After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe (42 page)

Behind this last round of negotiating was the very real fear – on the part of the Russians – that Germany would still not abide by the terms of unconditional surrender. On the German side was a wish to continue to play for time – which might allow, even at this late stage, more of their troops to surrender to the Western Allies. As the moment of signing drew closer the issue raised its head once more. Keitel noticed that Zhukov had not inserted the ‘12 hour’ clause into the surrender document as agreed. There was another delay.

After the postponement, everyone assembled for the surrender ceremony at 10.30 p.m. that night. It was staged in a plain, concrete-built former German engineering works simply because most of its buildings were still intact. The room itself was much larger than the one at Rheims, about 60 feet long and 40 feet wide, with two levels and a small balcony running along one side. The delegation from the Western Allies consisted of Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder (Eisenhower’s deputy), General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (commander of the 1st French Army) and General Carl Spaatz (head of the United States 8th Air Force).

Eisenhower’s driver, Kay Summersby, recalled the scene:

The huge room was banked with klieg lights – quite blinding as we stepped in from the dim hallway. Inside were the Russian press, who numbered about a hundred, and movie cameras were placed in almost every conceivable spot. Microphones hung from the ceiling and sprouted from the floor creating a spider’s web of wires and cables.

A long table at one end of the room commanded all the attention. From it stretched three other tables, for the press and smaller fry. Set apart, under the balcony, was a small table – apparently reserved for the surrendering Germans. There was a momentary silence as Marshal Zhukov, a short stocky officer with a stern expression, entered the room. Everyone stood up. As we sat again, he called proceedings to order.

Summersby was struck by the commanding influence of Soviet Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs Andrei Vyshinsky, who seemed to hover over the entire proceedings. Even Zhukov deferred to him. At this moment of military victory, the Kremlin was once more reasserting its authority over the army.

Then the signal was given for the enemy’s entrance. As the door opened just behind the empty table, silence smothered the babble. Every pair of eyes in the room focused on a tall German officer in smart blue-grey field marshal’s uniform, his chest covered with decorations and medals, his head poised high. He stepped stiffly to the table, jerked up his silver-headed baton in curt salute and sat down.

The noise rose again. No-one seemed to notice the other two Germans who took their places beside Keitel [Admiral Georg von Friedeburg and Luftwaffe colonel general Hans-Jürgen Stumpff].

But German concerns over the clause inserted by the Russians were brought forward again. American war correspondent Charles Kiley, writing for
Stars and Stripes
, recalled: ‘Keitel, tall and erect, was a model of Prussian arrogance to the end. After he had been called from the German delegates’ table to the one occupied by the Allied officers, to sign, he returned to his seat and bitterly argued a point in the surrender.’ Again, he wanted more time to inform German units of the new provision. And the ‘12 hour’ clause promised by Zhukov was still not in the official document. It was now two minutes to eleven at night (central European time).

A further round of argument continued in the surrender hall. The ceasefire was formally to take effect at one minute past midnight. As that time was reached, both sides remained deadlocked. The impasse was broken only when Marshal Zhukov yelled across the room: ‘I give you my word as a soldier!’

It was already several minutes past midnight. Kiley’s account continued: ‘The three principal German delegates then took their seats on the opposite side of the Allied table. Air Marshal Tedder addressed them: “I ask you – have you read this document on unconditional surrender and are you prepared to sign it?” The Germans nodded.’

Marshal Zhukov and Air Chief Marshal Tedder signed as representatives of the Allies, followed by Generals Spaatz and De Tassigny as witnesses.

Kiley recalled: ‘While Stumpff was signing, and the documents were being passed to Zhukov, Tedder, Spaatz and de Lattre, Keitel first became annoyed by the photographers darting around the room and then called the Russian interpreter, to once more discuss the possibility of having the “end of hostilities” clause removed.’

