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

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

Once Dönitz had agreed to the capitulation in Rheims, a rapidly accelerated desperate attempt was made to transport westwards troops still on the eastern front before the surrender took effect. Hurriedly, he instructed the Army Groups South-East, Ostmark and Centre to fight their way back to Eisenhower’s domain with the aim of being taken prisoner by the Americans.¹⁰⁹ A flotilla of German ships ferried backwards and forwards across the Baltic to try to carry soldiers and—with lower priority—refugees to the west. Overland, soldiers and civilians alike fled in their droves beyond the Elbe and from Bohemia towards Bavaria. Many of the soldiers were from Army Group Ostmark, left leaderless at Rendulic´’s surrender, and now flooding back pell-mell towards the American lines, up to 150 kilometres away in the west.¹¹⁰ Wild rumours circulated among soldiers in the east that the Americans would set free their German prisoners and rearm them ‘to throw the Bolsheviks out of Germany’. Even though most soldiers were hoping for an end to the war, they would, one recorded in his diary, all have been prepared to fight on if they could attack the Russians alongside the Americans ‘for the homeland must sometime be liberated again’.¹¹¹