed differently
What it covers
- What the Potsdam Conference decided about occupying Germany and what the Potsdam Declaration demanded of Japan
- Why the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials created the legal charge of crimes against humanity
- How the United Nations was founded to prevent the failures that let World War II happen
Learning targets
- Sequence the events from V-E Day through Japan's formal surrender.
- Explain what the Potsdam Conference and Declaration decided and demanded.
- Describe how Germany and Japan were occupied after their surrenders.
- Explain why the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials shaped modern international law.
- Describe the founding and purpose of the United Nations.
Peek inside
Germany signed its surrender on May 7-8, 1945, ending fighting in Europe.
The Western Allies mark May 8 as V-E Day, Victory in Europe Day.
Crowds celebrated in London, Paris, and New York within hours.
Japan kept fighting for three more months after Germany's surrender.
American planners were already weighing an invasion of Japan.
The War in Spring 1945
Germany's surrender took effect on May , 1945, ending fighting in Europe.
The Western Allies mark this day as Day, Victory in Europe Day.
Japan kept fighting for more months after Germany surrendered.
1. Germany's surrender took effect at one minute past midnight on May 9, 1945, Moscow time, though Western celebrations had already begun a day earlier once the news broke. The day itself is remembered by its Western name, .
Why this matters
The legal phrase "crimes against humanity" did not exist as a formal charge until the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials created it, because no existing law had a name for what Germany and Japan's leaders had just done.
Comparing Germany's four occupation zones to Japan's single occupation under MacArthur shows students that peace was not applied the same way twice. By the end of the lesson, 1945 stops being one closing date and becomes the year several different endings happened at once.
From one teacher to another
By this point in the unit, students just want the ending, not another set of dates, so this lesson earns that ending instead of rushing past it. It walks through the collapse of the different fronts, the decisions that stopped the fighting, and what it meant for a world that hadn't known peace in years. It's the last stop in my World War II unit before the class turns to the Cold War that grows directly out of it.
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