On April 30, 1945, Hitler committed suicide in the basement of the Chancellery in Berlin.
However, unlike the later Emperor Hirohito's "Yuyin Broadcasting", the Japanese disarmed en masse.
After Hitler's death, Nazi Germany's war machine was still in operation.
The Gestapo, the gendarmerie, and the police, guarding the highway and bridge passes, continued to screen and shoot deserters with horrific efficiency, and punish the families of those who surrendered and renegade.
Under this repressive rule, ordinary German soldiers did not dare to surrender even if they wanted to.
At the same time, the Nazi top brass fantasized about negotiating with the Allies to preserve as much strength as possible and maintain the post-war German order.
At 3:55 a.m. on May 1, the acting chief of the German General Staff, Kleebs, went to the command post of the Soviet Guards 8th Army to negotiate with a white flag. Chuikov met him here.
After Krebs sat down, he said to Chuikov straight to the point: "I want to tell you something absolutely confidential, Hitler committed suicide yesterday".
Klebs then made a request, saying that according to Hitler's will, Dönitz would succeed him as Führer and would soon come to Berlin to form a new government.
If the Soviets had ceased the war first, they would wait for Germany to form a new government before formal negotiations. This was very beneficial for the Soviet Union to take control of the situation in Europe in the future.
When Chuikov heard that Hitler was dead, he was shocked and immediately reported the situation to Zhukov.
Zhukov reported the situation to Stalin.
Ten minutes later, Stalin sent the supreme order from Moscow: "The German army can only surrender unconditionally, and the USSR does not enter into any negotiations with the fascists".
According to the instructions, Zhukov issued an ultimatum to the German troops in Berlin: it must be completely surrendered, otherwise it will be annihilated!
Klebs was bored with himself, and when he returned, he reported to Goebbels on the attitude of the Soviet Union.
Goebbels knew that the tide was turning, and he committed suicide with his wife and six children that night.
Choppers also knew that he would never end well, and finally pulled out a gun and committed suicide.
On May 2, the commander of the German Berlin city defense, Weidlin, surrendered to the Soviets under a white flag.
At the request of the Soviet troops, Weidlin shouted on the radio to the defenders of Berlin: our ammunition has been depleted, and the situation has rendered our resistance meaningless. I ordered an immediate cessation of resistance.
As soon as the news came out, about 70,000 German troops came out of their bunkers and surrendered to the Soviet troops.
However, there were still a large number of German troops who refused to obey orders and tried to flee to the Anglo-American Allied occupation zone.
Situation at the end of April 1945
While the Germans in Berlin were struggling to break west, Dönitz established a new government in the northern German border city of Flensburg.
On 4 May, British troops occupied Flensburg.
Churchill recognized the legitimacy of Dönitz's government as it would be in Britain's interest to retain the new government.
It is said that Churchill also secretly instructed Montgomery: You hide the weapons of the German army, once you turn against the Soviet Union, we can use the Germans to confront the Soviet Union!
This is Churchill's plan, in his opinion, in the post-war world, the United States is one pole, the Soviet Union is also a pole, Britain is not strong enough, and it needs to win over France and Germany to form a third pole.
The thighs sent to the door, don't hug the white, don't hug.
Therefore, after Dönitz took office, he ordered the German troops who had not yet surrendered to disarm the British and Americans, and continued to resist if they encountered the Soviet army.
Dönitz
However, whether the Anglo-French pair is still world-class or not, Churchill said that it does not count. It depends on the attitude of the United States and the Soviet Union.
On May 7, Jodl, head of the Operations Bureau of the German High Command, signed the unconditional surrender on behalf of the Dönitz government in Reims, France.
When Stalin heard the news, he was very dissatisfied.
What do you mean? Actually only surrendering to Britain and the United States is not taking the Soviet Union in mind. The surrender signed by Joodle in Reims does not count, and Germany must send another representative to sign the formal surrender in Berlin!
On May 8, at the strong request of the Soviet side, Britain and the United States compromised and agreed that Dönitz would send Keitel, the chief of the German High Command, to Karlsholt, a suburb of Berlin, to sign another instrument of surrender.
The surrender ceremony was presided over by Zhukov.
Keitel has been in a high position for a long time and is used to arrogance. When he arrived at the scene, he raised the German marshal's scepter above his head and deliberately gave a military salute to the Allied representatives.
