Chapter 54: May 1945 Unconditional Surrender of All German Forces

“Just before midnight the representatives of the allies entered the hall ‘in a two-storey building of the former canteen of the German military engineering college in Karlshorst.’ General Bogdanov, the commander of the 2nd Guards Tank Army, and another Soviet general sat down by mistake on seats reserved for the German delegation.”

“A staff officer whispered in their ears and ‘they jumped up, literally as if stung by a snake’ and went to sit at another table. Western pressmen and newsreel cameramen apparently ‘behaved like madmen’. In their desperation for good positions, they were shoving generals aside and tried to push in behind the top table under the flags of the four allies.”

The German delegation then entered the room, its members looking both “resigned” and “imperious.”

Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, commander of the Nazi armed forces during the final days of the war, “sat very straight in his chair, with clenched fists,” Beevor wrote. “Just behind him, a tall German staff officer standing to attention ‘was crying without a single muscle of his face moving.’”

Gen. Georgy Zhukov, a senior Soviet commander during the war’s final days, stood to invite the Germans “to sign the act of capitulation.” Keitel, impatient, gestured for the documents to be brought to him. “Tell them to come here to sign,” Zhukov said.

Keitel walked over to sign, “ostentatiously” removing his gloves to do so, unaware that the representative for the chief of Stalin’s secret police, the NKVD, was lingering just over his shoulder.

“‘The German delegation may leave the hall,’” Zhukov said once the signing was complete, Beevor wrote, adding:

“The three men stood up. Keitel, ‘his jowls hanging heavily like a bulldog’s’, raised his marshal’s baton in salute, then turned on his heel. As the door closed behind them, it was almost as if everybody would in the room exhaled in unison. The tension relaxed instantaneously. Zhukov was smiling, so was [British Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur] Tedder. Everybody began to talk animatedly and shake hands. Soviet officers embraced each other with bear hugs.”

“The party which followed went on until almost dawn, with songs and dances. Marshal Zhukov himself danced the Russkaya to loud cheers from his generals. From inside, they could clearly hear gunfire all over the city as officers and soldiers blasted their remaining ammunition into the night sky in celebration. The war was over.”

ANTONY BEEVER THE FALL OF BERLIN 1945 This surrender by General Keitel was ordered by Admiral Donitz who was given the power of authority by the will of Adolph Hitler and he took charge right after Hitler’s suicide in the bunker.

This surrender took place on 8 May 1945 in Berlin.

The previous surrender on 7 May 1945 was by General Jodl in the city of Reims. It was worded to take effect on 8 May 1945. Thus, the New York Times had the date of surrender as May 7 but the official surrender took place on 8 May 1945 in the city of Berlin.

The reporting on the suicide of Hitler and members of his inner circle hit the broadcast waves like a thunderbolt from the sky.

Of course, it took a little time for everyone in Europe to realize that the war was truly over due to the problems with communications in the later stages of the war. Eventually, the news was known to everyone concerned and the matter simply had to be formalized by a signing of a surrender document by the German high command. The Germans had hoped to surrender only to the west and to keep fighting against the Russian forces coming from the East. General Eisenhower nixed that idea and demanded a full surrender and got it.

It was signed by a German representative of the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe and the head of the German Navy before being ratified by all of the allies represented in the room in front of the international press from around the entire world and members of all of the armed forces involved.

As soon as the signing was completed, the German delegation retired from the room and the allies began a long period of celebration that lasted for several days.

German civilians still continued to withdraw to the west not wanting to come under the control of the Russian Army. They knew that capture by the Russians might mean years of slave labor in the Siberian wastelands and life like one could expect in a Nazi concentration camp. Rape by the Russian armed forces was considered a certainty for any German female that came under their control. The female population learned quickly to comply with the Soviet program of occupation or face possible death or torture as being a troublemaker.

Sporadic firefights were still happening all over the city of Berlin because looters and armed groups of people still resisted the Russian invaders. About the same time the details of the wartime conferences that set up the splitting up of the city proper into four separate zones of control; British, French, American and Russian. Eventually, the British, French and American zones became known as the Western Sector and the Russian zone became known as the Eastern Sector. The murders of innocent civilians as well as uncounted Rapes took place in the Eastern Sector as part of a Soviet program of punishing the German people for supporting Hitler’s dream of a Thousand Year Reich.

The treatment of German prisoners of war in the British, French and American West was to basically disarm them and give them access to the same facilities that the allied armed forces had in regard to providing beds and tents for temporary housing, feeding them with the same food given to the allied forces and even allocating transport to them when possible to allow them to return to their own homes.

The Soviet Union treatment of the German prisoners of war was no better than they were subjected to by the SS troops that murdered them by the thousands and sent them illegally to the concentration camps for purposes of slave labor or extermination. Many of the German prisoners were slowly starved to death or forced to march until exhausted and frozen by the frigid weather.

Just as Winston Churchill had predicted, the “Iron Curtain” was being created with each passing day and the city of Berlin was surrounded by Russian armed forces leaving millions of German civilians at risk in their so-called “Free Zones”.