Do Americans celebrate Victory over Nazi Germany?

31 comments

1. Officially? No. There is no federal holiday.

   But we have things like [this.](https://www.dday.org/)

2. Neither victory day is widely celebrated here at all.

   Most Americans could probably not even say for sure when they are.

3. No.

   Here’s the list of federal holidays in the United States: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_holidays_in_the_United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_holidays_in_the_United_States)

4. WWII was obviously a big deal in the US, but we lost a tiny fraction of our population compared to European nations, and the only part of the US that was actually occupied were a couple of Alaskan islands. So no, it’s not really celebrated. We do celebrate Veterans Day as November 11th though.

5. No. But we do honor June 6th, Dec 7th, and Sep 11th…though, not in celebration.

6. There’s no official holiday on the calendar but personally, I like to acknowledge the 8th of May every year as it is VE Day and I’ll post a picture on my instagram story or something. I’m thankful every day that the Nazis were defeated

7. No.

8. VE Day is “Victory in Europe”. The victory over Japan is VJ Day. Neither day is a major source of celebration. June 6th (D-Day) and December 7th (Pearl Harbor) are days that have stuck around much more in the cultural consciousness, though they aren’t official holidays and I wouldn’t say we celebrate them. More days that get recognized with minor memorials.

9. >I know you guys have VE Day over Japan

   I’ve never heard of this.. what does VE mean?

   Not saying it’s not a thing in the US but if is, I can’t imagine very many Americans knowing about it.. much less celebrating it

10. Memorialized, but not celebrated, no. Our collective cultural expression of WW2 you will find mostly in our movies, stories, and myths, not so much on days or in parades.

11. Damn I love this sub! I like how my posts get immediate replies!

12. Do Americans celebrate victory over nazi Germany? We are the back to back WORLD WAR CHAMPS!

13. Not particularly. Our big “military holidays” are Memorial Day (last Monday in May) and Veterans’ Day (November 11th, AKA Armistice Day).

14. No… I don’t know if people today really even think of V-E Day and V-J Day as different. It’s more “WWII ended in 1945.”

    How do you celebrate it where you are? Is it a day off work with parades and things?

15. Every. Single. Day.

16. We tie our military holidays in with things like Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day rather than marking specific battle or victory holidays. We don’t do VJ day or VE day.

17. We don’t celebrate any wars really. We do remember and commemorate the days. For some reason, D-Day and Pearl Harbor usually gets remembered more than the victory days.

18. No, and we don’t really celebrate beating the Japanese either.

    Celebrating war would… Grate on us, culturally, I guess? There’s a reason we celebrate independence on the date of the declaration instead of the end of the revolution and why Juneteenth has gained some traction instead of remembering Appomattox in April. The cause we can celebrate. The actual war… Not so much. Sometimes we memorialize the dead, but it’s not a celebration when we observe D-Day or Pearl Harbor.

19. Not really, no. Not even the non-Japanese East Asian-Americans really celebrate VJ Day.

    The most likely answer is we combined most of the military holidays into Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day. Considering that Veteran’s Day is November 11th (the end of World war I), they basically combined both the World Wars into that holiday to boot. The tradition never faded since there was Vietnam, Desert Storm, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. That said, WWII American veterans really did celebrate VE day on their own.

    As for the reason why Europe holds VE day in a much higher light: VE Day is really celebrated more in Europe because there was tremendously bigger odds at stake for Europe and Russia both. I would argue that this is why 9-11 also holds incredible importance to American culture. No nation truly forgets a war if it was fought on their soil.

20. I wasn’t born until 79, but my grandparent’s generation fought. I don’t “celebrate” it per se, but I love pointing out to my younger coworkers when its D Day, VE Day, and VJ Day. Too often I just get quizzical looks.

21. Everyday.

22. Officially no, however days like D-Day and Pearl Harbor are still talked about. Our biggest holiday celebration when it comes to celebrating our victory is Independence Day which was yesterday.

23. I’m from Rhode Island and we have VJ as a holiday. We’re the only state that observes it.

24. I pay a good amount of attention to history, especially that period. I wouldn’t be able to tell you when VE Day is, other than that it’s in May.

25. Yeah we don’t even do much for 9/11 anymore, we’re kinda terrible for holidays of remembrance.

26. No, we do not really celebrate these days. I would speculate that the reason is we’ve learned historically that “gloating” (for lack of a better word) leads to generational grudges and further conflict. It’s believed that a large contributor to WWII starting was excessive punishment to Germany after WWI. I like to think we learned from that, so more so have days of rememberce for losses rather than celebrating victory over others.

27. My father and uncle fought in WWII. I heard about VJ and VE Day from them, only in passing.

    However, we’d add a special prayer before dinner on Dec 8 in honor of *both* Pearl Harbor *and* the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

    My parents talked about D-Day fairly often. They were very proud of the success of the operation, and we always watched a WWII movie on June 6. There were a lot to choose from because there were a lot of WWII movies on television that week!

28. They’re acknowledged in history books but they aren’t a source of celebration whatsoever. Pearl Harbor day is a somber day of remembrance similar to 9/11 but less so given it was so long ago while most Americans remember 9/11 vividly. D-Day is also huge.

29. The war victory we celebrate like that is the War of Independence. It was two days ago on the 4th. It’s not when the war was over – that would be October 16th, but when independence nominally went into effect. I say nominally because the US could’ve still lost the war in 1776.

30. No, and we really should. If it were up to me, V-E Day would be a major federal holiday up there with the Fourth of July.

31. I think it’s rolled into veteran’s day, we can’t just make a new holiday every time we beat Germany in a world war.