The End

  Meanwhile, a German delegation had flown to meet Allied representatives in Caserta to be faced with the ultimatum to agree unconditional surrender in Italy or see negotiations broken off. The German position was by then hopeless. The final Allied offensive had begun on 9 April. German forces in Italy, totalling around 600,000 men (including 160,000 Italian troops), were greatly outnumbered by some 1.5 million Allied troops (70,000 of them Italians).73 By 25 April, the Allies had crossed the Po, sweeping northwards and forcing the Germans into headlong retreat towards the Alps. Surrender was the only sensible option. The capitulation was signed at 2 p.m. on 29 April, to come into effect exactly three days later, on 2 May.74 It was the only capitulation to be signed before Hitler’s death – though by chance it did not come into effect while he was alive. Even now, Kesselring belatedly distanced himself from what had taken place, and dismissed Vietinghoff and his Chief of Staff, Hans Röttiger, threatening to report the matter to the Führer and demand the necessary consequences for their treasonable actions. His own involvement probably prevented him carrying out this threat, and the Field-Marshal contented himself with the fiction that Vietinghoff and Röttiger were resigning at their own request. Whether the capitulation, though signed, would be effected remained in doubt until the news – authentic this time – of Hitler’s death came through and Kesselring finally, at 4 a.m. on 2 May, gave his approval. Kesselring told Dönitz and Keitel that day that the armistice negotiations had taken place without his knowledge or approval, and that he had felt compelled to support the armistice that had been concluded in order to prevent an open revolt.75 At 2 p.m. that afternoon, the weapons in northern Italy finally fell silent.76 General Winter, deputy head of the OKW Operations Staff, telexed his chief, Jodl, that day: ‘Perfidious behaviour of the Commander-in-Chief there will for all time be inexplicable to me.’77 As late as this the top military leadership retained its perverse notion of loyalty.

  In north-west Germany, East Frisia and Schleswig-Holstein were not yet occupied, and further north Denmark and Norway remained in German hands. On 2 May Jodl sent out instructions to Field-Marshal Ernst Busch, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group North-West, to fight on in order to ‘gain time’ for negotiations. The orders were, however, swiftly overtaken by events, which were by now moving far too rapidly for Dönitz to have any hope of controlling them. The British advance to Lüneburg and the American push through Schwerin to Wismar meant that overnight the last gateway for Germans to escape westwards from Pomerania and Mecklenburg was sealed off. Army Group Vistula, the 12th Army and the remains of the 9th Army were left to fight their way back to western lines as best they could. With this development, it was acknowledged that there was no longer any point in fighting on against the western forces in northern Germany. It was decided to try to open talks with Montgomery as quickly as possible.78

  On 3 May, the date on which the city of Hamburg capitulated under threat of renewed British bombing,79 Admiral-General von Friedeburg was, therefore, dispatched to try to negotiate an armistice in north-west Germany with the British military commander. When Montgomery refused unless German forces in Holland, Denmark, Frisia and Schleswig stopped fighting, offering only to treat Germans fleeing from the east as prisoners of war and not hand them over to the Soviets, increasingly chaotic circumstances in the west forced Dönitz’s hand. German troops had flooded back in disorder westwards through Mecklenburg while there was still a chance to escape from the Red Army. And there were signs of disintegration in those troop units already in the west – where the civilian population was said to oppose any continuation of the war with the western Allies – amid fears that they would take matters into their own hands and simply refuse to fight any longer.80

  After discussing the dilemma with Krosigk, Speer, Keitel, Jodl and Gauleiter Wegener, Dönitz saw no alternative but to comply with Montgomery’s demands. On 4 May he approved the signing of the partial capitulation under the terms laid down. At the same time he ordered a halt to the U-boat war. (The order was not, in fact, received by all U-boats. Four further attacks on Allied shipping took place. In the last U-boat attack of the war, on 7 May, shortly before the total capitulation of the Wehrmacht, two freighters were sunk off the Firth of Forth.) On 5 May hostilities officially ceased in the Netherlands, Denmark and north-west Germany. Against earlier intentions to scuttle warships rather than allow them to fall into enemy hands, the Germans agreed to sink no ships. Montgomery left open their continued use for refugee transportation.81

