04-05-2025
Thatcher government considered cancelling VE Day ‘to avoid offending Germany'
Margaret Thatcher's government considered cancelling VE Day celebrations over fears 'triumphant' celebrations would offend the German government, documents have revealed.
This week, four days of commemorative events are set to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, when the Allies accepted the surrender of Nazi Germany.
Yet unearthed letters reveal that in 1984, Sir Geoffrey Howe, the foreign secretary feared 'causing deep offence' to the German government if celebrations showed 'any hint of triumphalism'.
The letters pre-dated an apparent Thatcher government about-turn following comments made by Baroness Janet Young, then junior foreign office minister, who suggested an 'international celebration' of the event would appear 'at best nostalgic and at worst anti-German'.
At the time, Baroness Thatcher staunchly defended the integrity of her government, insisting she had always planned national commemorations to mark the occasion.
She said: 'I agree that we should have a national celebration. I feel we should celebrate the fact that we have had peace with freedom for some 40 years.'
But the declassified letters illustrate the last-minute crisis that was happening behind the scenes in the days leading up to the about-turn.
The documents – dated over a week in January 1985 – illustrate how Lady Thatcher feared a media storm if celebrations were cancelled and how she was coached to play down the issue ahead of a Prime Minister's Questions session.
In a letter written by Lady Young to John Cartwright, an SDP MP, on Jan 9 1985, in the foreign secretary's absence, she said: 'I believe our objective should be to highlight not only the achievements of those who won the war 1945 but also of our former enemies who since then have built stable democratic societies and are now our partners and allies.'
The minister went on to say that a 'truly international' celebration 'confined' to Britain's 'wartime allies' would 'hardly do justice to the realities of present-day politics and [the UK's] flourishing post-war partnership with Germany, Italy and Japan'.
Lady Young went on to cite an opinion poll that found that 'many people in Britain now regard the Germans as our best friends in Europe', before concluding: 'In the circumstances, I see a real risk that any official British international celebrations confined to wartime allies could appear at best nostalgic, and at worst anti-German, unbalanced and open to historical distortion by the Soviet Union.'
Public comments made by Lady Young a few days later saw her say that while she could 'not speak for what the German government might say' the UK government '[had] to take into consideration their view'.
'We want, in considering anniversaries like VE Day, first to honour our war dead,' she added, in a transcript dated Jan 13.
'But we also need to look forward and not back.'
The following day, Lord Butler, principal private secretary to Lady Thatcher, wrote to Sir Geoffrey Howe's office, explaining that the prime minister 'did not have an opportunity to raise with [Sir Geoffrey] at lunch… the widespread criticism of the government's decision not to arrange a celebration of the 40th anniversary of VE Day'.
Lord Butler went on to say how Lady Thatcher had discussed a number of 'possibilities', which included the idea of holding a joint session of Parliament in Westminster Hall, which would be attended by 'representatives of the Armed Services, ex-servicemen's organisations and the bereaved'.
Lord Butler added: 'The prime minister would be grateful for further advice from the foreign secretary, in the light of the reaction to the announcement so far made, any of these possibilities should be further considered.
'I am afraid that we will anyway need your urgent advice on the line which the prime minister should take on this matter in case it is raised at parliamentary questions tomorrow.'
A subsequent letter sent the next day by Sir Leonard Appleyard, Sir Geoffrey's principal private secretary, said that the foreign secretary believed the government had 'no interest in proposing' an 'international commemoration of VE Day' that would be sponsored by the Western Allies.
Sir Leonard added: 'Any such event would raise difficult problems about how to involve the Russians without causing deep offence to the Germans, whom the Russians are almost daily accusing of 'revanchism' and militarism.'
He said: 'The Germans would have no reason to object to a purely domestic British commemoration of VE Day.
'What they would resent would be any hint of triumphalism or association with 'revanchist' charges.'
In an attached document, lines were also provided for the prime minister to take for Prime Minister's Questions that day.
'Entirely right that everyone who wishes to have [the] opportunity to recall the sacrifices of the war, and commemorate not just victory but also 40 years of peace in Europe,' the first part of 'line to take' reads.
Lady Thatcher was then advised to say that the government was 'considering the form of a national commemoration which will both honour the dead and point to reconciliation and reconstruction that has been achieved'.
Yet on questions regarding an international commemoration, the prime minister was advised to say, 'no proposals for this', before suggesting there would be other occasions to mark 'the theme of peaceful reconciliation and to look to the future'.
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