As Monty walked in, the Nazis snapped to attention like puppets

THE countdown to last night’s surrender began two days earlier when four top German military officials hoisted a white flag and drove into the British lines.

Head of the party was General-Admiral von Friedeburg, the commander-in-chief of the German navy. They were taken to Field Marshal Montgomery’s Field HQ on Luneburg Heath. Montgomery stepped out, returned their salute and asked, as if they were vacuum cleaner salesmen: ‘What do you want?’

The Germans said they came from Field Marshal Busch to ask him to accept the surrender of the three German armies withdrawing in front of the Russians in the Mecklenburg area of Germany.

The Nazi officers continued: ‘We are anxious about the condition of German civilians who are fleeing as the German armies retreat in the path of the Russians advance.’

Montgomery turned the offer down flat. ‘No, certainly not,’ he said.

‘Those German armies are fighting the Russians. Therefore, if they surrender to anyone, it must be to the forces of the Soviet Union.’

Then the German commanders proposed a complicated military programme in which the British Second Army would advance slowly while German troops would retreat slowly.

Again Monty refused. Then the British Field Marshal took the offensive.

‘I wonder whether you know the battle situation on the Western Front,’ he said. And he produced his operational map. The war was too close to being won for it to have any security importance.

This map was the final straw — the German commanders were astounded by the progress of the Allies.

Next Monty delivered his ultimatum. He t old t he Germans: ‘You must surrender to me unconditionally all the German forces in Holland and Denmark. If you do not agree to the surrender, then I will go on with the war and will be delighted to do so.’

Montgomery added as an afterthought: ‘All your soldiers and civilians may be killed.’

They had no authority to agree to Montgomery’s demands, but agreed that two of them would remain behind while the other two presented the new terms of surrender to their superiors.

They returned at about six o’clock yesterday afternoon with the complete acceptance of the unconditional surrender terms.

The German mission walked to the f ront of Monty’s tent. Von Friedeburg was invited inside for a lastminute conference.

While Monty and the admiral were meeting in the tent, the other Nazi bigwigs stood in the rain, cold and shivering. Then they marched down the path towards the tent.

Again Montgomery kept the party waiting. Finally, wearing an immaculate British field battledress, he almost shuffled down the path.

He grinned at us reporters and said out of the corner of his mouth: ‘This is the moment.’ He carried the surrender papers in his right hand.

When Monty entered the tent, the Germans snapped to attention like puppets.

He put on his spectacles, took up the papers and said: ‘I will now read out the terms of the surrender.’

The Germans sat like statues, not a flicker of any kind of motion on their faces.

Solemnly, but with a note of triumph in his voice, Monty read the terms of surrender.

And then, one by one, the Germans signed.