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

Oddly, the capitulation was not quite the end for the Third Reich. The Dönitz administration, an ever more pointless curiosity, was allowed to continue for a further fifteen days in office, its sovereignty confined to a tiny enclave in Flensburg. SS-uniforms were swiftly discarded and civilian dress adopted. A couple of ministers, Backe and Dorpmüller, were ordered to fly to Eisenhower’s headquarters to provide advice on the first steps of reconstruction.¹³⁰ Keitel, still Chief of the OKW, was arrested on 13 May and Jodl, who three days after he had signed the capitulation in Rheims was belatedly and by now somewhat pointlessly awarded the Oak Leaves to go with his Knight’s Cross, took over the running of a largely redundant OKW. Government business went on—if in a surreal way. It was little more than the pretence of government. Dönitz and his remaining colleagues discussed the issue of the national flag, because the swastika was banned by the enemy powers. Another emblem of Hitler’s Reich was at stake. Since pictures of the Führer had been removed or defaced by members of the Allied forces the question arose as to whether as a preventive measure they should all be taken down. Dönitz was opposed since, until now, the incidents had all been localized. Three days later he relented in part, conceding their removal in rooms where there were meetings with members of the occupying forces.¹³¹

Deprived of all effectiveness, the cabinet still felt it had ‘a responsibility to help the German people where it could’.¹³² This was hardly at all. A cabinet meeting took place every morning at 10 a.m. in an old schoolroom. It seemed to Speer as if Krosigk, the acting head of government, was making up for all the years under Hitler in which there had not been a single cabinet meeting. Members of the government had to bring their own glasses and cups from their rooms. They discussed, among other things, how to re-form the cabinet and whether to include a Church minister. Dönitz, still addressed as ‘Grand-Admiral’, was driven backwards and forwards from his apartment 500 metres away in one of Hitler’s big Mercedes that had somehow found its way to Flensburg.¹³³ This was not the only element of continuity with Hitler’s regime that the Grand-Admiral held to. At a meeting with Admiral-General von Friedeburg on 15 May, Dönitz stipulated that ‘defamatory orders’ to remove medals were to be refused, that the soldier should be proud of his service for the Wehrmacht and people during the war, and that ‘the true people’s community created by National Socialism must be maintained’. The ‘madness of the parties as before 1933 must never again arise’.¹³⁴

On 15 May Speer wrote to Krosigk asking to be released from his duties as Acting Minister of Economics and Production, stating that a new Reich government was needed, untainted by any connection with the Hitler regime. He still cherished hopes that he might be seen as useful to the Americans.¹³⁵ He received no reply, and two days later, described as ‘Minister Speer’, was still involved in the administration.¹³⁶ The entire cabinet considered resigning, but did not do so. The prime consideration was the ‘Reich idea’ and the question of sovereignty. State Secretary Stuckart, now heading the Ministry of the Interior, produced a memorandum stipulating that unconditional surrender did not affect the further existence of the Reich as a state under international law. Germany had not ceased to exist as a state. Moreover, Dönitz had been legally appointed by the Führer as head of state and therefore Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht, whose oath to Hitler had passed to him automatically. Dönitz could only resign by appointing a successor. As regards legal theory, the Reich continued in existence.¹³⁷

The pantomime of the rump Dönitz regime did not last long. On 23 May, Dönitz, Friedeburg and Jodl were suddenly summoned to the temporary headquarters of the Allied Control Commission, located on the steamship Patria, a former German passenger ship of the Hamburg-Amerika line, now moored in Flensburg harbour. Three Wehrmacht limousines ferried them the short journey. Dönitz was wearing full dress uniform and carrying his gold-tipped baton. On arrival, they were ushered up the gangplank and into a lounge to await Allied representatives, who entered the room some minutes later. US Major-General Lowell W. Rooks, heading the Allied mission, then read a prepared text: ‘I am under instructions… to tell you that the Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, has decided, in concert with the Soviet High Command, that today the acting German Government and the German High Command shall be taken into custody with the several members as prisoners-of-war. Thereby the acting German Government is dissolved.’¹³⁸