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Theend of World War II in Europe occurred in May 1945. Following thesuicide ofAdolf Hitler on 30 April, leadership ofNazi Germany passed to Grand AdmiralKarl Dönitz and theFlensburg Government.Soviet troopsconquered Berlin on 2 May, and a number of German military forces surrendered over the next few days. On 8 May, Field MarshalWilhelm Keitel signed theGerman Instrument of Surrender, anunconditional surrender to theAllies, inKarlshorst,Berlin. This is celebrated asVictory in Europe Day, while in Russia 9 May is celebrated asVictory Day.Some fighting continued after the German surrender. Some battles continued on theEastern Front such as theCourland Pocket in westernLatvia surrendering on 10 May, and thePrague offensive inCzechoslovakia ending on 11 May. On 25 May 1945, theBattle of Odžak ended in a Yugoslav Partisan victory. Following the conclusion in theEuropean theatre, the war continued in thePacific theatre.
Allied forces begin to take large numbers of Axis prisoners: The total number of prisoners taken on the Western Front in April 1945 by the Western Allies was 1,500,000.[1] April also witnessed the capture of at least 120,000 German troops by the Western Allies in the last campaign of the war in Italy.[2] In the three to four months up to the end of April, over 800,000 German soldiers surrendered on the Eastern Front.[2] In early April, the firstAllied-governedRheinwiesenlager camps were established in western Germany to hold hundreds of thousands of captured or surrenderedAxis Forces personnel.Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) reclassified all prisoners asDisarmed Enemy Forces, notPOWs (prisoners of war). Thelegal fiction circumvented provisions under theGeneva Convention of 1929 on the treatment of former combatants.[3] By October, thousands had died in the camps from starvation, exposure and disease.[4]
Liberation of Nazi concentration camps and refugees: Allied forces began to discover the scale ofthe Holocaust, confirming the findings ofPilecki's 1943 Report. The advance into Germany uncovered numerousNazi concentration camps and forced labour facilities. Up to 60,000 prisoners were atBergen-Belsen when it was liberated on 15 April 1945, by the British11th Armoured Division.[5] Four days later troops from the American42nd Infantry Division foundDachau.[6] Allied troops forced the remaining SS guards to gather up the corpses and place them in mass graves.[7] Due to the prisoners' poor physical condition, thousands continued to die after liberation.[8] Captured SS guards were subsequently tried at Alliedwar crime tribunals where many were sentenced to death.[9] Some Nazi guards and personnel werekilled outright upon the discovery of their crimes. However, up to 10,000 Nazi war criminals eventually fled Europe usingratlines.
German forces withdraw from Finland: On 25 April 1945, the last German troops withdrew from Finnish Lapland and made their way into occupied Norway. On 27 April 1945, theRaising the Flag on the Three-Country Cairn photograph was taken.[10]
Mussolini is executed: On 25 April 1945,Italian partisans liberatedMilan andTurin. On 27 April 1945, as Allied forces closed in onMilan, Italian dictatorBenito Mussolini was captured by Italian partisans. It is disputed whether he was trying to flee from Italy to Switzerland (through theSplügen Pass), and was travelling with a German anti-aircraft battalion. On 28 April,Mussolini was executed inGiulino (a civil parish ofMezzegra); the other fascists captured with him were taken toDongo and executed there. The bodies were then taken to Milan and hung up on the Piazzale Loreto of the city. On 29 April,Rodolfo Graziani surrendered all Fascist Italian armed forces at Caserta. This includedArmy Group Liguria. Graziani was the Minister of Defence for Mussolini'sItalian Social Republic.
Hitler dies by suicide: On 30 April 1945, as theBattle of Nuremberg and theBattle of Hamburg ended with American and British occupation, theBattle in Berlin was still raging. With the Soviets surrounding Berlin and his escape route cut off by the Americans, German dictatorAdolf Hitler, realizing that all was lost and not wishing to suffer Mussolini's fate,died by suicide in hisFührerbunker along with his long-term partnerEva Braun, whom he had married less than 40 hours earlier.[11] Inhis will, Hitler dismissedReichsmarschallHermann Göring, his second-in-command, andInterior ministerHeinrich Himmler after each of them separately tried to seize control of the crumbling remains ofNazi Germany. Hitler appointed his successors as follows;GroßadmiralKarl Dönitz as the newReichspräsident ("President of Germany") andJoseph Goebbels as the newReichskanzler (Chancellor of Germany). However, Goebbels died by suicide the next day, leaving Dönitz as the sole leader of Germany.
