Five Days That Shocked the World: Eyewitness Accounts from Europe at the End of World War II (43 page)

The Irish were not pleased, as the implications sank in. They had remained studiously neutral during the war to avoid occupation by either Britain or Germany, but there had never been any doubt whose side they were on. They had seen the pictures from the camps. They had flocked to Britain in tens of thousands to fight for the Allies. They didn’t want their prime minister commiserating with the Nazis now that Hitler was dead. As the news of de Valera’s visit went out over the wires that night, the rest of the free world shared their outrage. De Valera had scored a spectacular goal of his own, one that was to haunt him for the rest of his life.

26

GERMANY SURRENDERS

EVENTS MOVED SWIFTLY OVER THE NEXT
few days. With Hitler dead and Berlin in Russian hands, the Germans had little incentive to fight on. The best they could do now was get as many people as possible to the west before accepting the inevitable and agreeing to surrender.

Dönitz sent General Hans Kinzel and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg to Montgomery’s headquarters on May 3 to ask for terms. “Who are these men?” Montgomery demanded when they presented themselves at Lüneberg Heath. “What do they want?”
1
He was using the words traditional since medieval times for the opening of a parley.

The men offered to surrender to the British all the German forces in Holland, Denmark, and northern Germany, including those fighting the Russians. Montgomery refused, insisting that the Germans fighting the Russians must surrender to the Russians. He warned that the fighting would continue to the bitter end if the Germans did not agree. “I shall go on with the war, and will be delighted to do so, and am ready. All your soldiers will be killed.”
2

Von Friedeburg and an aide returned to their own side to consult Dönitz. They were back again the next day to agree to Montgomery’s terms. Leonard Mosley was with a party of war correspondents who watched them arrive:

Montgomery kept the German delegates waiting, standing miserably about in the rain, first while he told us of the events which had led up to the armistice, and later while he conferred with his aides inside the caravan. With their backs towards us, von Friedeburg and his three companions stood there, on the spot where all of them must, at some time in their careers, have watched German armies manoeuvring on the plain below in the exercises of pre-war days, and where now unending convoys of British troops were moving. Montgomery kept them standing there, letting them watch and think, letting the rain splash over them, until he judged the moment right; and then he sent Colonel Ewart clattering down the steps to round the Nazi generals up and shepherd them to the tiny army tent on the lip of Lüneberg tor, where the Kleig lights were ready, and the microphones, for photographs to be taken and records made of the signing ceremony.
3

The Germans were shown to a plain trestle table covered by an army blanket. They sat in glum silence as Montgomery put on his spectacles and read the terms of the surrender to them. He was loving every minute of it:

“You will now sign,” he said, and, meekly, one by one, they came. The Post Office pen scraped on the paper; the delegates sat down again, expressionless, and waited. There was a moment, while the last photographs were being taken, when von Friedeburg turned his full face into the lights, an expression of tremendous anguish in his eyes as he posed for the pictures; and then the flap of the tent dropped and it was over.
4

Almost. Friedeburg went to Eisenhower’s headquarters the next day to negotiate the surrender of the remaining forces in southern Germany and elsewhere. He repeated his plea for a separate peace, but the Americans proved no more receptive than the British. Chief of staff Bedell Smith told Friedeburg coldly that the surrender was unconditional and had to be simultaneous on all fronts. In desperation, Dönitz tried to buy more time for the Germans fleeing the Russians by sending Jodl to Reims to argue their case. Jodl had no more success than Friedeburg. Dönitz finally accepted defeat in the early hours of May 7, when he authorized the surrender of all Germans everywhere on the terms stated.

Jodl signed on his behalf at 1:41 a.m. Bedell Smith signed for the Allied Expeditionary Force and General Ivan Susloparov for the Soviet High Command. The surrender was to come into effect at midnight on May 8. After the brief ceremony was over, Jodl stood up and made a short speech, beginning in English and continuing in German:

Sir, with this signature, the German nation and the German armed forces are at the mercy of the victors. Throughout this war, which has lasted for five years, both have performed more, and perhaps suffered more, than any other nation on earth. At this hour, we can only hope that the victors will be generous.
5

He was greeted with stunned silence. The suffering of the German people had not been uppermost in anyone’s thoughts as they watched the surrender being signed. When no answer came, Jodl snapped to attention, saluted, and left the room. The war in Europe was over.