Zhukov was enraged by this high-minded style, but he did not lose his temper, but calmly and firmly said: Come and sign in front of me!
Keitel also knew that he was only a defeated general, and there was nothing to be angry about, so after a short pause, he followed Zhukov's instructions.
In this way, Keitel, the representative of the German High Command, Fredburg of the Navy, and Stumpf, the representative of the Air Force, signed the instrument of surrender one after another.
Subsequently, Zhukov on behalf of the Soviet Union, Marshal Ted of Great Britain, General Spatz of the United States, and General Tasini of the French Army also signed one by one.
This instrument of surrender, signed in Berlin, entered into force at 00:00 on May 9, 1945. This also marked the end of the Third Reich.
After Germany's formal surrender, the 300,000 German troops stationed in Denmark and Norway received orders to lay down their arms and wait for the Anglo-American Allies to take over.
This German army was undoubtedly the "luckiest", having been on vacation in Northern Europe for a long time, and did not go south to participate in the war, even when the war was at its most intense.
There are "lucky", and of course there are "unlucky".
Army Group E, stationed in the Balkans, is notorious and has the blood of the Yugoslav people on its hands. Known as the "Butcher of the Balkans".
If they surrender on the spot, they will inevitably be liquidated.
So after receiving the order to surrender, Army Group E refused to lay down its arms and desperately broke through to Hungary.
Equally notorious was Army Group Center, which was stationed in Czechoslovakia.
During the Battle of Berlin, Hitler believed that the Soviets would outflank Berlin from the south, and instructed Army Group Center to hold on to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.
But the Soviets took Berlin straight and did not storm the Czechs. Thus, Army Group Center escaped for the time being.
At that time, Army Group Center was heavily guarded by SS and concentration camps.
These people have done a lot of evil and have a lot of blood debts, and if they fall into the hands of the Soviet army, the end can be imagined.
Schellner, the last commander-in-chief of Army Group Center
Therefore, after the Battle of Berlin, Field Marshal Schellner, commander-in-chief of Army Group Center, reduced his forces and was determined to hold Prague to the death, strive to thwart the Soviet offensive, and seek an opportunity to surrender to Britain and the United States.
However, at this time, the German army was already demoralized and would have no fighting spirit.
Schellner did not expect that he would simply order his troops to shrink back to Prague, which would lead to a mountain defeat and 900,000 desperate attempts to flee to the Anglo-American occupation zone.
At this time, even the Gestapo and the gendarmerie did not care about the performance and ran with the troops.
During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, they did not abuse the local population.
On May 5, seeing the German army fleeing and Prague in a military vacuum, the Czechs took the opportunity to rise up.
The next day, the 100,000 "Russian Liberation Army", led by the Soviet traitor Vlasov, also joined the uprising.
Vlasov (center)
However, no matter how you say it, the German army is also a regular army, and it is more than enough to fight the partisans and a gang of wall grass.
For a time, the rebels were in a difficult situation, so they asked the Allied high command for help.
According to the Yalta Agreement, the Czech Republic was under the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union.
As a result, the Soviet High Command ordered the front-line troops to pursue at full speed and destroy the remnants of the German army.
On the night of May 8, the Soviet Ukrainian 1st, 2nd, and 4th Ukrainian Fronts rushed to Prague from different directions.
This battle in the Czech Republic was the last battle of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union.
In the face of the overwhelming offensive of the Soviet army, the German army was completely out of control.
Seeing this, Schellner had no choice but to disband the headquarters and let his subordinates "make a living".
On 9 May, Prague was liberated, and the main forces of Army Group Center fled to the Czech-Austrian border.
But just as the Germans were glad to have escaped, the Americans refused to accept their surrender.
In the end, in addition to Schellner, Vlasov and other more than 30,000 people who fled into the American-occupied zone, most of the German troops were captured by the Soviet army, totaling about 860,000 people, including 60 generals.
These German soldiers, who were captured by the Soviet army, ended up extremely miserable.
According to data provided by the Russian Federation, the NKVD of the USSR held a total of 2388443 German prisoners of war.
Of those, 356,700 died in prisoner-of-war camps.
For data on German prisoners of war held by the NKVD, see line 1
However, this captive data is incomplete.