German forces in Italy surrender: On 29 April, the day before Hitler died, Oberstleutnant Schweinitz and Sturmbannführer Wenner, plenipotentiaries for GeneraloberstHeinrich von Vietinghoff and SS ObergruppenführerKarl Wolff, signed a surrender document atCaserta[12] after prolonged unauthorised secret negotiations with theWestern Allies, which were viewed with great suspicion by the Soviet Union as trying to reach aseparate peace. In the document, the Germans agreed to a ceasefire and surrender of all the forces under the command of Vietinghoff on 2 May at 2 pm. Accordingly, after some bitter wrangling between Wolff andAlbert Kesselring in the early hours of 2 May, nearly 1,000,000 men in Italy and Austria surrendered unconditionally to British Field Marshal SirHarold Alexander on 2 May at 2 pm.[13]
German forces in Berlin surrender: TheBattle of Berlin ended on 2 May. On that date,General der ArtillerieHelmuth Weidling, the commander of the Berlin Defense Area, unconditionally surrendered the city to GeneralVasily Chuikov of theRed Army.[14] On the same day the officers commanding the two armies ofArmy Group Vistula north of Berlin, (GeneralKurt von Tippelskirch, commander of theGerman 21st Army and GeneralHasso von Manteuffel, commander ofThird Panzer Army), surrendered to the Western Allies.[15] 2 May is also believed to have been the day when Hitler's deputyMartin Bormann died, from the account ofArtur Axmann who saw Bormann's corpse in Berlin near theLehrter Bahnhof railway station after encountering a Soviet Red Army patrol.[16] Lehrter Bahnhof is close to where the remains of Bormann, confirmed as his by a DNA test in 1998,[17] were unearthed on 7 December 1972.
German forces in North West Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands surrender: On 4 May 1945, the BritishField MarshalBernard Montgomery took the unconditional militarysurrender at Lüneburg fromGeneraladmiralHans-Georg von Friedeburg, and GeneralEberhard Kinzel, of all German forces "in Holland [sic], in northwest Germany including the Frisian Islands and Heligoland and all other islands, in Schleswig-Holstein, and in Denmark... includ[ing] all naval ships in these areas",[18][19] at theTimeloberg onLüneburg Heath; an area between the cities ofHamburg,Hanover andBremen. The number of German land, sea and air forces involved in this surrender amounted to 1,000,000 men.[20]On 5 May,Großadmiral Dönitz ordered allU-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases.At 16:00 on 5 May, GermanOberbefehlshaber Niederlande supreme commanderGeneraloberstJohannes Blaskowitz surrendered toI Canadian Corps commanderLieutenant-GeneralCharles Foulkes in the Dutch town ofWageningen, in the presence ofPrince Bernhard of the Netherlands (acting as commander-in-chief of the Dutch Interior Forces).[21][22]
German forces in Bavaria surrender: At 14:30 on 5 May 1945, GeneralHermann Foertsch surrendered all forces between theBohemian mountains and theUpper Inn river to the American GeneralJacob L. Devers, commander of theAmerican 6th Army Group.
Central Europe: On 5 May 1945, the Czech resistance started thePrague uprising. The following day, the Soviets launched thePrague offensive. InDresden,GauleiterMartin Mutschmann let it be known that a large-scale German offensive on the Eastern Front was about to be launched. Within two days, Mutschmann abandoned the city but was captured by Soviet troops while trying to escape.[23]
Hermann Göring's surrender: On 6 May,Reichsmarshall and Hitler's second-in-commandHermann Göring surrendered to GeneralCarl Spaatz, who was the commander of the operationalUnited States Air Forces in Europe, along with his wife and daughter at theGermany-Austria border.