EPILOGUE

RACHELE MUSSOLINI WAS IN MONTECATINI AS
the Germans surrendered, staying at the Hotel Italo-Argentine. She and her children were on their way to a British internment camp, where they remained until the end of July. They were then taken to the island of Ischia, in the bay of Naples, and set free to resume their lives.

Mussolini’s body was stolen by Fascist supporters in 1946 and spent several months in a trunk before reappearing at a Franciscan monastery in Pavia. It was secretly reburied in another monastery at Cerro Maggiore until 1957, when it was handed over to Rachele. It lies now in a crypt at Predappio, Mussolini’s hometown, where it enjoys a steady stream of visitors.

The sliver of Mussolini’s brain taken to America for further examination was returned to Rachele in 1966. The American consul in Florence was happy to report that they had found nothing wrong with it. In 2009, Mussolini’s granddaughter Alessandra complained that samples of his blood and brains were for sale on eBay.

*   *   *

ALESSANDRA’S AUNT,
Sofia Villani Scicolone, outgrew her dismal childhood in Naples. Changing her name to Sophia Loren, she pursued her mother’s dream and became one of the world’s most famous film stars.

*   *   *

AUDREY HEPBURN
and her mother left for London after the war, living in genteel poverty while Audrey trained as a ballerina. Her height and wartime diet would have prevented her from reaching the top, so she turned to acting instead. She, too, became a much-loved star.

*   *   *

HILDEGARD KNEF
was captured by the Russians and had a fraught time as a prisoner of war before eventually making her way back to Berlin, where she starred in many films. As Hildegard Neff, she played opposite Gregory Peck in
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
, but her German background—she refused to reinvent herself as an Austrian named Gilda Christian—meant that her Hollywood career never took off.

*   *   *

LENI RIEFENSTAHL TRIED
to get back into mainstream cinema after the war, but was blacklisted because of her Nazi past. She never worked seriously again.

*   *   *

REUNITED WITH HIS FATHER
after the war, Roman Polanski pursued his fascination with light shows on the wall, first in Poland, later in France, and the United States. He became one of the finest film directors of his generation, but his personal life continued to be deeply troubled.

*   *   *

SPIKE MILLIGAN
acted occasionally in films, but was happiest performing his own material on British radio and TV. With Michael Bentine, Peter Sellers, and Harry Secombe, he starred in
The Goon Show
, one of the funniest radio comedies of the 1950s, but always remained at the mercy of his mental health.

*   *   *

EZRA POUND
was arrested by the U.S. Army at the end of May and taken to America to stand trial for treason. His plea of insanity was accepted, and he spent twelve years at St. Elizabeth’s psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C., where Mussolini’s brain was already under examination. Released in 1958, he, too, returned to Italy.

*   *   *

KURT VONNEGUT
was released from prison camp in May and repatriated to the United States. His Dresden experiences later inspired his novel
Slaughterhouse Five
. Joseph Heller was a Fulbright scholar at Oxford after the war and then wrote
Catch-22
, a thinly disguised account of his own service in the Mediterranean, borrowing part of his friend Yohannon’s name for the main character Yossarian. Both novels were masterly indictments of the idiocy of war.

*   *   *

ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN
was sentenced to eight years in a labor camp, followed by exile for life to Kazakhstan. The experience gave him the material for some remarkable books, including
Cancer Ward
,
The Gulag Archipelago
, and
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
, none of which he expected to see published in his lifetime. Exonerated in 1956, after Nikita Khrushchev succeeded Stalin, he later won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

*   *   *

GÜNTER GRASS
was captured by the Americans and spent some time in a prison camp at Bad Aibling, where he made friends with the deserter Josef Ratzinger. He, too, became a writer and put his wartime experiences to good use, most notably in
The Tin Drum
. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.

