ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Eighty years ago today, Britons gathered around their radios.
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UNIDENTIFIED NEWS ANCHOR: This is London. The prime minister, the Right Honorable Winston Churchill.
SHAPIRO: It was the British prime minister announcing...
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WINSTON CHURCHILL: An unconditional surrender of all German land, sea and air forces in Europe.
SHAPIRO: ...The end of World War II in Europe. It became known as Victory in Europe, or VE Day. On this 80th anniversary, there are memorials and moments of silence, but there's also fear for Europe's future security, with war in Ukraine and strained relations with the U.S. From London, NPR's Lauren Frayer reports.
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LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: The noonday toll of Big Ben's bells...
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FRAYER: ...Began two minutes of nationwide silence across Britain, broken by the fanfare of trumpets...
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FRAYER: ...As King Charles and his heir Prince William processed into Westminster Abbey with medals pinned to their chests for a thanksgiving service next to elderly veterans in wheelchairs...
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FRAYER: ...Including Harry Winter, aged 103. Winter was shot down over Germany, held as a prisoner of war and then freed on the 8 of May 1945. He told the BBC how it felt.
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HARRY WINTER: I just felt, I'm free. I can do as I like again. I can go around without anybody trying to hold me back.
FRAYER: 1940s wartime ballads echoed through the soaring Abbey.
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ZIZI STRALLEN: (Singing) The white cliffs of Dover, tomorrow...
FRAYER: While outside, across Britain, there were tea parties in the streets. But in Germany...
KATJA HOYER: In Germany, it's the exact opposite. It's very much a sort of somber atmosphere.
FRAYER: Katja Hoyer says 1945 was Germany's zero hour, when a new era started. May 8 is when Germans normally reflect on their progress since then. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and Germany's reunification, Hoyer says...
HOYER: There was briefly a sense of jubilant optimism that now the Second World War and the Holocaust can just be seen as things of the past, when actually, now we're seeing the rise of autocratic and authoritarian regimes once more, and the questions perhaps of the first half of the 20th century seem more relevant and immediate again.
FRAYER: Historians say the post-war global order is crumbling. And this celebration for VE Day today...
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: There's a lot to celebrate. I mean, my own father fought very bravely in the Second World War - is a substitute for facing up to the very, you know, cold winds and storms we're facing at the moment.
FRAYER: Historian Timothy Garton Ash says those cold winds and storms represent the three big threats facing Europe - Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the rise of non-Western powers, including China, and the current American president.
ASH: The Putin shock, what I might call the Xi Jinping shock and now the Donald Trump shock - and Europe is frankly reeling. The question is, can we look after ourselves?
FRAYER: Across Britain, pubs will stay open two hours later tonight to allow people to raise glasses to the greatest generation. And then tomorrow, Russian President Vladimir Putin will host a huge parade on Moscow's Red Square, and China's Xi Jinping will be his guest. Lauren Frayer, NPR News, London.
(SOUNDBITE OF ELMIENE SONG, "MARKING MY TIME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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