  Norway, however, where the Commander-in-Chief, Colonel-General Georg Lindemann, was still claiming that his troops (remarkably even now around 400,000 strong82) were ready to fight on and requested (in vain) the continued use of the ‘Heil Hitler’ greeting, remained under German occupation. As late as 3 May Dönitz had continued to regard Denmark and Norway as possible bargaining counters with the western powers. Only now did Dönitz take steps to discard still lingering features of the Hitler regime. Actions of the Werwolf – though only in the west – were now banned and deemed contrary to laws of combat. The ‘Heil Hitler’ greeting was at last prohibited in the Wehrmacht. Pictures of Hitler were on British orders to be removed from government offices.83 And only on 6 May did Dönitz finally ban all destruction or temporary dismantling of factories, canals, and rail and communications networks, finally reversing Hitler’s ‘scorched earth’ orders of March.84

  In the south, too, there were clear signs of disintegration among the troops, and of hostility towards the Wehrmacht by the civilian population in Bavaria and Austria. Kesselring took the view that the end had arrived, and sought permission from Dönitz on 3 May to negotiate with the western Allies.85 The capitulation to the Americans on 5 May of German forces of Army Group G (Nordalpen), left in a hopeless position in Bavaria and Austria, and that of the 19th Army in the Austrian Alpine region, had been preceded on 3–4 May by the surrender, also to the Americans, of around 200,000 men from General Walther Wenck’s 12th Army, once earmarked for extracting Hitler from Berlin, which had battled its way back to the Elbe, and parts of General Theodor Busse’s 9th Army.86 The amenability of the Americans to these partial surrenders gave Dönitz shortlived hope that he could come to an arrangement with Eisenhower that would fall short of total capitulation. He imagined he could still reach a deal to prevent the huge numbers of troops facing the Red Army being taken into Soviet captivity. Announcing the surrender in the west, ‘since the fight against the western powers has lost its meaning’, Keitel added that ‘in the east, nevertheless, the struggle continues in order to rescue as many Germans as possible from Bolshevization and slavery’.87 Even on 4 May the navy leadership was still declaring: ‘Aim of the Grand-Admiral is to remove as many Germans as possible from the clutches of Bolshevism. Since the western enemies continue their support of the Soviets, the fight against the Anglo-Americans according to the order of the Grand-Admiral carries on. The aim of this fight is to gain the state leadership space and time for measures in the political arena.’88

  Nearly 2 million soldiers of the Wehrmacht remained at risk of falling into Soviet hands.89 Still fighting against the Red Army were: Army Group Ostmark, renamed from ‘South’ on 30 April, now pushed back into Lower Austria and comprising around 450,000 men under the command of Colonel-General Lothar Rendulic´; Army Group E, with around 180,000 men, fighting a rearguard struggle in Croatia under Colonel-General Alexander Löhr; and Field-Marshal Ferdinand Schörner’s Army Group Centre, whose 600,000 or so men were pinned back mainly in the ‘Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’ (large parts of the former Czechoslovakia).90 In addition, some 150,000 German troops who had been evacuated from East Prussia remained stranded on the Hela peninsula, and 180,000 or so were still cut off and fighting in Courland.91 The latter were not yet ready to give in. A message to Dönitz on 5 May from the commander of the Courland army informed the Grand-Admiral that the Latvian people were ready ‘in common struggle against Bolshevism to fight shoulder to shoulder with the German Wehrmacht to the last??
?, and asked for instructions about whether the Army Group should fight on as a Freikorps unit if a Latvian state should proclaim independence.92

