The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944–1945

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