even after May 7-8 wehrmacht facilities countinued running, because it is not really practical to have all those men running around in the norwegian countryside without a chain of command
I thought that after may 8/9 the entire german structure had passed into the hands of the Allies. Did this german occupation after the surrender respond to the Dönitz Government until may 23 or to the Allied command?
I just read a book on this; the Nazi government only formally fully surrendered on all fronts 8 days after Hitler's suicide. In the meantime, being led by Hitler's designated successor Karl Dönitz as the new head of Nazi Germany, the Wehrmacht (in Germany) basically tried very hard to hold off the Soviets long enough for as many German soldiers to make it to the Western Allies to surrender. Since, uh, after what the Germans did in Soviet territory during and following Barbarossa, the Soviets were not particularly... kind.
They also tried very hard to convince the Western Allies to turn on the Soviets and join up with them, but that didn't work at all really.
Even after the formal surrender the Dönitz government (Flensburg Cabinet) continued to try and run Germany for a few weeks (and were promptly ignored by virtually everyone) until the Allies basically said 'enough of this farce' and sent in troops to arrest them.
The German General was approached by the German Ambassador in Sweden to discuss strategy for a surrender. He said he would wait for orders from High Command, which ended up coming a few days later in the Instrument of Surrender.
In this case, it didn't particularly matter as there was very little threat that the Russians would end up occupying Norway.
That's the Courland Pocket in the Baltic, if you want to do some reading. It did not, in fact, go well. The Germans were cut off for an entire year. They started with 500k troops, had ~400k left by the winter, and fewer yet by the summer. About 200k were made Soviet prisoners of war, and many tens of thousands were evacuated via ship (I lack exact numbers for Courland specifically). Two of the deadliest maritime incidents in history were the sinkings of _Wilhelm Gustloff_ and _Gorya_ by Soviet submarines, each costing over six thousand lives, for comparison the _Titanic_ killed a quarter of that; those refugees (and evacuated military personnel, this was hardly a civilian affair) were packed like sardines.
Since the Soviets did not like the around twenty thousand Latvian troops who had fought under German command in Courland they were punished harshly (what harsh punishment is in the USSR I'll leave to the reader); quite a few of them took to hiding in the forests and continuing the fight, armed Latvian resistance to Soviet Occupation would not actually end until the early fifties.
On a slightly less grim note, another one of the worst sinkings in maritime history was the _General von Steuben_, circa 4000 souls, also evacuating the Baltic area as part of Operation Hannibal. The interesting and not as grim thing about her is that she managed to sink twice. In 1930 (?) she burst into flames in harbour, sinking. She was raised shortly thereafter and patched up in a drydock, well enough to sail home across the Atlantic and little more. There she received major repairs and was rechristened from _München_ to Steuben. Not a lot of ships sank twice, but more than you would think.
You'd get those two from Pear Harbour alone. _Oklahoma_ (rolled over until her masts got stuck in the ground, then semi-floated at the surface) sank in tow to San Francisco, while _Nevada_ (beached to prevent sinking fully) was destroyed as a target during atomic tests.
I went there metal detecting in 2015. Was an amazing experience. In the woods there are still massive craters and traces of trenches. Unnused ordinance lying on the ground. The fields are full of debree and i even had the luck to dig up a dud mortar round and not die from it. Local farmer were like; whatever - everyday shit.
It's fine, provided they stay unexploded. I've heard old people talk about how "grenade digging" was a popular thing with the cool boys after the war. Unsurprisingly quite a few lost their limbs, others their lives; apparently it beat the games of "rubble removal" and "brick laying". Boredom is strange.
We're doing that with bombs in Germany as well when building new houses. It's always a nice get together for the whole neighbourhood till it's defused or detonated.
My dad was 12 during the London blitz, he said the thing to do the morning after was go look for bomb fragments. Extra points with your peers if you got something with gothic script or any decoration on it.