German forces in Breslau surrender: At 18:00 on 6 May, GeneralHermann Niehoff, the commandant ofBreslau, a 'fortress' city surrounded and besieged for months, surrendered to the Soviets.[22]
Jodl and Keitel surrender all German armed forces unconditionally: Thirty minutes after the fall of "Festung Breslau" (Fortress Breslau), GeneralAlfred Jodl arrived inReims and, following Dönitz's instructions, offered to surrender all forces fighting the Western Allies. This was exactly the same negotiating position that von Friedeburg had initially made to Montgomery, and like Montgomery, theSupreme Allied Commander, GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower, threatened to break off all negotiations unless the Germans agreed to a complete unconditional surrender to all the Allies on all fronts.[24] Eisenhower explicitly told Jodl that he would order western lines closed to German soldiers, thus forcing them to surrender to the Soviets.[24] Jodl sent a signal to Dönitz, who was inFlensburg, informing him of Eisenhower's declaration. Shortly after midnight, Dönitz, accepting the inevitable, sent a signal to Jodl authorizing the complete and total surrender of all German forces.[22][24]
Channel Islanders were informed about the German surrender after: At 10:00 on 8 May, theChannel Islanders were informed by the German authorities that the war was over. British prime ministerWinston Churchill made a radio broadcast at 15:00 during which he announced: "Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight, but in the interests of saving lives the 'Cease fire' began yesterday to be sounded all along the front, and our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today."[25][26]
At 02:41 on the morning of 7 May, at SHAEF headquarters in Reims, France, the chief-of-staff of theGerman Armed Forces High Command, General Alfred Jodl, signed an unconditionalsurrender document for all German forces to the Allies. GeneralFranz Böhme announced the unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway on 7 May. It included the phrase "All forces under German control to cease active operations at 23:01 hoursCentral European Time on May 8, 1945."[18][26] The next day, Field MarshalWilhelm Keitel and other German OKW representatives travelled to Berlin, and shortly before midnight signed another document of unconditional surrender, again surrendering to all the Allied forces, this time in the presence of MarshalGeorgy Zhukov and representatives ofSHAEF.[27] The signing ceremony took place in a former German Army Engineering School in the Berlin district ofKarlshorst; it now houses theMuseum Berlin-Karlshorst.
VE-Day: Following news of the German surrender, spontaneous celebrations erupted all over the world on 7 May, including in Western Europe and the United States. As the Germans officially set the end of operations for 2301Central European Time on 8 May, that day is celebrated across Europe asV-E Day. Most of the former Soviet Union celebratesVictory Day on 9 May, as the end of operations occurred after midnightMoscow Time.
German units cease fire: Although the military commanders of most German forces obeyed the order to surrender issued by theOberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW)—the German Armed Forces High Command—not all commanders did so. The largest contingent wasArmy Group Centre under the command ofGeneralfeldmarschallFerdinand Schörner, who had been promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the Army on 30 April in Hitler's last will and testament. On 8 May, Schörner deserted his command and flew to Austria; the Soviet Army sent overwhelming force against Army Group Centre in thePrague offensive, forcing many of the German units in there to capitulate by 11 May. The other units of the Army Group which did not surrender on 8 May were forced to surrender.
Debellation: At the time the Allied powers assumed that adebellation had occurred (the end of a war caused by the complete destruction of a hostile state), and their actions during the immediate post war period were based on that legal premise (however, the German government's legal position during and following thereunification of Germany is that the state remained in existence although moribund in the immediate post war period).[35][36][a]
Dönitz government ordered dissolved by Eisenhower: Karl Dönitz continued to act as if he were the German head of state, but hisFlensburg Government (so called because it was based at Flensburg in northern Germany and controlled only a small area around the town), was not recognized by the Allies. On 12 May an Allied liaison team arrived in Flensburg and took quarters aboard the passenger shipPatria. The liaison officers and the Supreme Allied Headquarters soon realized that they had no need to act through the Flensburg government and that its members should be arrested. On 23 May, acting on SHAEF's orders and with the approval of the Soviets, American Major General Rooks summoned Dönitz aboard thePatria and communicated to him that he and all the members of his Government were under arrest and that their government was dissolved. The Allies had a problem because they realized that although the German armed forces had surrendered unconditionally, SHAEF had failed to use the document created by the "European Advisory Commission" (EAC) and so there had been no formal surrender by the civilian German government. This was considered a very important issue, because just as the civilian, but not military, surrender in 1918 had been used by Hitler to create the "stab in the back" argument, the Allies did not want to give any future hostile German regime a legal argument to resurrect an old quarrel.
