ONE YEAR SINCE VICTORY

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24866, 4 May 1946, Page 5

ONE YEAR SINCE VICTORY

SURRENDER SCENES RECALLED FINAL DAYS OF WAR IN EUROPE A year ago to-day Allied victory in Europe was at hand. The long gruelling campaign in Italy ended with the unconditional surrender of the German and Italian forces on May 2, and less than 24 hours later Field-Marshal Montgomery's forces had linked with the Russians near the Baltic Coast Russian pressure on eight German armies enclosed in Czechoslovakia increased; resistance against the British, American, and Canadian forces in northern Germany collapsed; and on May 3 representatives of Admiral Doenitz and Field-Marshal Keitel asked Field-Marshal Montgomery for surrender terms. The German representatives included Admiral von Frideburg, com-mander-in-chief of the German Navy, and his chief-of-staff, Rear-Admiral Wagner.The Germans at flrst proposed a complicated military programme in which the British 2nd Army was to advance and the Germans retreat slowly. FieldMarshal Montgomery refused to discuss any further operations. “I wonder whether you know the battle situation of the Western Front," he asked. Then he produced his operational map, and after the Germans had seen it, he delivered his ultimatum of unconditional surrender. The Germans replied that they had no authority to agree to Field-Marshal Montgomery’s terms; but they agreed to submit them to their superiors. Within an hour the Germans returned with a complete acceptance. By the terms of the surrender the German command agreed to the surrender unconditionally of all the German forces in Holland, north-west Germany, Schleswig-Holstein/ and Denmark. All hostilities on land, at sea, and in the air by the German forces in the area concerned were to cease at 6 a.m. on May 5, 1945.

Complete and final victory in Europe came on May 7 when, at 2.41 a.m., in the Reims schoolhouse that was G-en-eral Eisenhower’s headquarters, Colonel-Genera] Jodi, representative of the German High Command and the German State, signed agreement of unconditional surr; r. General Bedell Smith, who Wc.s then General Eisenhower’s chief of staff, signed for the western Allies, and General Suslapatov for the Russian High Command. Hostilities ended officially at one minute after midnight, May 8. The agreement signed at Reims was ratified and confirmed on May 8 at Berlin where Air Chief Marshal -Tedder, Marshal Zhukov, and General de Lattte de Tassignv signed for the Allies, and Field-Marshal Keitel for Germany.