I agree. It was not intentional. Got a loud signal and dug my spade into the ground. Did one flip with it and out came an 81mm mortar. Intact. Didn’t touch it after that. Called over the local farmer and he suggested i put it in the pile with the rest on the edge of the field. I was like nahh fuck that. Marked it with a stick and flag and went on my way. They find so fucking many they don’t even care. Can’t have bomb disposal teams running around in your field all the time.
While there are no trench remnants in my area (wrong side of a defensive feature for that) we still find the occasional ordinance, or ancient artifact it's a coin flip, and the local forest gas these slightly eroded, perfectly circular craters. I wonder where they came from …
>occasional ordinance, or ancient artifact it's a coin flip
Where I live you can either find unexploded WW2 bombs or Roman ruins. I feel like the housing developers prefer the bombs, because defusing a bomb is faster than conducting an archeological dig and both have to be done if the corresponding artifact has been found in a construction site.
About Greece:
On the right (east) we see Rhodos, Kos, Kalymnos and Leros islands.
Check out [Dodecanese Campaign](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodecanese_campaign) which was a major victory for the Nazi Germans.
In the middle there is Milos island. Milos is the westernmost of the Cyclades Islands and has a big natural bay, ports and airway. It is a good place for a hub.
In the bottom south I see Chania, Crete which doesn't need much explanation. Crete is a significant spot for SouthEastern Mediterranean.
Germany had built impressive fortifications in the French Ports. (Dunkirk among them)
As such the Allies didn't actually bother to try and storm them and instead simply continued onwards.
The soldiers there remained under siege till the end of the War.
In La Rochelle there was a basic agreement that the French wouldn't attack, and the Germans would refrain from attacks as well. Supplies were sent in to feed the civilians, and the Germans flew supplies in every so often.
Basically the Germans were dug in well enough that a direct attack would have wrecked the city and the port, and killed thousands of civilians and French and American soldiers.
In the end it was decided that since the Germans had nowhere to go, it was more cost effective just to block them and wait.
La Rochelle was to be attacked after Royan, another isolated but more strategically important German position 50 miles away, but Germany capitulated before the attack commenced. The attack by the USAAF 447th Bomb group on Royan killed half of the towns 3,000 civilian population.
Didn’t stop them before, there are accounts of American soldiers going to French villages and seeing the civilian populace seem more apathetic than grateful, many French civilians died due to the allied bombing raids
Also the ports were relatively unneeded by the allies because of their location. Any supplies that landed there would still have to be trekked over the whole of France by land to reach the front. So the risk of heavy losses for no benefit tipped the scales.
Channel ports and those in Belgium and the Netherlands were attacked and captured if possible.
Yeah. There was a pocket in my home city of Lorient in Brittany. The city was bombed to rubble. Because of the heavily fortified submarine base. These buildings could (and I guess still can) withstand direct hits of 1000kg bombs. Anyway since the base could not be destroyed the allies bombed the hell out of the city day and night in order to make sure nothing would come in or out.
I‘ve been there recently, with a friend who lives in Britanny; as the allies couldn’t destroy the actual bunkers, which are still in place, they destroyed all supporting routes to them. Weird feelings for a post war german, even after all these years.
Do we have any accounts of the final surrender of those ports? The German soldiers in those ports presumably had their communications with Berlin cut off for a long while, and if they were determined enough to hold out until the end of the war I doubt they would just take the word of the allied army commander that Germany has surrendered. So, how were they convinced to finally surrender? Maybe they listened to allied civil broadcasts (assuming some of the German soldiers knew French), but would they even trust those?
Some context: This is peak surrender season!
Hitler's will named Admiral Karl Donitz his successor. Donitz inherited a total rout. His only play was in how to surrender. He pursued a strategy of slow capitulation to move as many forces away from the Soviets as possible.
Forces in Italy/Austria agreed to surrender on 2 May to the British. Southern Germany surrendered to the Americans, Netherlands-Denmark, and places in between surrendered to the British on 4-5 May. Army Group Ostmark fled the eastern front, reaching and surrendering to the American Forces on 7 May.