  Immediately following his negotiations with Montgomery, and in the hope still of avoiding total capitulation, Admiral von Friedeburg was commissioned on 4 May to contact Eisenhower about a further partial capitulation in the west, while explaining to him ‘why a total capitulation on all fronts is impossible for us’.93 Next day, Kesselring offered the surrender of Army Groups Ostmark, E and Centre to Eisenhower, though the offer was promptly rejected unless all forces also capitulated to the Red Army. Rendulic´, unable to make contact with OKW headquarters, promptly sought to arrange a partial surrender of his own forces to General Patton. Even now he had not given up hope of persuading the Americans to join him in repelling the Red Army and went so far as to request permission to allow German troops stationed in the west through their lines to support his eastern front. He eventually capitulated unilaterally on 7 May, after himself fleeing to the Americans and offering the surrender of his forces. The offer was rejected, though the Americans were prepared to allow his troops to cross their lines westwards until 1 a.m. on 9 May and be treated as prisoners of war.94 On 5 May Dönitz gave Löhr permission – since he argued that it could not be prevented and, in any case, accorded with the political aims of his government – to approach Field-Marshal Sir Harold Alexander, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, about a surrender with the aim of saving Austria from Bolshevism, accepting its separation from the Reich.95 Eisenhower refused, however, to accept the capitulation unless it was also made to the Red Army.96 The main concern remained Schörner’s army. Already on 3 May Dönitz accepted that ‘the entire situation as such demands capitulation, but it is impossible because Schörner with his army would then fall completely into the hands of the Russians’.97

  Schörner had reported on 2 May that he could not hold out for long. His Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Oldwig von Natzmer, thought two weeks was the maximum, though he continued to insist on an orderly retreat. Preparations for sudden orders to retreat were laid while political options were under consideration.98 The possibilities of saving Army Group Centre depended upon the political as well as military situation in Bohemia. Dönitz, together with Keitel, Krosigk, Wegener and Himmler had deliberated on 2 May about holding Bohemia for the time being as a bargaining counter.99 It was acknowledged that the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, known to be on the verge of revolution, could neither politically nor militarily be sustained in the long run. But with a view to rescuing Germans in the area there were thoughts of having Prague declared an open city and sounding out political options by sending emissaries to Eisenhower. Himmler and the OKW briefly entertained the idea of relocating what was left of German government to Bohemia, but Dönitz ruled out the proposition since the territory was not part of Germany, and the political situation too unstable.100

  This swiftly proved to be true. Any lingering hopes invested in Bohemia rapidly dissolved with the news that a popular rising had broken out in Prague on 5 May. Immediately, orders were issued to rescue as many soldiers as possible from Soviet hands by retreating westwards.101 Schörner’s men had placed their hopes in the Americans advancing into Bohemia before the Soviets could get there. However, Eisenhower held to his agreement with the Soviets to hold the American advance at a line west of Prague, near Pilsen, and refused General Patton permission to march on the city. Once the uprising broke out, the Red Army’s orders to take Prague were brought forward. The Soviet advance on Bohemia began on 6 May, though it was only in the early hours of 9 May – after the general capitulation had been signed – that the Red Army’s tanks entered Prague and destroyed the remnants of German resistance in the city. In the intervening four days, several thousand Czech citizens were killed or wounded in brutal German attempts to suppress the rising. There were also bloody acts of vengeance taken against the Germans. Demands of the SS commander in Bohemia and Moravia, SS-Gruppenführer Carl Graf von Pückler-Burghaus, for Prague to be intensively fire-bombed were vitiated only by the lack of fuel for planes.102