Because not every German prisoner of war could walk into a prisoner of war camp.
During World War II, the Soviet army captured nearly 3 million German soldiers, and the Soviet Union released more than 500,000 recruits among them.
In addition, at least 57,000 people died during the escort.
In this way, the total number of German prisoners who died in the Soviet Union was about 40 to 450,000.
Relatively speaking, the survival rate of the German troops who surrendered to the British army was much higher, and if they were not repatriated to Eastern European countries, they would at most go to England to work for a few years.
But if it is a surrender to the US army, the situation is not optimistic.
The Americans have a lot of money, and Germany and the United States have no grudges.
Therefore, a large number of German soldiers at that time had similar thoughts to today's netizens, thinking that if they squatted in American prisoner of war camps, they must not worry about eating and drinking.
In fact, it is true that the U.S. military is a local tyrant, but the U.S. military's management of prisoners of war is very poor.
Camp Rhine
Before 1945, the German prisoners who surrendered to the Allies were taken in half by Britain and the United States.
But when the Allies crossed the Rhine and the number of prisoners increased significantly, the British did not accept them.
According to incomplete statistics, before and after the surrender of Germany, the U.S. military guarded nearly 2 million prisoners of war.
Some of them were soldiers, some were Nazi members, civilians who had fought spontaneously against the Allied forces, and members of the militia "People's Stormtroopers".
It's very difficult to manage so many people.
And the U.S. troops stationed in Europe after World War II were busy working on the black market all day long, seducing young European women with canned food, chocolate, and stockings. As for the life or death of the prisoners of war, they didn't bother to care.
In a park in Germany, American and Soviet troops date German women
Therefore, at that time, the Americans had a unique set of logic, that is, they believed that the surrendered German troops were still enemies, and they just laid down their arms, and they were not considered prisoners of war.
As a result, the Germans in the American prisoner of war camps were miserable.
For example, the prisoners held in 23 makeshift prisoner camps on the left bank of the Rhine were initially fed a loaf of bread a day by 25 people. Food standards have since increased dramatically, but malnutrition is still widespread. It's a weight loss boot camp.
In addition to poor food, sanitation and drinking water in the POW camps were also poor.
According to the recollections of Germans who lived in the Rhine camp, the U.S. military did not design drinking water pipes and toilets for the POW camp. As for toilet paper, there is even less of it.
It is conceivable that defecation can only be solved in the open air, and the use of water is still controlled, so that the ground must not be covered with filth and the plague is rampant?
Female prisoners in the Rhine camp
In addition, because they were not considered prisoners of war, the Germans detained in the Rhine camp even had a luxury of covering their heads with tiles. It is often the soup chicken when it rains, and the snowman when it snows.
The Swiss Red Cross tried to provide food, medicine and supplies to prisoners of war in the Rhine camp.
However, after these items were delivered, they were ordered by Allied commander-in-chief Eisenhower to be shipped back to Switzerland.
Eisenhower is said to have been guilty of the original sin of all Germans after visiting the Nazi concentration camps. Deserves reprisals.
Food, clothing, and housing were restricted, and after a long time, the Germans stopped doing it, saying that even if it was a dog, there was a kennel to climb into when it rained or snowed.
They strongly demanded that the US military provide building materials and build their own houses.
But the U.S. military guards said, "How busy are we?" How can we have time to supervise you building houses?
In desperation, the POWs had to dig their own burrows.
But digging a hole is manual labor, and the old, weak, sick and disabled cannot do this work at all.
It is estimated that more than 50% of the prisoners of war in the Rhine camp have been sleeping in the open air.
There is still much debate about how many German prisoners were tortured and killed by the American army.
The figure given by the US military is less than four thousand.
American historian Arthur Smith believes that the death toll should be forty thousand.
And Canadian journalist James Buck thinks that number could reach a million.
In my personal opinion, a million is definitely an exaggeration.
Because most of the prisoners of war, such as members of the People's Stormtroopers and the Hitler Youth, were only briefly held for a while before they were released by the American army.
However, the figures given by the US military are also obviously low.
Anyone who has ever raised pigs knows that the sanitary conditions are not optimistic, and the mortality rate of pigs can never be less than 1%.
Perhaps because the real figures are much higher than the published figures, the German government still defines the site of the Rhine camp as a war grave and prohibits excavation. The Germans don't talk about it now. lest it be unpleasant.
