End of WWII in 1947.. or later?

[Highbury]

I know, strange title but I just came across an online document (Truman Library) that is a transcript of a press conference with Harry Truman on Dec 31, 1946. The purpose of the gathering was to issue this statement.

""I have today issued a proclamation terminating the period of hostilities of World War II, as of 12 o'clock noon today, December 31st, 1946."

He goes on to state that: "It should be noted that the proclamation does not terminate the states of emergency declared by President Roosevelt on September 8, 1939, and May 27, 1941. Nor does today's action have the effect of terminating the state of war itself. It terminates merely the period of hostilities."

http://trumanlibrary.org/publicpaper...x.php?pid=1842

Obviously the end of actual hostilities is well documented, but according to this statement, under US law on Dec. 31, 1946 the state of war had not been terminated. It seems to be just a case of Government taking it's usual long time to do the simple and obvious, but it seems a long delay for a war that ended with unconditional surrender. I thought that such a surrender in itself, when signed, was a formal end to the war.

Anyways I just thought it was an interesting side note to history, and maybe some of the people here may have a bit more insight. When does the US classify the war as actually having ended? Was the period of war not cancelled as a legal expedient to keeping troops in place? Would that have even been necessary?

Please share your thoughts, opinions or facts on the matter

[razark]

1947? Sounds a bit early.

At the time World War II was declared over, there was no single German state that all occupying powers accepted as being the sole representative of the former Reich. Therefore the war technically did not finish until the country was reunified. However, in 1949 some technicalities were modified to soften the state of war between the U.S. and Germany. The state of war was retained since it provided the U.S. with a legal basis for keeping troops in Western Germany. As a legal substitute for a peace treaty the U.S. formally ended the state of war between the U.S. and Germany on October 19, 1951 at 5:45 p.m. According to the U.S., a formal peace treaty had been stalled by the Soviet Union. It was not until the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed in 1990 that peace was formally established.

[Highbury]

That is why I put "or later" The document I linked only showed that as of the end of 46 it was not over.

I guess like many people I just assumed that it ended on August 15, 1945.

[MH]

Originally Posted by Highbury

That is why I put "or later" The document I linked only showed that as of the end of 46 it was not over.

I guess like many people I just assumed that it ended on August 15, 1945.

My guess is that certain laws passed during the war had been still needed to take care of things in Germany and Japan.
Who knows maybe the whole Russian issue was unclear as well.
One would have to dig into which laws where affected by this declaration to get better picture.

[razark]

It depends on how you define "end of the war". Is the end of war when the shooting stops, or when the diplomats sign the paperwork?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...c_irregularity

The last town of the Confederate States of America:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_Line,_New_York
It rejoined the Union in 1946. Does that mean the American Civil War was still ongoing?

[Raptor1]

There are various points where people claim WWII ended. The famous ones (Besides August 15th and September 2nd, 1945) are the Treaty of San Francisco, which went into effect in 1952, and the 1990 treaty. Some lesser known ones include January 25th, 1955, which is when the Soviets officially announced the end of hostilities between them and Germany (I think they're the last country to do so).

It is worth noting that the last actual combat operations of World War II ended on September 1st, 1945 with the conclusion of the Soviet invasion of the Kurils.

[Penguin]

Shameless self-quote from another thread, because people always mention the 1990 date:

technically Germany had an armistice after the war until 20 years ago.
While the the two-plus-four-treaty was signed on the 12th of September 1990, and cleared the path for the reunification, it was ratified by the soviet congress not before march, 4th, 1991 and became de jure effective on the 15th, when the last ratification document was given to Germany. So one could say that WW2 ended not before march 15th 1991.

To take the date when the fighting stops as the end-of-war-date would be no good idea, just remember the Japanese holdouts.

[razark]

Originally Posted by Penguin

Shameless self-quote from another thread, because people always mention the 1990 date:

I knew I remembered seeing that somewhere, but I couldn't remember where.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by MH

My guess is that certain laws passed during the war had been still needed to take care of things in Germany and Japan.
Who knows maybe the whole Russian issue was unclear as well.
One would have to dig into which laws where affected by this declaration to get better picture.

I agree with you here I think the reasoning was to allow the US to afford troops overseas and to maintain stability also the US needed to have at least something in Europe to counter the Soviets and there "allies"(pre WARSAW pact of course)

Few people know that in some places like Italy we needed troops to prevent Albanian communists from getting trough the Italian border I did not know about this until I read the book "About Face" by a man who served in the Army from 1947-1972 he started as an enlisted man and became an officer he spent his first years in Italy dealing with that border situation.

I'd assume that the Soviets did the similar things fro the same reason.

Everyone knew that a war between the former allies was very possible and they had to find some way to keep money flowing.

The Japanese holdouts are a different story they had no central origination like an organized force would have like the various insurgencies in Iraq did some where run by former Baath and where part of the in exile government.The holdout Japanese where merely troops that refused to believe that Japan had surrendered so they kept fighting because they believed that they where merely cut off and that they should keep fighting something most good military troops will do if they are not aware or disbelieve surrender occurred.A common technique to get them to understand the truth was to have a relative or member of their former unit come and call out to them over loud speaker so they could hear the truth from a person that they trusted.

Wars are funny in this way often they "end" but many times the issues that caused the war in the first place is never solved take WWI for example the region in which that war was started there many of the issues still have not been solved almost 100 years later.The Chinese and Russians fought over borders way back in 16th century and they still disagree about what belongs to whom.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Penguin

To take the date when the fighting stops as the end-of-war-date would be no good idea, just remember the Japanese holdouts.

Also for sure some of Germany's allies in the western theater took a while to surrender as well...

...Still no surrender as a July 19, 2011...

[vienna]

If you really want to get technical, the USSR and Japan did not formally have a "peace treaty" or, again, techically, a surrender as of the fall of the Soviet Union due to an ongoing dispute over the northern-most islands in the Japanese island chain (or the southern-most islands off the Kamchatka peninsula, if you were the USSR). I am not sure if the dispute can be or is able to be transferred to the new Russian Federation (or just Russia as a lone nation) under international laws or treaties, but I do believe the dispute lingers on. Note, however, no hostilities AFAIK have occurred since shortly after the "official" end of the war. The US view is the islands are Japanese territory under Russian military occupation. So, in a tecnical sense, with all i's dotted and t's crossed, World War II is not over...

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by vienna

So, in a tecnical sense, with all i's dotted and t's crossed, World War II is not over...

Which means that in a technical sense World War I is not over either.

[Anthony W.]

If we had given Hitler 2 years, we would've been crushed.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Anthony W.

If we had given Hitler 2 years, we would've been crushed.

1) What does that have to do with a thread about when the war actually ended?

2) Please explain, with details.

[frau kaleun]

If by "we" you mean the USA, we actually did give Hitler two years. They were called 1940 and 1941.