On 20 September 1945, theAllied Control Council passed itsControl Council Law No. 1 - Repealing of Nazi Laws, which repealed numerous pieces of legislation enacted by the national-socialist regime, putting ade jure end to theGovernment of Nazi Germany. Incidentally, this law should have theoretically reestablished theWeimar Constitution; however, this constitution stayed irrelevant on the grounds of the powers of the Allied Control Council acting as occupying forces. On 10 October 1945, Control Council Law No. 2 was also passed, formally abolishing all national-socialist organisations.[37]
TheDeclaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany and the Assumption of Supreme Authority by Allied Powers was signed by the four Allies on 5 June. It included the following:
The Governments of the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and the Provisional Government of the French Republic, hereby assume supreme authority with respect to Germany, including all the powers possessed by the German Government, the High Command and any state, municipal, or local government or authority. The assumption, for the purposes stated above, of the said authority and powers does not effect[38] the annexation of Germany [i.e., the document does not authorize the Allies toannex Germany].[39]
ThePotsdam Agreement was signed on 1 August 1945. In connection with this, the leaders of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union planned the new postwar German government, resettled war territory boundaries,de facto annexed a quarter of pre-war Germany situated east of theOder–Neisse line, and mandated and organized theexpulsion of the millions of Germans who remained in the annexed territories and elsewhere in the east. They also ordered Germandemilitarization,denazification,industrial disarmament and settlements ofwar reparations. But, as France (at American insistence) had not been invited to the Potsdam Conference, so the French representatives on the Allied Control Council subsequently refused to recognise any obligation to implement the Potsdam Agreement; with the consequence that much of the programme envisaged at Potsdam, for the establishment of a German government and state adequate for accepting a peace settlement, remained a dead letter.
Operation Keelhaul began the Allies' forced repatriation of displaced persons, families, anti-communists,White Russians, formerSoviet Armed ForcesPOWs, foreign slave workers, soldier volunteers andCossacks, and Nazi collaborators to theSoviet Union. Between 14 August 1946 and 9 May 1947, up to five million people were forcibly handed over to the Soviets.[40] On return, most deportees faced imprisonment or execution; on some occasions theNKVD began killing people before Allied troops had departed from the rendezvous points.[41]
TheAllied Control Council was created to effect the Allies' assumed supreme authority over Germany, specifically to implement their assumed joint authority over Germany. On 30 August, the Control Council constituted itself and issued its first proclamation, which informed the German people of the council's existence and asserted that the commands and directives issued by the Commanders-in-Chief in their respective zones were not affected by the establishment of the council.
Cessation of hostilities between the United States and Germany was proclaimed on 13 December 1946 by US PresidentTruman.[42]
TheParis Peace Conference ended on 10 February 1947 with the signing ofpeace treaties by the wartime Allies with the former European Axis powers (Italy,Romania,Hungary andBulgaria) and their co-belligerent allyFinland.
TheFederal Republic of Germany, which had been founded on 23 May 1949 (when its Basic Law was promulgated), had its first government formed on 20 September 1949 while theGerman Democratic Republic was formed on 7 October.
End of state of war with Germany was declared by many former Western Allies from 1950.[43] In thePetersberg Agreement of 22 November 1949, it was noted that the West German government wanted an end to the state of war, but the request could not be granted. The US state of war with Germany was being maintained for legal reasons, and though it was softened somewhat it was not suspended since "the US wants to retain a legal basis for keeping a US force in Western Germany".[44]At a meeting for the foreign ministers of France, the UK, and the US in New York from 12 September – 19 December 1950, it was stated that among other measures to strengthenWest Germany's position in theCold War that the western allies would "end by legislation the state of war with Germany".[45] In 1951, many former Western Allies did end their state of war with Germany: Australia (9 July), Canada, Italy, New Zealand, the Netherlands (26 July), South Africa, the United Kingdom (9 July), and the United States (19 October).[46][47][48][49][50][51] The state of war between Germany and the Soviet Union was ended in early 1955.[52]
"The full authority of a sovereign state" was granted to the Federal Republic of Germany on 5 May 1955 under the terms of theBonn–Paris conventions.The treaty ended the military occupation of West German territory, but the three occupying powers retained some special rights, e.g. vis-à-visWest Berlin.
TheTreaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed following the 1990German reunification, whereby the Four Powers renounced all rights they formerly held in the newly single country, including Berlin. The treaty came into force on 15 March 1991. Under the terms of the Treaty, the Allies were allowed to keep troops in Berlin until the end of 1994 (articles 4 and 5). In accordance with the Treaty, occupying troops were withdrawn by that deadline.
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