Group E, with around 180,000 men, fighting a rearguard struggle in Croatia under Colonel-General Alexander Lohr; and Field-Marshal Ferdinand Schorner’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 Donitz 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 Donitz gave Lohr 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 Schorner’s army. Already on 3 May Donitz accepted that ‘the entire situation as such demands capitulation, but it is impossible because Schorner with his army would then fall completely into the hands of the Russians’.97
Schorner had reported on 2 May that he could not hold out for long. His Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Oldwig von Natzmer, thought two weeks was the maximum, though he continued to insist on an orderly retreat. Preparations for sudden orders to retreat were laid while political options were under consideration.98 The possibilities of saving Army Group Centre depended upon the political as well as military situation in Bohemia. Donitz, together with Keitel, Krosigk, Wegener and Himmler had deliberated on 2 May about holding Bohemia for the time being as a bargaining counter.99 It was acknowledged that the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, known to be on the verge of revolution, could neither politically nor militarily be sustained in the long run. But with a view to rescuing Germans in the area there were thoughts of having Prague declared an open city and sounding out political options by sending emissaries to Eisenhower. Himmler and the OKW briefly entertained the idea of relocating what was left of German government to Bohemia, but Donitz ruled out the proposition since the territory was not part of Germany, and the political situation too unstable.100
This swiftly proved to be true. Any lingering hopes invested in Bohemia rapidly dissolved with the news that a popular rising had broken out in Prague on 5 May. Immediately, orders were issued to rescue as many soldiers as possible from Soviet hands by retreating westwards.101 Schorner’s men had placed their hopes in the Americans advancing into Bohemia before the Soviets could get there. However, Eisenhower held to his agreement with the Soviets to hold the American advance at a line west of Prague, near Pilsen, and refused General Patton permission to march on the city. Once the uprising broke out, the Red Army’s orders to take Prague were brought forward. The Soviet advance on Bohemia began on 6 May, though it was only in the early hours of 9 May—after the general capitulation had been signed—that the Red Army’s tanks entered Prague and destroyed the remnants of German resistance in the city. In the intervening four days, several thousand Czech citizens were killed or wounded in brutal German attempts to suppress the rising. There were also bloody acts of vengeance taken against the Germans. Demands of the SS commander in Bohemia and Moravia, SS-Gruppenfuhrer Carl Graf von Puckler- Burghaus, for Prague to be intensively fire-bombed were vitiated only by the lack of fuel for planes.102
The situation for Schorner’s troops had meanwhile become critical, not just on account of the uprising in Prague which had prompted the Soviet offensive from the north, blocking possible routes of retreat, but because of events much farther north. On the morning of 6 May Friedeburg let Donitz know that Eisenhower was insisting on ‘immediate, simultaneous and unconditional surrender on all fronts’. Troop units were to stay in their positions. No ships were to be sunk, no aeroplanes to be damaged. Eisenhower threatened a renewal of bombing raids and closure of borders to those fleeing from the east if his demands were not met. ‘These conditions are unacceptable,’ a meeting of Donitz, Keitel, Jodl and Gauleiter Wegener concluded, ‘because we cannot abandon the armies in the east to the Russians. They are not capable of implementation since no soldier on the eastern front will hold to the command to lay down arms and stay in position. On the other hand, the hopeless military situation, the danger of further losses in the west through bombing raids and combat and the certainty of the inevitable military collapse in the near future compel us to find a solution for the still intact armies.’ Since there was no way out of the dilemma, it was decided to send Jodl to explain with all force to Eisenhower ‘why a complete capitulation is impossible, but a capitulation only in the west would be immediately accepted’.103
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 Donitz’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, Donitz 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-Jurgen 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
