American and Russian soldiers meet at the Elbe River in Germany, April 25, 1945 An American GI wrote- "The scene that followed was pure pandemonium. They came ashore with bottles of cognac and vodka, and we had some schnapps. There was a lot of back-slapping, bear hugs, and people trying to talk through frantic hand gestures and broken English and Russian, some of our guys parents were Russian! But Language didn't matter. The raw joy on their faces, on everyone's faces, said it all, the Third Reich is cut in two, and this long nightmare is almost finished, we were together and it felt good"