*   *   *

JOSEF RATZINGER
got home safely after escaping from the Wehrmacht, but was picked up later by the Americans. Released in June, he became a priest and spent much of his career in Rome. His Polish colleague Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II in 1978. Ratzinger succeeded him as Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

*   *   *

LIEUTENANT ROBERT
Runcie
,
MC (Military Cross), teamed up with an attractive ex-Nazi named Ingeborg after the war. Her boyfriend had been killed while in the SS. Later Archbishop of Canterbury, Runcie officiated at the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

*   *   *

ARMY LIFE
had taught Runcie’s brother officer Willie Whitelaw that he was best suited to be a second-in-command. He became deputy prime minister to Margaret Thatcher. Peter Carrington served in the same government before becoming secretary general of NATO. Spain was admitted to the United Nations in 1955. General Franco remained head of state until 1974 and died a year later.

*   *   *

JACK KENNEDY
won the U.S. presidency in 1960 and established a close personal rapport with British prime minister Harold Macmillan.

*   *   *

WILLY BRANDT
became mayor of West Berlin and then chancellor of West Germany. He was standing at Kennedy’s side in 1963 when the U.S. president declared himself to be a Berliner.

*   *   *

BOB DOLE
recovered from his wounds but was never able to lift his right hand above his head again. Long a Republican senator for Kansas, he ran for the presidency in 1996 but lost to Bill Clinton.

*   *   *

CHAIM HERZOG
became
president of Israel.

*   *   *

HENRY KISSINGER
was secretary of state and foreign policy adviser to President Richard Nixon. Despite a controversial role in the Vietnam War, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.

*   *   *

AS SOON AS
the war ended, Victor Klemperer and his wife returned on foot to the ruins of Dresden to find that their house had been “Aryanized” in their absence. Klemperer reclaimed it and resumed his life as a university professor, becoming a significant figure in postwar East Germany.

*   *   *

SIMON WIESENTHAL
devoted the rest of his life to tracking down Nazi war criminals and bringing them to justice. He was never as successful as he claimed, but thousands of Nazis slept less easily in their beds knowing that staff at the Simon Wiesenthal Center had their details on file and were actively looking for them.

*   *   *

OTTO FRANK
returned to Amsterdam to be told that both of his daughters had died in Belsen. All that remained of them was Anne’s diary of the family’s time in hiding, kept safe for him by Otto’s friend Miep Gies.

*   *   *

OSKAR SCHINDLER’S
story was told
in the award-winning movie
Schindler’s List
. He ran into financial difficulties after the war and was helped out several times by Jews from his factory. Named by Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, he is the only former member of the Nazi Party to be buried in Jerusalem’s Roman Catholic cemetery.

*   *   *

WERNHER VON BRAUN
became an American citizen and played a leading role in the U.S. efforts to land a man on the moon. The British never took to him.

*   *   *

LEE MILLER
married an Englishman and
spent the rest of her life in the United Kingdom. Badly traumatized by her wartime experiences, she took refuge in alcohol and went into a downward spiral for many years.

*   *   *

ODETTE SANSOM
married an Englishman too, but not before bringing the commandant of Ravensbrück to justice. He released her from the prison camp on May 3 and drove her to the American lines in his black Mercedes. “This is Frau Churchill,” he told the Americans when they arrived. “She has been a prisoner. She is a relation of Winston Churchill.”
1
Sühren was hoping to save his skin by delivering such an important figure, but Odette confiscated his pistol at once and denounced him as the commandant of Ravensbrück. He was executed by the French in 1950.

*   *   *

JOSEF KRAMER,
the ex-commandant of Belsen, and Irma Grese, his onetime lover, were hanged with nine others at Hameln prison on December 13, 1945. Kramer appealed for clemency to Field Marshal Montgomery but was turned down. Fritz Klein, another of the condemned men, refused to appeal, accepting that he deserved to die for what he had done.