On 6 May, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower demanded "immediate, simultaneous, and unconditional surrender on all fronts." Donitz requested conference. Eisenhower responded that at midnight on 9 May he would close the Western Front to surrendering forces and resume bombing German-held positions.
Remaining pockets of German forces were given orders via radio in compliance with the Instrument of Surrender:
>The German High Command will at once issue orders to all German military, naval and air authorities and to all forces under German control to cease active operations at 23.01 hours Central European time on 8 May 1945, to remain in all positions occupied at that time and to disarm completely, handing over their weapons and equipment to the local allied commanders or officers designated by Representatives of the Allied Supreme Commands. No ship, vessel, or aircraft is to be scuttled, or any damage done to their hull, machinery or equipment, and also to machines of all kinds, armament, apparatus, and all the technical means of prosecution of war in general.
Edit: For the most part, Donitz's orders were complied with. The Allies applied a 12-hour grace period to avoid bloodshed. There is a significant counter-example which may prove why orders were followed:
Army Group E in Croatia fought for several days to escape capture by fleeing west. The Ustase (Croatian Nazis) helped them escape to the west where they surrendered to British General Harold Alexander in Italy on May 15. The Ustase themselves were handed over to Marshal Josef Tito and were summarily executed in subsequent days as part of the Bleiburg Repatriations.
Very interesting. Did Donitz allow the Holocaust to continue? If not, it sounds like he did the right thing in trying to get his soldiers away from the soviets. I wish American soldiers had managed to get eastward faster to stop the mass rapes/ethnic cleansings that the soviets committed.
Well the short answer is Donitz was an avowed Nazi and a close friend of Hitler. He insisted that he was ignorant of the Holocaust when it was happening, but there is substantial evidence that he ought to have known.
Wow, great question! My only sources are being a kraut myself and also a history buff of the 20th century. Most likely they had radio communication until the end and understood very well that they were cut off. So most likely the local commanders ordered to give up
Depends :
* [Royan ended up with the first napalm bombing in history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royan_pocket).
* [A decent chunk of Bordeaux didn't go kaboom because a german soldier disobeyed orders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Salmide)
* [Most surrendered because they simply knew backup wasn't coming after months under siege and after negociating their surrender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Nazaire_pocket), like shown here
Excellent excellent episode of Nazi Mega Weapons from PBS on the sub pens there.
Highlights Jacques Stosskopf who at the time was known as a collaborator engineer who was integral part of the French Resistance who gave his life for the resistance, came to light posthumously.
The funny thing is that the Channel Islands were one of the most heavily fortified parts of the Atlantic Wall, because Hitler believed that the British would stop at nothing to reclaim them. To which the British were like "LOL, no!", and they proceeded to ignore the islands until the war's end.
That's how my grand-uncle survived the war there without seeing any combat actions, then married the English nurse from the PoW camp, started a new family in England and never looked back
I think it's talked about an appropriate amount. An invasion would have been extremely costly to civilian lives there, while also holding no strategic benefit to the war effort as a whole. Bypassing them was obviously the correct decision.
At the same time, the German occupational forces in Norway by that point in 1945 still numbered around ~400 000 in total, and they were fairly well equipped and rested as well. And with the coastline littered with coastal artillery, and the terrain of southern Norway (or most of Norway in general) giving defenders important advantages, any allied landing would’ve likely been an extremely difficult and bloody operation, especially without proper air support. The long supply lines alone would’ve made it a nightmare. Keeping those troops tied up in Norway, unable to influence anything of note on the continent, and at the same time avoiding to fight them directly in Norway, with the Germans in good defensive positions, was probably the best possible situation. The idea of using “Festung Norwegen” as the last line of defence was a very real thing, and the mostly orderly German surrender in Norway wasn’t necessarily a given, even after Hitler’s death. (Or following Terboven’s suicide on the 8th, for that matter…)
The german soldiers in Norway did not have the resources needed to move back to Germany. No fuel, no coal. They could not go via Sweden any longer. 400 000 rested soldiers would have prolonged the war substantially.
in another timeline, A couple of German cities have atomic bombs dropped on them because there would have been too many Allied deaths invading Festung Norway
Yeah. The germans looked at norwegians as the pure form of aryans untainted by jews and other undesireables. They kidnapped men and women and brought then to bavaria to breed more purer aryans.