Since the surrendered Soviet troops died for life, the surrendered American troops also had to be abused. Why did the Germans obediently go into the concentration camps? Can't they take off their uniforms and flee back home?
Putting aside the two factors mentioned above, the military and police Gendarns "tirelessly" brushed up their performance, and they did not expect that the management of the US military would be so sluggish.
The indiscriminate retaliation of European countries against the Germans was also the reason for the surrender of the German army.
In other words, the Germans at that time were the same whether they wore military uniforms or not.
How the USSR took revenge on German civilians will not be detailed.
The same was true of Yugoslavia.
During World War II, 1.7 million people died at the hands of the Germans in Yugoslavia alone, with a population of 11 million.
This hatred led to the formation of the new government led by Tito, and the first decree issued was to declare the Germans living in Yugoslavia "enemy aliens".
The Yugoslav authorities not only forcibly confiscated the property of ethnic Germans, but also deprived them of citizenship. They were also imprisoned in concentration camps along with captured German soldiers.
Tito
It is worth mentioning that in order to evade liquidation, the German Army Group E and Army Group Center desperately ran to the Anglo-American occupation zone.
But the U.S. military received people on the front foot, and sent them back on the back foot.
Scherner and Vlasov, as mentioned earlier, were repatriated by the US military.
One of them later spent ten years in prison in the Soviet Union, and the other was sentenced to death by hanging by the Soviet government.
The British also repatriated many German troops.
Unwilling to accept too many prisoners, the British lured more than 100,000 men from Army Group E to Yugoslavia under the pretext of sending prisoners of war back to Germany.
According to conservative estimates, at least 120,000 Germans died in Yugoslav prisoner-of-war camps in the decade between 1945 and 1955.
Those who are hard-lived and not dead are also working as coolies in mines and construction sites, and they are tortured half-dead.
The Slavic countries have a blood feud with Germany, will the countries of Western Europe be better?
It's a little better, but it's not much better.
After the liberation of the Netherlands, the Dutch government forcibly deported all German residents.
After the liberation of France, the resistance groups caught the traitors and shot them in the street without trial.
The French Resistance seized a female rapist and paraded the streets
The French were so ruthless to the French traitors, and naturally they were even more ruthless to the Germans.
Not only those in military uniforms will be killed, but also civilians.
When confronted with lone Germans, the French often shot them directly, then looted their belongings and walked away.
The French also had their own reasons: at the end of World War II, almost all young men of school age in Germany had enlisted in the army. can all be dealt with as accomplices of the Nazis.
In a scene in the American drama "Band of Brothers", the French army shoots and kills a lone German soldier
In this case, taking off the military uniform and acting alone is tantamount to looking for death. It's better to go with the big army, at least there is a corpse collector when you die.
Even the most humane of Great Britain was unkind to German civilians.
During World War II, in order to consume German manpower, British bombers targeted German residential areas. And often in the middle of the night, when people are already asleep, they suddenly give a "big gift".
Many Germans saw God in a daze.
After Germany surrendered, American, British, and French soldiers often went to the homes of the Germans to rape and plunder.
In the book "The Bestiality of Soldiers in World War II" by the German historian Hagenschutte, such an incident is recorded.
Six U.S. soldiers broke into a home, dragged an 18-year-old German girl out of a closet and gang-raped her, threatening her family at gunpoint to keep her voice open.
The attitude of public opinion in various countries at that time was indifferent to such incidents.
An American journalist once wrote an article exposing the evil deeds of the Allied forces, but what is surprising is that the American people not only criticized the US military, but also wrote letters one after another denouncing the reporter as a flood of virginia.
A veteran of Company E of the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army recalls the details of the killing of prisoners of war
Overall, until July 1945, before the Allied divisions occupied Germany, both German soldiers and civilians lived in fear.
In the eyes of the Allied soldiers, since every German had taken the benefits of Hitler, the iron fist of justice naturally had to be equally distributed to every German. Doesn't care if you're a civilian or not?
As a result, the German army, which was already extremely well organized, surrendered to the Allies in an organized manner and entered the prisoner of war camp en masse.
Of course, what the Germans did in World War II deserved their suffering.
This may be because the wicked have their own wicked grinding.