Even if there is hope that the country’s coronavirus restrictions might be loosened by then, having big festivities on May 8 in the German capital is not the right idea, according to Moritz van Duelmen, head of the organizing body Kulturprojekte Berlin.

Comparable events done by the organization have usually drawn up to 250,000 people.

“We are getting off the street,” van Duelmen told dpa.

With his team, he is instead planning an elaborate digital project meant to present and explain the last days of the war and the liberation from Nazism in May 1945 at illustrative locations such as the Reichstag building, Brandenburg Gate, Soviet War Memorial and Alexanderplatz square.

The main state event outside the Reichstag building had already been cancelled. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had been due to deliver a speech about the end of the war and the liberation in front of numerous guests from abroad.