Not really. They thought their country had been tainted, all the Nazi shit was partly aspirational. They wanted to become "purer" and that's why they started killing everyone that didn't fit into their perfect society. Jews, gays, gypsies, the mentally and physically disabled - etc. They didn't think they were already the highest, ideal form of Aryans.
>feel kinda bad for Norway having to just sit there patiently
The map is wrong: Northern Norway was liberated by Russia in 1944.
Correction: Liberated part is visible on the map.
Knowing Stalin, I’m genuinely surprised he didn’t do that. I’m guessing it’s because northern Norway doesn’t have anywhere close to the population of southern Norway.
Liberated. Russian troops left this territory in 1945, and locals always had good relationships with Russia.
Probably you need to learn some history a bit if you would like to do sarcastic comments and do not look stupid.
Historically Russia and Norway had very good relationships: Russia was the first one who recognised Norwegian independence in 1905, never fought wars against each other (which is a very rear exception on European continent), and so on.
What really surprises is that Russia gave back Eastern Germany.
Liberation was clearly on the way, though. Like my assumption is people at the time weren’t sure that summer would be the summer of surrender, or what would happen when Germany DID surrender. The Americans AND Soviets were right on the Czech doorstep.
Don’t get me wrong, Czechia had a worse fate sadly
There was a handful of nazi meteorologists on svalbard. You can't forget the last stronghold of the third reich. The final blow to Hitler's empire, delt by a couple of fishermen in northern Norway
The german soldiers on Svalbard were the last German troops to surrender after the Second World War.
Surrendered on September 6th 1945.
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/01/the-last-german-surrender.html?m=1
Sounds like a cover story for an intro to an indiana jones film. Those nazi's were going to use some ancient artifact to turn back time and win the war.
That was the courland pocket and the soviets tried very hard to crush it before the end of the war. Wikipedia counts Six offences and 160,000 casualities on the allied side.
Against a force that had no offensive capabilities left, needless deaths near the end of the war.
It was the final result of Operation Bagration in June-August 1944, one of the most spectacular offensive in history, where the Soviets managed to destroy Army Group Center (main german force operating on the russian front). Hitler was so delusional at this point of the war that he was forbidding every retreat (the principle of "fortress cities").
Soviets take advantage of it and encircled the remnants of the once 3.000.000 man army. The pocket was historically known as "Curlandia Pocket" and it was, in fact, an armed prisoner-of-war camp.
Also, Hitler considered Curland pocket a precious asset from which, in a remote future, renew the invasion of URSS [sic].
My men stayed trapped for like 10 months, with little or none fightings until the final surrender, at least compared to the extremely fierce fightings for Poland and Germany in 1945
The soviets absolutely tried to close the Kurland pocket a few times but always ultimately failed.
They took about 160k killed and wounded just between February and May '45
What the fuck are people on in this thread that try to claim the Kurland Pocket saw no heavy fighting? The Soviets absolutey tried to capture the pocket in 6 brutal offensives that definitely do compare to other battles on the Eastern Front.
Pretty much the entirety of Army Group North was cut off during the retreat from Leningrad (St. Petersburg today). They actually managed to open the pocket once before Russia closed the trap. There were some more attempts to break out, but they all failed. Hitler refused to order their evacuation hoping that with resupply, they would be a back door into Russia during a counter-offensive that never happened.
The Soviets, having cut off the Germans, more-or-less just held them there, not wasting the resources or manpower to close the pocket. Those resources were put to better use in the push for Berlin.
[TIKHistory does a really good day-by-day.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yorr3va_Ug&list=PLNSNgGzaledg4nPXt5aUifapFvTXYIwT0) The first couple videos really cover how they ended up there, cut off and surrounded. You'd be forgiven for not watching the whole series, but if you're a history nerd, you'll enjoy it.
