THE FINAL PUSH
Russians take Berlin + + 1million Germans surrender in Italy + + Goebbels dead
THE Wehrmacht — Germany’s combined armed forces — has collapsed. Berlin has fallen. Hitler and Goebbels are reported to have killed themselves in the dying capital.
The German armies — 1,000,000 men — in Northern Italy and Western Austria have surrendered unconditionally.
The southern redoubt has been torn to pieces. And surrender in Holland, Denmark and Norway is expected at any hour.
These are the highlights of the war news this morning as Germany totters to complete defeat.
A member of the Government last night told the Mail: ‘This is not all the good news — we have plenty more to come.’
Ultimately, it is thought that Germany’s new Fuhrer, Admiral Doenitz, will have to admit failure, for the death of Hitler is calculated to have a profound effect on Germans in all walks of life.
As Himmler himself said more than ten days ago: ‘Germany is finished. All I want to do now is to stop the killing.’
The surrender of the shattered remnants of Berlin’s garrison was announced in an Order of the Day by Stalin to Marshals Zhukov and Konev.
CIVILIANS IN CHAOS
The end came at 3pm local time yesterday. By 9pm, 70,000 German prisoners had been counted.
It was left to General Webling, an obscure artillery commander, to surrender Berlin to the Russians after 11 days’ fighting.
Stalin’s Order described Hitler’s former capital as ‘the centre of German aggression and cradle of German imperialism’.
The surrender of the German armies in Italy and Western Austria was announced by Mr Churchill to a cheering House of Commons.
President Truman, giving the news in Washington, said: ‘Only folly and chaos can now delay the general capitulation of the everywheredefeated German armies.’
In Northern Germany, the whole Nazi pocket covering the North Sea ports and Denmark is swiftly collapsing. Germans running blindly from the Russians are being swamped.
Denmark is cut off. British troops have raced 50 miles across its southern approaches, captured Lubeck and swept beyond to Wismar, another Baltic port. Field Marshal Montgomery’s British and American forces are storming forward on a 40-miles front to meet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky’s army.
The Russians are less than 28 miles away after seizing Rostock, on the Baltic, and a number of other towns to the south. Roads leading from the Lubeck area towards Denmark are an inferno of destruction.
British planes swooping on the fleeing Germans have smashed more than 1,000 lorries. For miles, the highways are cluttered with burning German transport mingled with frantic civilian refugees. An hour before announcing the fall of Rostock last night, Marshal Stalin reported that the big German pocket south-east of Berlin has crumbled. The Russians captured more than 120,000 Germans.
In the doomed Southern Redoubt, General Patton’s tanks are closing on the ruins of Hitler’s Berchtesgaden ‘fortress’.
News of the military position in Western Holland is obscure. But food is now pouring in to the hungry Dutch by land and air with full German agreement.
Surrender of the German armies in Italy came after many secret comings and goings among German and Allied military emissaries. The documents were finally signed in the King’s palace at Caserta, near Naples, on April 29.
The surrender was negotiated on behalf of
Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander by his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General W.D. Morgan. It was signed in the presence of a group of Allied officers, including Russians, and six members of the Allied Press and radio, after negotiations lasting several days.
The surrender sets the seal on all the magnificent victories of Alexander’s forces from El Alamein, across North Africa, Tunisia, Sicily, Cassino, Anzio, the Gothic Line and the Po Valley.
It took place in a small room on the second floor of the gigantic palace. The Germans entered dressed in civilian clothes — smartly cut check sports coats, grey flannels and brown shoes.
General Morgan, red-faced and white-haired, stood grimly at one end of the highly polished table, surrounded by other Allied representatives, glittering with gold braid and high decorations.
The tall, fair, heavy-jawed German lieutenant-colonel, representing the surrendering Wehrmacht General von Vietinghoff, squinted his bloodshot, pale blue eyes in the camera floodlights.
NERVOUS
A little behind him stood a stocky major. Both looked glum and nervous.
General Morgan addressed the Germans sternly, asking if they were prepared to sign terms on behalf of their respective generals. When they assented, he said. ‘I am empowered by Field Marshal Alexander to sign on his behalf.
‘The terms are effective from noon, May 2. I will now ask you to sign the document.’
A German lieutenant– colonel rather truculently asked permission to make a statement.
When permission was given, he declared that he had received a limited commission to negotiate, and had exceeded these limits on his own initiative, and was therefore unable to guarantee that the terms would be accepted.
General Morgan accepted this condition and the Germans signed the document. It was then signed by General Morgan.
At that moment, enemy land, sea and air forces commanded by Vietinghoff surrendered unconditionally to Field Marshal Alexander. The terms of the surrender provided for the cessation of hostilities at 12 noon yesterday.