Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (102 page)

Nor was this all. Our forces rounded off their task by devouring the larger army they had been ordered to

“contain.” There have been few campaigns with a finer culmination.

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13

The German Surrender

Hitler Resolves to Make His Last Stand in Berlin,
April
22 —
His Suicide in the Bunker, April
29 —

Himmler’s Peace Offer
—
My Telephone Conversation with President Truman, April
25 —
A Cordial
Message from Stalin
—
Himmler’s Death
—
The
German Surrender to Field-Marshal Montgomery,
May
4 —
The Instrument of General Capitulation is
Signed at Reims, May
7 —
The End of the
Luftwaffe
—
Goering is Taken Prisoner in the Tyrol

—
The U-Boats Capitulate
—
The Fate of Germany’s Surface Fleet
—
Allied Convoys to Russia
—

President Truman’s Telegram and My Reply
—

Mrs. Churchill in Moscow
—
Stalin’s Message
—
My
Victory Warning.

B
Y THE MIDDLE OF APRIL it had been clear that Hitler’s Germany would soon be utterly destroyed. The invading armies drove onward in their might and the space between them narrowed daily. Hitler had pondered where to make his last stand. As late as April 20 he still thought of leaving Berlin for the “Southern Redoubt” in the Bavarian Alps. That day he held a meeting of the principal Nazi leaders. As the German double-front East and West was in imminent danger of being cut in twain by the spearpoint thrust of the Allies, he agreed to set up two separate commands.

Admiral Doenitz was to take charge in the North both of the military and civil authorities, with the particular task of

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bringing back to German soil nearly two million refugees from the East. In the South General Kesselring was to command the remaining German armies. These arrangements were to take effect if Berlin fell.

Two days later on April 22, Hitler made his final and supreme decision to stay in Berlin to the end. The capital was soon completely encircled by the Russians and the Fuehrer had lost all power to control events. It remained for him to organise his own death amid the ruins of the city. He announced to the Nazi leaders who remained with him that he would die in Berlin. Goering and Himmler had both left after the Conference of the 20th, with thoughts of peace negotiations in their minds. Goering, who had gone south, assumed that Hitler had in fact abdicated by his resolve to stay in Berlin, and asked for confirmation that he should act formally as the successor to the Fuehrer. The reply was his instant dismissal from all his offices.

The last scenes at Hitler’s headquarters have been described elsewhere in much detail. Of the personalities of his regime only Goebbels and Bormann remained with him to the end. The Russian troops were now fighting in the streets of Berlin. In the early hours of April 29 Hitler made his will. The following day opened with the normal routine of work in the air-raid shelter under the Chancellery. In the course of the day news arrived of Mussolini’s end. The timing was grimly appropriate. Hitler lunched quietly with his suite, and at the end of the meal shook hands with those present and retired to his private room. At half-past three a shot was heard, and members of his personal staff entered the room to find him lying on the sofa with a revolver by his side. He had shot himself through the mouth. Eva Braun,

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whom he had married secretly during these last days, lay dead beside him. She had taken poison. The bodies were burnt in the courtyard, and Hitler’s funeral pyre, with the din of the Russian guns growing ever louder, made a lurid end to the Third Reich.

The leaders who were left held a final conference. Last-minute attempts were made to negotiate with the Russians, but Zhukov demanded unconditional surrender. Bormann tried to break through the Russian lines, and disappeared without trace. Goebbels poisoned his six children and then ordered an S.S. guard to shoot his wife and himself. The remaining staff of Hitler’s headquarters fell into Russian hands.

That evening a telegram reached Admiral Doenitz at his headquarters in Holstein:

In place of the former Reich-Marshal Goering the
Fuehrer appoints you, Herr Grand Admiral, as his
successor. Written authority is on its way. You will
immediately take all such measures as the situation
requires. BORMANN.

Chaos descended. Doenitz had been in touch with Himmler, who, he assumed, would be nominated as Hitler’s successor if Berlin fell, and now supreme responsibility was suddenly thrust upon him without warning and he faced the task of organising the surrender.