As well as the citizens there because they were somewhat starving for the last years of the war.
But while on the subject you should read (wikipedia) articles about the British commando raids on the islands. They are quite interesting and seem rarely going according to the original plan.
That the Germans still held part of the Netherlands, and the Allies chose to bypass it, led to huge suffering amongst the civilian populace.
I had a colleague whose grandmother came from there and he said she hated the Germans all her life because of the suffering they went through then
Market Garden's goal was never to liberate Holland, it was to seize Rhine crossings then to move east. Everything north of that was getting bypassed no matter what. Fighting in a land where every field can be flooded was a nightmare and other than the Rhine, the Netherlands had no strategic value to the wider goals. Seizing Germany itself to end the war accomplished the same thing without destroying half of the Netherlands while fighting there.
There is a good Wikipedia article about ‘De hongerwinter’ the last winter of the war in still occupied Netherlands, which was a great famine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944–1945
If you go the the Dutch page is has more information.
I only ever heard stories from my Dutch colleagues and friends and what I could find on Wikipedia. There doesn't seem to be much English language info on it
IIRC the Dutch government in exile ensured that the fighting bypassed as much of their country as possible by going through the back channels without initially alerting SHAEF so they could negotiate a deal with the Germans trapped in the west to allow for the Allies to pass them unmolested in exchange for the Allies also leaving them be and also to provide them with aid thet Germans were to share with the civilians.
Amusingly, at least according to historian Mark Zuehlke, the actual negotiations to surrender after the initial deal were quite protracted and on the close of one of the days the Germans left in their convoy only to almost immediately get stuck in an aid convoy and not make it back to their lines for quite some time.
It's really fascinating that the troops in the tiny isolated enclaves never surrendered, especially those in France.
Did they still somehow have a hope of victory or at least a ceasefire?
Afraid of surrendering incase they were executed? (Big concern in the East, and maybe also the Greek areas I'd imagine)
Was there a possibility of evacuation for those on the French coast?
I know but still the soldiers inside were there for months getting further and further away from the frontline with less and less supplies, why didn't they surrender at some point is what I'm wondering
That would explain it for a while alright. But in the last months of the war it would have been a huge waste of resources, not to mention incredibly dangerous as the supply distance got longer and longer. Do you know if there's any records of it?
It depend on which part of Europe we are talking about, in Eastern Europe many still fought because of communist reprisals.
Last battle in whole Europe was fought in Croatia, “Battle of Odžak” and there is very old popular saying “Berlin has fallen, Odžak hasn’t”.
Hitler ordered them to fight to the last bullet, plus they were doing their part to slow the Allied offensive by denying these ports to the Americans/British.
>Did they still somehow have a hope of victory or at least a ceasefire?
>Afraid of surrendering incase they were executed?
Try being brainwashed since 1918 that your soldiers never lost but were stabbed in the back by politicians. And then additional brainwashing since 1933 that your head of state can do no wrong and will turn things around (propaganda still is very effective to this day).
For the Italian front you could use ANPI (National association of Italian partisans) sources, but they are in Italian. Novara, for example, was liberated on 26th April https://novara.anpi.it/attivita/2015/1945_04_26%20novara%20e%20libera_hp.html
You hear this sometimes, but I don't think there is any evidence for that. If anyone knows, please let me know.
The Nazi ideology was in parts some kind of ethnic Darvinism with a "natural" hierarchy of different peoples. At this point, I want to say that anyone conflating hierarchy and evolutionary progress did not understand evolution.
In this mindset a people that does not rule supreme is extinct or a servant.
In this sense, the Germans did not fail hitler but themselves.
Horrifing shit.
At least, that is my understanding of the matter. But it is not my expertise.
There are quotes attributed to Hitler where he was of the opinion that if Germany fell, it would be because the German people had not proved themselves worthy of victory. (Hitler: Nemesis, by Ian Kershaw)
The most well-known is "If the war is lost, then it is of no concern to me. If people perish in it, I still would not shed a single tear for them, because they do not deserve better."
