TWO VICTORIES, TWO SURRENDERS?
As German forces capitulated, politics and prestige divided the Soviets and Western Allies
The closing stages of the Second World War were a triumph for the ‘Big Three’ – Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union – who had done so much to defeat Hitler. They met at the Yalta summit in February 1945 to discuss the future shape of Europe. It was vital that they remained united at the war’s end. Yet the celebration of Victory in Europe
(VE Day) – with all its powerful symbolism – was fractured: Britain, America and Western European countries marked the event on 8 May; the Soviet Union and much of Eastern Europe, on 9 May. To some, the distinction was irrelevant; for others, it presaged the divisions of the Cold War. So how did it come about?
In the aftermath of Hitler’s suicide, on 30 April 1945, everyone hoped for a speedy end to the war. There were a succession of local surrenders. On 2 May the German garrison in Berlin surrendered to the Russians; the Wehrmacht’s forces in Italy laid down their arms to the British. On 4 May Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery accepted the unconditional
surrender of all troops in Schleswig-holstein, western Holland and Denmark at Lüneburg Heath, in northern Germany.
Substantial numbers of German soldiers remained in Norway, Czechoslovakia, on the
Hel Peninsula (in present-day northern Poland) and in the ‘Courland Pocket’ in Latvia. But on 6 May the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) at Rheims was confident that a final surrender would take place in a schoolhouse in the city early the following morning.
The fly in the ointment was the shadowy regime set up by Hitler’s nominated successor, Admiral Karl Dönitz, at Flensburg in northern Germany. It exercised little real power, but its very presence divided the Allies. The British saw advantages in working with this fledgling government, the Americans tolerated its existence, while the Russians wanted nothing to do with it whatsoever.
SHAEF’S commander, General Dwight Eisenhower, had always been fair in his dealings with the Soviet Union. But by negotiating directly with Dönitz’s government, he risked alienating the Russians. Matters were complicated by cumbersome communication between the Allied powers. Messages from SHAEF were first transmitted to the US Military Mission in Moscow, and only then to the Soviet High Command. Eisenhower believed all sides simply wanted a rapid cessation of hostilities. He was in for a shock.
At 2.41am on 7 May, SHAEF oversaw a German unconditional surrender at Rheims. General Alfred Jodl signed on behalf of Dönitz’s government, General Bedell Smith represented SHAEF and Major General Ivan Susloparov signed on behalf of the Soviet Union. At this stage, Susloparov had not received confirmation from the Soviet High Command. Unsure what to do, he ratified the agreement anyway.
Then came a bombshell. The Russians would not accept it. (“Who the hell is this famous Russian general?” Stalin had roared). They demanded changes to the original treaty. They insisted the signing should be made by the German High Command, not the Dönitz government. Also, they wanted it to take place in Berlin, with the Soviet Union represented by its foremost commander, Marshal Georgi Zhukov.
Chaos ensued. John Counsell – who helped draft the agreement – caught the moment, “Major General Susloparov emerged from behind a screen. Gone was the jocund figure with whom we had been exchanging toasts only minutes earlier. His face was now drained of all colour, his eyes were expressionless. He passed us into the night, to a fate which we could only guess at.”
To his credit, General Eisenhower stepped into the breach. A news embargo was then imposed. A second signing was agreed upon – this time at Karlshorst, in the suburbs of Berlin. The Western Allies celebrated VE Day on 8 May. That evening, another unconditional surrender took place, with Zhukov representing the Russians, Field Marshal Keitel the Germans and Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder who was standing in for SHAEF.
However, the second signing was delayed, and only took place after midnight on 9 May – the day the Soviet Union chose to honour its victory. Some praised this last-ditch retrieval of Allied relations, but the seeds of Cold War estrangement had been sown.