Himmler had for some months been urged to make personal contact with the Western Allies on his own initiative in the hope of negotiating a separate surrender. A General Schellenberg of the S.S. had proposed to him as an intermediary Count Bernadotte, the head of the Swedish Triumph and Tragedy

631

Red Cross, who had occasion from time to time to visit Berlin. There had been secret meetings between Bernadotte and Himmler in February, and again in April, when Bernadotte visited the German capital. But the Nazi leader felt too deeply committed in his loyalty to Hitler to make any move. The Fuehrer’s announcement on April 22

of the last stand in Berlin led him to act.

In the early hours of April 25 a telegram arrived in London from Sir Victor Mallet, British Minister to Sweden. He reported that at 11 P.M. on April 24 he and his American colleague, Mr. Herschel Johnson, had been asked to call upon the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, “Mr.

Boheman. The purpose of the interview was to meet Count Bernadotte, who had an urgent mission. Bernadotte told them that Himmler was on the Eastern Front, and had asked to meet him urgently in North Germany. Bernadotte suggested Lübeck, and they had met the previous evening.

Himmler, though tired and admitting Germany was finished, was still calm and coherent. He said that Hitler was so desperately ill that he might be dead already, and in any case would be so within the next few days. Himmler stated that while the Fuehrer was still active he would not have been able to do what he now proposed, but as Hitler was finished he could act with full authority. He then asked if the Swedish Government would arrange for him to meet General Eisenhower and capitulate on the whole Western Front. Bernadotte said there was no need for this as he could simply order his troops to surrender, and in any case he would not forward the request unless Norway and Denmark were included in the capitulation. If this were done there might be some point in a meeting, because special arrangements might be necessary as to how and to whom the Germans there were to lay down their arms. Himmler thereupon said he was prepared to order the German

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forces in Denmark and Norway to surrender to either British, American, or Swedish troops. When asked what he proposed to do if the Western Allies refused his offer, Himmler replied that he would take command of the Eastern Front and die in battle. Himmler said he hoped that the Western Allies rather than the Russians would be the first to enter Mecklenburg, in order to save the civilian population.

Count Bernadotte ended by saying that General Schellenberg was now in Flensburg, near the Danish border, eagerly waiting for news, and could make sure that any message would reach Himmler immediately. Both Ministers remarked that Himmler’s refusal to surrender on the Eastern Front looked like a last attempt to make trouble between the Western Allies and Russia. Obviously the Nazis would have to surrender to all the Allies simultaneously. The Swedish Minister admitted this might be so, but pointed out that if the troops on the whole of the Western Front and in Norway and Denmark laid down their arms it would be a great help for all the Allies, including Russia, and would lead to an early and total capitulation. In any case, he thought that Bernadotte’s information should be passed to the British and United States Governments.

As far as his own Government were concerned, we were completely at liberty to tell the Soviets, as the Swedes would in no way be, or be thought to be, promoting discord between the Allies. The only reason why the Swedish Government could not inform the Soviets direct was that Himmler had stipulated that his information was exclusively for the Western Powers.
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I received this news on the morning of April 25 and immediately summoned the War Cabinet. Our reactions are shown in the message which I despatched to President Truman:

Prime

Minister

to

25 Apr. 45

President Truman

You will no doubt have received some hours ago the
report from Stockholm by your Ambassador on the
Bernadotte-Himmler talks. I called the War Cabinet
together at once, and they approved the immediately
following telegram, which we are sending to Marshal
Stalin and repeating through the usual channels to you.

We hope you will find it possible to telegraph to Marshal
Stalin and to us in the same sense. As Himmler is
evidently speaking for the German State, as much as
anybody can, the reply that should be sent him through
the Swedish Government is in principle a matter for the
triple Powers, since no one of us can enter into
separate negotiations. This fact however in no way
abrogates General Eisenhower’s or Field Marshal
Alexander’s authority to accept local surrenders as they
occur.

In view of the importance of this German peace offer and of our experience of Russian suspicions over “Crossword,”
2
I think it well to record our attitude in detail.