  The situation for Schörner’s troops had meanwhile become critical, not just on account of the uprising in Prague which had prompted the Soviet offensive from the north, blocking possible routes of retreat, but because of events much farther north. On the morning of 6 May Friedeburg let Dönitz know that Eisenhower was insisting on ‘immediate, simultaneous and unconditional surrender on all fronts’. Troop units were to stay in their positions. No ships were to be sunk, no aeroplanes to be damaged. Eisenhower threatened a renewal of bombing raids and closure of borders to those fleeing from the east if his demands were not met. ‘These conditions are unacceptable,’ a meeting of Dönitz, Keitel, Jodl and Gauleiter Wegener concluded, ‘because we cannot abandon the armies in the east to the Russians. They are not capable of implementation since no soldier on the eastern front will hold to the command to lay down arms and stay in position. On the other hand, the hopeless military situation, the danger of further losses in the west through bombing raids and combat and the certainty of the inevitable military collapse in the near future compel us to find a solution for the still intact armies.’ Since there was no way out of the dilemma, it was decided to send Jodl to explain with all force to Eisenhower ‘why a complete capitulation is impossible, but a capitulation only in the west would be immediately accepted’.103

  In the early hours of next morning, 7 May, Jodl’s wire from Eisenhower’s headquarters brought the depressing news that the Allied Commander-in-Chief insisted that total capitulation be signed that day, otherwise all negotiations would be broken off. Eisenhower’s demand was seen in Dönitz’s headquarters as ‘absolute blackmail’ since if refused it would mean the abandonment of all Germans beyond American lines to the Russians. But with a capitulation to go into effect at midnight on 8/9 May, it would give forty-eight hours to extract at least most of the troops still fighting in the east. With a heavy heart, Dönitz therefore gave Jodl powers to sign the capitulation.104 At 2.41 a.m. on 7 May Jodl, in the presence of Admiral-General von Friedeburg, signed the Act of Military Surrender together with General Walter Bedell Smith and the Soviet General Ivan Susloparov in Eisenhower’s headquarters in Rheims. All military operations were to cease at 23.01 hours Central European Time on 8 May – given the hour’s time difference, a minute past midnight on 9 May in London.105

  The act of capitulation was, however, not yet complete. The text of the surrender document, the Soviets complained, differed from the agreed text, and Susloparov had been given no authorization to sign. This was, however, merely the pretext. Both the issue of prestige – since the Red Army had borne the lion’s share of the fighting over four long years – and continued suspicion of the west prompted Stalin’s insistence on a further signing, of a lengthier version of the capitulation document, this time by the highest representatives of all sectors of the Wehrmacht as well as leading Allied representatives. This second signing took place in Karlshorst, in the former mess of the military engineering school, now Zhukov’s headquarters, on the outskirts of Berlin. The German representatives, flown from Flensburg to Berlin in an American plane, were kept waiting throughout the day on 8 May until the Allied delegation arrived, between 10 and 11 p.m. At last, Keitel, accompanied by Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff (representing the Luftwaffe) and Admiral-General von Friedeburg (on behalf of the navy), came slowly through the doorway for the surrender ceremony. Keitel raised his field-marshal’s baton in salute. The Allied representatives (Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the British Air-Marshal Arthur W. Tedder (on behalf of Eisenhower), the French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, and the US General Carl Spaatz) did not respond.

  The German delegation were then invited by Zhukov to sign the instrument of unconditional surrender. Keitel, his face blotched red, replacing his monocle, which had dropped and dangled on a cord, his hand shaking slightly, signed five copies of the capitulation document before putting his right glove
back on. It was almost a quarter to one in the early morning of 9 May, so the capitulation was backdated to the previous day to comply with the terms of the Rheims agreement. Once Keitel and the German delegation withdrew, bowing stiffly as they went, their heads sunken, it was time for the Soviet officers to sing and dance the night away.106 However little appetite the German delegation had, they were given a good meal with caviar and champagne. Somewhat surprisingly, at such a catastrophic moment for their country, Keitel and his fellow officers sipped the celebratory drink.107 Keitel was asked whether Hitler was really dead, since, it was said, his body had not been found. The Soviets inferred that he might still be ruling behind the scenes.108