The reluctance of the Germans to surrender to the Russians was mirrored by the interminable delays to the signing ceremony itself. Finally, Keitel conceded. Kay Summersby remembered the moment: ‘The Field Marshal carefully pulled off one grey glove before taking the pen. He looked up contemptuously at the boisterous newsmen, then scribbled his signature, as though anxious to dispense with a dirty job …’

Then Zhukov gave an order of dismissal. ‘The Nazis arose as at a parade-ground command. Keitel again jerked his baton in brief salute. They left the room with an exit as dramatic as their entrance … Now, even for the Russians, VE-Day was official.’

However, Field Marshal Keitel’s reluctance to accept the additional clause had further aroused Soviet suspicions. In a private room at 1.00 a.m. on 9 May the Russians now interrogated Keitel on German good faith over the military surrender.

Proceedings were led by Colonel General Ivan Serov, chief of logistics in the 1st Belorussian Front. He emphasised primarily that the Red Army would not accept any delay in implementing surrender.

Keitel offered to send, on the afternoon of 9 May, an officer of the Army General Staff, with maps showing the full deployment of German forces in the east and their commanders. The next day, 10 May, he believed liaison officers would be in place to resolve any outstanding issues.

Serov turned to the matter of the so-called Dönitz government – saying it was acting as a legitimate administration when such a situation did not really exist in Flensburg. Keitel temporised, saying more time was needed to set up an alternative government that could work with the Allies. Serov asked on what authority Dönitz called himself head of state. Keitel referred back to Hitler’s will. Serov remained unconvinced.

At 1.30 a.m. the victors reassembled in the place of surrender, now converted into a banqueting hall, complete with orchestra in the balcony, to celebrate their victory. The meal lasted four hours. Summersby wisely drank water:

By five o’clock in the morning, even the expert interpreter couldn’t understand the toasts. The majority of the banquet guests were drunk. Several Russians literally went under the table. Songs bubbled up in four languages. The orchestra, which had struck chords for each and every toast, began to lose its way as the vodka cloud permeated the balcony. As the party broke up just before dawn it was reckoned there had been twenty-nine individual toasts, each requiring five to ten minutes for translation, plus the musical chord. We all agreed we had been in on the VE party to end all VE parties.

Marshal Zhukov wrote of this occasion: ‘After the signing I congratulated everyone present. Then an incredible commotion broke out in the hall. Everyone was congratulating one another and shaking hands. Many had tears of joy in their eyes. I was surrounded by my comrades-in-arms.’

The second toast Marshal Zhukov made, after the obligatory one to Stalin, was to General Eisenhower. The Soviet commander praised him as a great general ‘and one of America’s outstanding sons’. And of the banquet, and the singing and dancing that followed, Zhukov added:

The Soviet generals were unrivalled as far as dancing went. Even I could not restrain myself, and remembering my youth, did the Russkaya dance. We left the banquet hall to the accompaniment of a cannonade from all types of weapons on the occasion of the victory. The shooting went on in all parts of Berlin and its suburbs. Although shots were fired into the air, fragments from mines, shells and bullets fell to the ground and it was not completely safe to walk in the open. But how different it was from the danger to which we had grown accustomed during the long years of the war!

For Zhukov, the Soviet Union’s most gifted and ruthless commander, it was a powerful moment of relaxation, happiness and deep pride. ‘Where Zhukov goes, victory will follow’, Red Army soldiers would say. That victorious road, one that had begun at Leningrad and Moscow in 1941, had now reached Berlin. It was right that Zhukov led the signing at Karlshorst – for the Soviet Union and for the world. It was Russia which had ripped the guts out of the German war machine – and paid the price in the blood of 27 million of its soldiers and civilians.

Zhukov evoked a universal bond of military comradeship. He had celebrated the war’s end in Berlin. Private John Frost of the British 11th Armoured Division wrote home at the end of that day from Lübeck:

It is VE Day and fighting has ceased – we have much to be thankful for. This afternoon we all listened to Churchill broadcast over the radio – it put the official touch to things that it was all over. At nine we shall be hearing a speech from the King. From the radio news we have all learnt of the wild celebrations going on in London and other cities. I wish I could see all the flags flying and hear the bells pealing.