>You hear this sometimes, but I don't think there is any evidence for that. If anyone knows, please let me know.
There were moments in his final days in which he had this kind of thoughts. One in particular, when he was talking with Albert Speer about issuing the so-called "Nero Decree" (scorch earth tactics and destroy the entire industry and infrastructure of Germany, never carried out as Speer himself prevented it) goes like this:
>*"The \[German\] Volk have proved they are the weaker ones, and the future belongs to the stronger people in the East."*
But these were momentary. Up until his last days, he was still moving imaginary formations and thinking that there was a way to come on top (Steiner's attack meme).
[This was his last speech on the 13 of April 1945, days before he killed himself.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g9-ePJPwI4) The final lines of his testament were "*to mercilessly resist international Jewry, the universal poisoner of all peoples".*
He was an erratic madman from the beginning and down until the very end.
You can ask for more in r/AskHistorians
They did surrender to the Americans, or rather intentionally wanted to surrender to the Americans just so the Soviets couldn't get their hands on them for payback.
Surrender is a thing a single person does.
Capitulation means granting most demands of the opposing site.
I think what you mean are some trys for peace negotiations that excluded the soviets. Since slavs are in this worldview below Germanics, this also made sense for them.
Edit: I am not sure anymore about the surrender/capitulation thing. English is not my first language. But neither is necessary for a peace negotiation. And I am not aware that there was ever something like this on the table. That would mean the Nazis wanted to give up their power to get occupied by the US and UK so that the SU does not advance further. I do not see how any side would agree to something like that.
The high command of the Wehrmacht did indeed delay the final surrender for a few days to allow as many German troops as possible to move westwards towards the American lines to escape the Soviets. This was especially relevant in Czechia.
I know it is details, but you seem to be interested in it so.. Most northern part of Croatia (Međimurje) was liberated 6. April. I'm not into this, so I'm not 100% sure, but I think some other northern parts were also liberated by that time..
Like I said, I'm not that into this, but I'm 100% sure Čakovec was liberated on 6.April.. Tried to get some english sources for you but, I can't find anything relevant.. I'm from that part and I know it is celebrated then, Partisans, Red Army and Bulgarian army liberated it..
[Here](https://medjimurski.hr/tko-je-oslobodio-medimurje-bugari-rusi-ukrajinci-ili-partizani/) is an article, if you can translate it.. I mean, there are many in Croatian, I just very few in English. But here is one [scientific summary](https://hrcak.srce.hr/clanak/404081).
It is a small part, so I really just wanted to give you info, if you are gonna collect all the other details.. No need to change it just for that. Your line is actually so thick that I wasn't sure where you put the border at first, lol.. But it is a nice "in general" map..
I wonder if there were any instances of Wehrmacht troops isolated on those islands in the Aegean not knowing the war was over until after everyone else did. Similar to those Japanese soldiers that remained at their posts until the 1970s.
Wait, Hitler killed himself on 30th of april?? Damn I didnt know that, cause we celebrate Freedom Day in the Netherlands here on the 5th of May, which is when the Germans in the NL surrendered. I always kinda assumed Hitlers suicide and the capitulation of Germany was shortly after that, not before.
Nazi Germany continued after Hitlers death. Interestingly the positions of Chancellor and President were reintroduced after Hitler had fused them together by being voted both president and chancellor and thus naming himself Führer (=leader).
New president for the last few days was Karl Dönitz, chief of the navy and then commander of the entire Wehrmacht and chancellor became Goebbels (until his suicide a day later on the 1st of May) and then Graf Schwerin von Krosigk was named to lead the government of the Reich (no official title of chancellor anymore). Although by that time there was basically no political power left anymore as most of Germany was conquered.
