establish an ‘Alpine fortress’ in the Berchtesgaden area was a complication, leaving the Gauleiter of the Tyrol, Franz Hofer, torn between his continued loyalty to the Fuhrer and his desire to prevent his province becoming a battleground. Hofer’s continued backing for Hitler remained a worry for Vietinghoff and those trying to reach terms with the Allies. His support for the armistice negotiations could not be taken for granted. Field-Marshal Kesselring, based by late April in southern Bavaria and responsible for military direction in the southern part of the Reich (from 28 April for the military command over the entire southern front, covering Italy and the Balkans as well as the south of Germany), was a further problem. As late as 27 April, Kesselring was still hesitant. At a meeting that day in Gauleiter Hofer’s house with Vietinghoff, the Gauleiter and the German ambassador in Italy, Dr Rudolf Rahn, Kesselring backed the steps that were being taken and agreed to be associated with them. But he added a cautionary rider. It had to be presumed, he stated, ‘that the Fuhrer was basing his proclamation “Berlin will remain German; the fight for Berlin will bring the great turn in war fortune” on a reasoned basis.’ As long as he had faith in that, Kesselring added, he could not act on his own accord. He was prepared to let his name be used in the moves towards capitulation, but added ‘that an end only came into question for him if the Fuhrer was no longer alive’.71 The bonds with Hitler were evidently vital for Kesselring even in what were obviously the closing days of his power. Reports on foreign radio stations on the evening of 28 April that Hitler was dead turned out to be untrue. Kesselring still wanted to wait, though the military situation was worsening by the hour. The deterioration was reported by Kaltenbrunner—unaware of the suicide in the bunker—in a message for Hitler sent in the early morning of 1 May, though, because there were no communications with Berlin, relayed to Donitz. Kaltenbrunner, informed by Gauleiter Hofer, noted the demand for capitulation by 29 April, mentioning, too, the death of Mussolini at the hands of partisans.72
Meanwhile, a German delegation had flown to meet Allied representatives in Caserta to be faced with the ultimatum to agree unconditional surrender in Italy or see negotiations broken off. The German position was by then hopeless. The final Allied offensive had begun on 9 April. German forces in Italy, totalling around 600,000 men (including 160,000 Italian troops), were greatly outnumbered by some 1.5 million Allied troops (70,000 of them Italians).73 By 25 April, the Allies had crossed the Po, sweeping northwards and forcing the Germans into headlong retreat towards the Alps. Surrender was the only sensible option. The capitulation was signed at 2 p.m. on 29 April, to come into effect exactly three days later, on 2 May.74 It was the only capitulation to be signed before Hitler’s death—though by chance it did not come into effect while he was alive. Even now, Kesselring belatedly distanced himself from what had taken place, and dismissed Vietinghoff and his Chief of Staff, Hans Rottiger, threatening to report the matter to the Fuhrer and demand the necessary consequences for their treasonable actions. His own involvement probably prevented him carrying out this threat, and the Field-Marshal contented himself with the fiction that Vietinghoff and Rottiger were resigning at their own request. Whether the capitulation, though signed, would be effected remained in doubt until the news—authentic this time—of Hitler’s death came through and Kesselring finally, at 4 a.m. on 2 May, gave his approval. Kesselring told Donitz and Keitel that day that the armistice negotiations had taken place without his knowledge or approval, and that he had felt compelled to support the armistice that had been concluded in order to prevent an open revolt.75 At 2 p.m. that afternoon, the weapons in northern Italy finally fell silent.76 General Winter, deputy head of the OKW Operations Staff, telexed his chief, Jodl, that day: ‘Perfidious behaviour of the Commander-in-Chief there will for all time be inexplicable to me.’77 As late as this the top military leadership retained its perverse notion of loyalty.
In north-west Germany, East Frisia and Schleswig-Holstein were not yet occupied, and further north Denmark and Norway remained in German hands. On 2 May Jodl sent out instructions to Field-Marshal Ernst Busch, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group North-West, to fight on in order to ‘gain time’ for negotiations. The orders were, however, swiftly overtaken by events, which were by now moving far too rapidly for Donitz to have any hope of controlling them. The British advance to Luneburg and the American push through Schwerin to Wismar meant that overnight the last gateway for Germans to escape westwards from Pomerania and Mecklenburg was sealed off. Army Group Vistula, the 12th Army and the remains of the 9th Army were left to fight their way back to western lines as best they could. With this development, it was acknowledged that there was no longer any point in fighting on against the western forces in northern Germany. It was decided to try to open talks with Montgomery as quickly as possible.78
On 3 May, the date on which the city of Hamburg capitulated under threat of renewed British bombing,79 Admiral-General von Friedeburg was, therefore, dispatched to try to negotiate an armistice in north-west Germany with the British military commander. When Montgomery refused unless German forces in Holland, Denmark, Frisia and Schleswig stopped fighting, offering only to treat Germans fleeing from the east as prisoners of war and not hand them over to the Soviets, increasingly chaotic circumstances in the west forced Donitz’s hand. German troops had flooded back in disorder westwards through Mecklenburg while there was still a chance to escape from the Red Army. And there were signs of disintegration in those troop units already in the west—where the civilian population was said to oppose any continuation of the war with the western Allies— amid fears that they would take matters into their own hands and simply refuse to fight any longer.80
After discussing the dilemma with Krosigk, Speer, Keitel, Jodl and Gauleiter Wegener, Donitz saw no alternative but to comply with Montgomery’s demands. On 4 May he approved the signing of the partial capitulation under the terms laid down. At the same time he ordered a halt to the U-boat war. (The order was not, in fact, received by all U-boats. Four further attacks on Allied shipping took place. In the last U-boat attack of the war, on 7 May, shortly before the total capitulation of the Wehrmacht, two freighters were sunk off the Firth of Forth.) On 5 May hostilities officially ceased in the Netherlands, Denmark and north-west Germany. Against earlier intentions to scuttle warships rather than allow them to fall into enemy hands, the Germans agreed to sink no ships. Montgomery left open their continued use for refugee transportation.81
Norway, however, where the Commander-in-Chief, Colonel-General Georg Lindemann, was still claiming that his troops (remarkably even now around 400,000 strong82) were ready to fight on and requested (in vain) the continued use of the ‘Heil Hitler’ greeting, remained under German occupation. As late as 3 May Donitz had continued to regard Denmark and Norway as possible bargaining counters with the western powers. Only now did Donitz take steps to discard still lingering features of the Hitler regime. Actions of the Werwolf—though only in the west—were now banned and deemed contrary to laws of combat. The ‘Heil Hitler’ greeting was at last prohibited in the Wehrmacht. Pictures of Hitler were on British orders to be removed from government offices.83 And only on 6 May did Donitz finally ban all destruction or temporary dismantling of factories, canals, and rail and communications networks, finally reversing Hitler’s ‘scorched earth’ orders of March.84
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 Donitz 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 Donitz 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