This morning on parade we had three special Orders of the Day read out to us. They were congratulatory messages from Army commanders on our achievements in Germany. One, from General Dempsey, was for our division only – he congratulated the 11th Armoured on their recent capture of Lübeck and advance to the Baltic Sea.

General Miles Dempsey, commander of the British 2nd Army, had every reason to be pleased with the 11th Armoured Division, which had fulfilled its last combat mission so effectively, preventing the German 3rd Panzer Army from reaching Schleswig-Holstein and ensuring that Red Army troops did not enter Denmark. ‘Along this road today are passing thousands more German soldiers,’ Frost continued. ‘They look battle-worn and completely tired. Also on the road, making their own escape from the Russians, are hundreds of civilians. Those that have carts have household belongings piled up in them; most are walking – women and children too. VE-Day is very different in Germany.’

For some, the sight of the Wehrmacht prostrate brought out feelings of compassion. Red Cross welfare worker Nancy Wilson was stationed at a hospital in the Scharnhorst Barracks in Lüneburg. The sense of relief and congratulation on VE-Day was tempered by images of the beaten army. She recalled: ‘The sight of the bedraggled remnants of the German Army slowly trudging towards our line of lorries was terrible. They had been disarmed and told to get home as best they could. They stumbled past, limping, bandaged, some supported by their comrades, totally broken and beaten. The sight reminded me of the painting of the French retreat from Moscow in 1812.’

And yet, in the Italian theatre of war, which had concluded with a triumphant campaign in the Po Valley and the signing of the first unconditional surrender of German troops at Caserta on 2 May, Sergeant Major Harry Dutka of the Royal Army Service Corps was able to take a Victory Day excursion to Venice. He remembered:

We left on a truck early in the morning, [and] passing through war-damaged Padua arrived in Venice. It seemed we were the first soldiers – and there were still gondolas in abundance waiting for clients. It was still quite cool and the water was smooth like a mirror. It seemed unbelievable to admire the wonders of this fantasy city, unmarked by war, just hours after the fighting had ended. On returning to camp we were pleasantly surprised to hear that VE Day had been prolonged to include the 9th May as well.

Field Marshal Alexander, the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean, broadcast to his men: ‘Some of you will be going home,’ he said. ‘Others will go to defeat the last remaining aggressor, the Japanese, who are already in a sorry way and know what is coming to them. We and our Allies, by means of the same united strength which has at last brought us victory in Europe, shall now proceed to clean up the Japanese once and for all.’

On VE-Day Peter Haddington of the British 21st Army Group’s Kinematograph Service dispensed with war newsreels and rigged up his screen, amplifier and projection equipment in the market square of the Dutch town of Zevenaar. The grateful populace, most of whom had not seen a film for five years, erupted in gales of laughter at the cartoon antics of Popeye and Mickey Mouse.

One of Haddington’s tasks had been to show film of the newly liberated concentration camps to Allied soldiers. On 8 May British soldier Noel Mander was stationed in the Royal Army Pay Corps headquarters on the outskirts of Rome. ‘We were given the day off,’ Mander recalled. ‘The city was throbbing with excitement and jubilation, drinks were pressed on everyone and bands were playing.’ Yet Mander left the celebrations early. It was not only the unfinished war with Japan which was on his mind. He had also seen pictures of the concentration camps on the cinema screen just days earlier.

There were surges of exhilaration. In Paris, Corporal William Dryer of the US Air Force wrote to his fiancée: ‘The people went mad. Mad with laughter, mad with happiness, mad with anything and everything. All up and down the streets the cheering populace let it be known that Hitler was kaput.’

Ferdinand Picard was also in Paris that day:

I was immersed in a Parisian crowd drunk with the joy of victory. From the Saint-Lazare train station to the Place de la Republique I followed a river of people spread along the entire width of the boulevard. All generations mingled in this tide of humanity. Women carried babies in their arms, which they sometimes held aloft to show to the Allied soldiers. White-haired, thin old men rediscovered the enthusiasm of their youth. Teenage boys and girls, in colourful clothes and wearing ribbons and brocades, thronged around the American jeeps and trucks. They screamed – and were beside themselves with joy.