After the suicide of Adolf Hitler on April 30, 1945, according to his instructions, the function of Reich leader was divided. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels became Chancellor and Navy Commander Karl Dönitz became President. However, Goebbels committed suicide on May 1, and Dönitz remained the only significant authority in Germany.
He rightly considered Germany’s situation hopeless, but he did not want to capitulate just yet. He knew the Allies’ plan to divide Germany after the war and wanted to get as many soldiers and civilians as possible out of the Soviet encirclement into the zones to be administered by the Western Allies. He was delaying.
Separate surrender to the British on May 4
He sent the first delegation of negotiators to the commander of the British, Field Marshal Montgomery. It was led by Admiral von Friedeburg. Montgomery left him ignominiously waiting in the square by the British flagpole.
Who are these men? I’ve never heard of them.
When he finally arrived, Friedeburg read a letter from Wehrmacht Commander-in-Chief Keitel offering to surrender half a million men who had fought the Soviets in Berlin to the British on the condition that they be captured by the British.
Montgomery refused. He explained to von Friedeburg that it was a matter for the Soviets and he could only accept surrenders from troops in the zone where British troops were fighting – that is, in Denmark, the Netherlands, North and West Germany. The German replied that he would present the proposal to Reich President Dönitz and left.
He returned to Montgomery on the afternoon of May 4. After the press conference and photo with the British flag at 18:30 he signed the surrender of German troops in the British zone. It went into effect on May 5 at 8:00 am.*
The capitulation of 7 May took effect on 8 May
Dönitz then sent von Friedeburg to the Americans. He hoped that he would be able to surrender separately to all the Western allies, or at least delay and be able to continue evacuating from the future Soviet zone.
But he no longer marched with the supreme commander of the Allied forces, General Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower was not going to jeopardize relations with the Soviets** and insisted on what Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill had agreed upon: the unconditional surrender of all German troops. He also informed General Alexei Antonov of the Soviet staff to this effect.
He then sent a delegation of General Ivan Susloparov to negotiate on behalf of the Soviets. She had only one job: to see that the Americans kept their word.
The key meeting took place from May 5 at Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims, France. There, Von Friedeburg held talks with Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff, General Smith, and again attempted to negotiate a separate surrender on the Western Front. But Eisenhower’s instructions were clear, and Smith also threatened that the Americans would stop taking fleeing German soldiers into captivity and leave them to the Soviets.
So Dönitz sent General Alfred Jodl, the Wehrmacht’s chief of operations staff, to join the negotiations. His job was to insist on a separate surrender and delay, but when the Americans were adamant and threatened to end the negotiations, he received authority from Dönitz early on the morning of 7 May to sign an unconditional surrender on all fronts.
Photo: public domain
Allied actors capitulating after the war in Berlin. From left, Marshal Montgomery, General Eisenhower, Marshal Zhukov and Marshal Tedder.
Jodl signed the surrender at 2:41 a.m. on May 7 in the Great Technical Hall of the Technical University in Reims. It was not supposed to come into effect until May 8 at 11:01 p.m. in the evening. This time span was advantageous to the Germans as it allowed them to complete their evacuation to the western occupation zones.
Smith signed for the Allies – Eisenhower was not present for the signing, he was waiting in the next room. Admiral Burrough for the British, General Sevez for the French and General Susloparov for the Soviets signed as witnesses.
But the latter signed with a condition. He did not have Stalin’s permission to sign the document, and he insisted that if Stalin wished it, the capitulation would have to be repeated. About six hours later, the expected opinion actually came from the Soviet Supreme Staff that capitulation is thus unacceptable. Thus…
The capitulation of May 8 was not signed until May 9
To sign the “Rheims Document Ratification” and the “More Formal Act of Surrender”, the Soviets chose occupied Berlin, specifically the Soviet Supreme Headquarters in the building of the former School for Army Scouts in Karlshorst.
Instead of General Jodl, the Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, was to sign, with Admiral von Freideburg as Commander of the Navy and General Stumpff as Commander of the Luftwaffe. For the Soviets, Stalin appointed Marshal Georgy Zhukov.
The plan was to sign the document before the Reims capitulation took effect. But then the problems started. Marshal Keitel was delayed on his way to Berlin, Stalin’s envoy Andrei Vyshinsky was also delayed. The French flag was missing in the lobby. The Soviets quickly produced it, but only after they accidentally produced the Dutch flag. For some time there was also a debate over who would sign as a party and who as a witness. But the biggest delay was caused by the missing text in the Russian version of the document.
Photo: Neptuul, CC 4.0
The German version of the capitulation stored in the museum in Berlin – Karlshorst. Signed by Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Marshal Georgy Zhukov for the USSR, Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder for the other Allies (Eisenhower outranked Zhukov, so he was not allowed to participate), as witnesses American General Spaatz and French General de Tassigny. On the other side, for Germany, Admiral von Freideburg and General Stumpff.
When they filled him in and Marshal Zhukov finally gave the order for the German delegation to enter the room, it was not only after 11:01 p.m., but also after midnight. The document was signed by both parties May 9 early in the morning, although dated May 8. So we could all celebrate the end of the war on the eighth. However, at the time to which the signature was antedated, it was already May 9, according to Moscow time. And Stalin took advantage of that. He stated that the document was actually signed on the ninth.
In the west, May 8, in the eastern block, May 9
But the Western public already knew about the surrender on May 8. Although journalists were prohibited from reporting on the surrender on May 8, the AP agency violated the ban. The headlines of the morning newspapers in France and Britain announced the victory over Germany as early as May 8, and in the West it was not possible to move the date to May 9. The Soviets, on the other hand, were not going to recognize the surrender from Reims as complete and insisted that Germany only capitulated on May 9.
And that is why in Czechoslovakia, as well as in the USSR, in the entire Eastern bloc and in today’s Russia, we celebrated the victory over Nazism for a long time on May 9. By moving the holiday to May 8, we accepted the original and real surrender of Germany instead of the second, formal one. Fifty years late, we rejected Stalin’s caprice. And above all, we expressed that we belong to the West.
Notes and Resources:
*) Some German fighters did not join the capitulation, especially the group around Heinrich Himmler. Churchill decided that the Germans themselves should deal with them. This is probably the main reason why the Allies allowed Dönitz to rule until his arrest on 23 May.
**) In May 1945, the Americans still assumed that the war with Japan would last a long time and that the involvement of the USSR would be decisive.
