THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW ON May 7, 1945, at 7:41 p. m. (CWT) representatives of a battered German government surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. The history-making event brought an end to one of...
...To many Americans the most important question was what disposition would be made of the troops in Europe...
...Holland and Denmark were freed...
...Meanwhile, however, the sons of Nippon continued to fight with fanatical resistance on Okinawa...
...When the last Japanese division has surrendered unconditionally, then only will our fighting job be done...
...There is also the prospect that Russia might enter the war against the Japanese, thus bringing one more nation to the peace table with demands against Japan...
...Bind Up World's Wounds' The Associated Press "beat the gun" and scored a worldwide scoop by breaking the story of the Nazi surrender 24 hours before—on Monday, May 7. The AP's premature release of what were actual facts but which were being withheld for official reasons, caused great confusion and consternation...
...Field Marshal Karl Gerd von Rundstedt was a prisoner...
...American officials were inclined toward a report attributed to Heinrich Himmler that Hitler had died from cerebral hemorrhage...
...To American doughboys in Germany, who have seen the German resistance dissolve in the past few weeks, the surrender came as an anti-cljmax...
...About 1.800,000 men will be discharged...
...President Truman and Prime Minister Churchill were prepared to make their announcements on that day—Monday—but Marshal Stalin was not ready, and the whole proceeding was delayed...
...He paid tribute to American generals and to Field Marshal Montgomery...
...Hitler's Foreign Minister...
...The Russians insisted that he had committed suicide...
...Although the terms of unconditional surrender •were accepted and signed by the Nazis May 7, the actual surrender "was ratified and confirmed at Berlin" and hostilities ceased one moment after midnight May 9, European time, or 5:01 p. m., May 8, Central War Time...
...Rejoicing at the news of surrender was tempered in this country by the knowledge that millions of Americans still faced a formidable, foe in the Pacific...
...What Happened To Hitler...
...An army of from 300,000 to 400.000 will be left in Germany as occupation troops...
...Famine Stalks Germany The end seemed to effect the broken, hopeless people of Germany in the same way...
...News of the Nazi capitulation reached the nation in the form of rumors, denials, bulletins, and flashes— everything but an official announcement by the Government—until Tuesday morning...
...At mid-week his whereabouts were still unknown...
...There was growing speculation about the effect the surrender of her Axis partner would have on Japan's determination to continue in the war...
...Suddenly the war just melted away into nothingness and the guns were still...
...The discharges, which will be made from both theaters of war, will be based on length of service, service overseas, days in combat, wounds, decorations, age, marital status, number of children and dependents...
...Some observers believed that Premier Suzuki might soon be sending out feelers about the possibility of surrender...
...We can build such a peace only by hard, toilsome, painstaking work—by understanding and working with our Allies in peace as we have in war...
...These names shared news space with the names of great German cities that fell in the week's spectacular victories as Gen...
...Calling on the nation to continue producing the weapons of victory...
...Goebbels, Goering, and Hess...
...The cost in human lives would probably never be accurately known...
...Disagreement arose over the manner in which he had met his end...
...It was estimated that 40,000,000 casualties in killed, wounded, and captured would be counted on both sides...
...Field Marshal von Kleist, who had spearheaded the drive into Poland at the outbreak of the war and who had led the drive through the Maginot Line, surrendered in order not to be caught retreating with "common" soldiers...
...A surrender before Russia's entry would eliminate that possibility for the Nipponese...
...President Truman's address to the nation included the solemn warning that "our victory is but half won...
...The last named is locked in the ward of an asylum in England...
...At midweek there was an unconfirmed report that the Propaganda Minister's body had been found with those of his family in a bomb shelter in Berlin...
...What had become of Himmler who had earlier made a surrender offer to Great Britain and America was another of the mysteries of the hour...
...From Washington there came reports of the Army's plans...
...new chief-of-staff of the German army, at a little red school-house near Reims, France, climaxed a week of unparalleled, history-making events...
...It was not to Heinrich Himmler or any of the other names prominent in Nazi circles that the reins of the German government fell, but to Grand Admiral Doenitz, commander of the German fleet and master-mind of the German U-boat campaign...
