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• day 15
• Monday, 10 September 2018
• Reims stay put
• 321 km to yesterday
•      0 km today
• 321 km on Via Francigena to date

After breakfast, I find suggestions for what to do today.  

Top of my list is the Musée de la Reddition du 7 mai 1945.  A museum commemorating the end of World War II in Europe at the actual site of surrender.

It is just over 1 km from the Hotel Arden: I am there shortly after opening time.  The principal use of the building is a polytechnic, Lycée Franklin Roosevelt.

And the building had a similar use in 1994 and 1945, so the museum material said, to act as a disguise.  That part of the building that is a museum now was not a museum then, its was the headquarters for Eisenhower (as supreme commander) and his Allied staff as they directed the war to a conclusion.  And the surrender of Germany on 7 May 1945.

The space taken for the headquarters (and now the museum) was not large.  In a large room, one wall was taken up by a map of all of France and much of Germany.  The focus is on the relevant towns and the railway connections between them - a single track had a narrow line and double tracks had a wider line.  Simplicity - no motorways then and canals did not seem to feature.  

We are also carefully told that all allies, France, Great Britain and USSR (read Russia) negotiated the surrender terms and all was signed very early that morning.  And we are equally carefully told that Russian Head of State (Joseph Stalin) required a surrender ceremony in Moscow.  That was arranged for 8 May.  And that date has become the recognised date of surrender for all.

Shopping and a walk about completes the day.

And so to bed.