Supreme Commander listened quietly for a time, thanked everyone for trying and dictated his own unadorned report: The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7th, 1945.2306 Better to be brief, better than resounding phrases. Twenty million Soviet soldiers and civilians died of privation or in battle in the Second World War. Eight million British and Europeans died or were killed and another five million Germans. The Nazis murdered six million Jews in ghettos and concentration camps. Manmade death had ended thirty-nine million human lives prematurely; for the second
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