...The President made it clear that unconditional surrender "does not mean the extermination or enslavement of the Japanese people...
...The West is free, but the East is still in bondage to the treacherous tyranny of the Japanese...
...The history-making event brought an end to one of the most agonizing chapters in all human history—a chapter that spanned 2.319 days of the bloodiest and roost costly war in the war-ridden story of Europe...
...Although Doenitz has the reputation of being a confirmed Nazi, it was noted that one of his first official acts was to remove Joachim von Ribbentrop...
...Dwight Eisenhower, commander-in-chief of all Allied armies in the West, sent the rampant Anglo-American forces streaking across Hitler's collapsing fortress...
...We must work to bind up the wounds of a suffering world—to build an abiding peace, a peace rooted in justice and in law...
...Big Names In The News Nor had any definite information been obtained concerning Hermann Goering, whom Hitler had designated his heir-apparent at the beginning of the war...
...The Germans declared that he had met a hero's death in the fight for Berlin...
...Germany, he said, would have won the war in 1940 if the British had not been certain of America's entry...
...Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich were claimed by the onrushing Allied troops...
...Although the body of the German fuehrer had not been found at mid-week, there was general agreement that the announcement of his death was authentic...
...He disclosed that the Ardennes counter-offensive in December had been ordered by Hitler and that he believed Hitler to be dead but not by suicide...
...There, was no dramatic end, such as characterized ihe,hjst war...
...Dispatches described the ruin of the German cities, the piles of dead, the hunger and famine that stalked the nation, and wild, desperate looting...
...It was conceded that the American troops trying to break through there were fighting one of the toughest engagements of the war...
...This was the price the world paid to crush the Hitler phase of Nazism...
...Field Marshal Bitter von Leeb and Wilhelm List, whose names were prominent in the Russian invasion, were also prisoners...
...Gustave Jodl...
...President Truman also posed the challenge of peace...
...May 8. when President Truman went on the air to proclaim the end of hostilities in Europe...
...There were other big names of the German war in the news...
...Allied air might, he declared, had deprived Germany of motor fuel, destroyed its railroads, cut off its raw materials, and smashed its industrial sections...
...History may use both dates, although clearly the Germans capitulated with the surrender signed May 7. The surrender, signed by Col...
...Hitler, it was announced by the German radio, was dead...
...The remainder will be deployed for use in the war against Japan...
...And, of course, there was a vast number of skeptics who would not believe him dead-, Until his body is produced and positively identified, they will no doubt continue to speculate over his whereabouts...
...The announcement of the Nazi leader's death brought with it another surprise last-minute development...
...This view is based on the theory that the Japanese are none too anxious to see their country laid waste as Germany has been...
...Drenched in blood and gutted by fire, Europe lay in ruins...
...A Week Of Victories Von Rundstedt was one of several prominent German military figures bagged during the week...
...Probably the most dramatic news of the week concerned Adolf Hitler, the Austrian-born paperhanger who rode the tide of hatred and discontent loosed in the wake of the last war to a position of such great power that he was able to set the whole world aflame in this generation...
...News flashes carried these developments in rapid succession as the Allied armies hammered in for the final kill...
...Thus, the long looked-for "V-E Day" trailed off in a series of premature celebrations and anti-climaxes...
...To American newsmen he said that air-power had been the decisive factor in German defeat...
...Goebbels was reported to have taken his life at the same time Hitler is alleged to have committed suicide...
...German armies in the north crumbled and surrendered to Montgomery...
...It was significant that at the time of the German surrender the Allies could not positively say, with one exception, what had happened to the original big 5 of the Nazi hierarchy: Hitler, Himmler...
...Describing the reaction among American troops, Don Whitehead of the Associated Press wrote as follows: "It is a strange ending to a strange war, an ending nobody could have quite visualized and without the dramatic conclusion most of us had pictured...
...It means for them, he said, the termination of the influence of military leaders "who have brought Japan to the present brink of disaster...
...He declared that no serious attempt to invade Britain had been made in 1940 because German seapower was inadequate...
Vol. 9 • May 1945 • No. 20