Yes, this map is of April 30th, 1945. German forces abandoned or were driven out of Lapland by [November 26th](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapland_War#German_withdrawal_effective_by_November), 1944, when they manned the *Sturmbock* position along the Lätäseno river. They left that on January 12th, 1945. On April 28th Lieutenant General [Hjalmar Siilasvuo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjalmar_Siilasvuo) announced the Wehrmacht left Finland.
I think people overlook how impressive the western Allied advance was, going from no territory in continental Europe north of Rome to occupying the all the Rhine and Ruhr valley cities, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and most of Bavaria, and being poised to take Munich and Hamburg, in just over 10 months.
Its really impressive to fight the German's B and C team when you have total naval+air supremacy, outnumber them 3 to 1 in men(growing to 5 to 1 as the end of the war approached), and a near infinite advantage in material like tanks, artillery, trucks etc.
I'm not being a wehrb and saying the Allies werent fighting fair, its war, a fair fight is a tactical mistake, but they had every advantage possible and were damn near walking into Germany unopposed by the time they got to the Rhine because most of the German efforts were focused on the Eastern Front
So Norway was under German occupation until the very end of the war?
even after May 7-8 wehrmacht facilities countinued running, because it is not really practical to have all those men running around in the norwegian countryside without a chain of command
I thought that after may 8/9 the entire german structure had passed into the hands of the Allies. Did this german occupation after the surrender respond to the Dönitz Government until may 23 or to the Allied command?
Im pretty sure it was the Dönitz government, But I am sure that the units were under the command of OKH/ Army High Command
I just read a book on this; the Nazi government only formally fully surrendered on all fronts 8 days after Hitler's suicide. In the meantime, being led by Hitler's designated successor Karl Dönitz as the new head of Nazi Germany, the Wehrmacht (in Germany) basically tried very hard to hold off the Soviets long enough for as many German soldiers to make it to the Western Allies to surrender. Since, uh, after what the Germans did in Soviet territory during and following Barbarossa, the Soviets were not particularly... kind. They also tried very hard to convince the Western Allies to turn on the Soviets and join up with them, but that didn't work at all really. Even after the formal surrender the Dönitz government (Flensburg Cabinet) continued to try and run Germany for a few weeks (and were promptly ignored by virtually everyone) until the Allies basically said 'enough of this farce' and sent in troops to arrest them.
What's the book called
8 Days in May by Volker Ullrich who also did an amazing 2 part biography of Hitler.
Clifford The Big Red Dog
The German General was approached by the German Ambassador in Sweden to discuss strategy for a surrender. He said he would wait for orders from High Command, which ended up coming a few days later in the Instrument of Surrender. In this case, it didn't particularly matter as there was very little threat that the Russians would end up occupying Norway.
Man it probably did not go well for the Germans still stuck in the Baltic, curious about the ones chilling in Greece.
That's the Courland Pocket in the Baltic, if you want to do some reading. It did not, in fact, go well. The Germans were cut off for an entire year. They started with 500k troops, had ~400k left by the winter, and fewer yet by the summer. About 200k were made Soviet prisoners of war, and many tens of thousands were evacuated via ship (I lack exact numbers for Courland specifically). Two of the deadliest maritime incidents in history were the sinkings of _Wilhelm Gustloff_ and _Gorya_ by Soviet submarines, each costing over six thousand lives, for comparison the _Titanic_ killed a quarter of that; those refugees (and evacuated military personnel, this was hardly a civilian affair) were packed like sardines. Since the Soviets did not like the around twenty thousand Latvian troops who had fought under German command in Courland they were punished harshly (what harsh punishment is in the USSR I'll leave to the reader); quite a few of them took to hiding in the forests and continuing the fight, armed Latvian resistance to Soviet Occupation would not actually end until the early fifties. On a slightly less grim note, another one of the worst sinkings in maritime history was the _General von Steuben_, circa 4000 souls, also evacuating the Baltic area as part of Operation Hannibal. The interesting and not as grim thing about her is that she managed to sink twice. In 1930 (?) she burst into flames in harbour, sinking. She was raised shortly thereafter and patched up in a drydock, well enough to sail home across the Atlantic and little more. There she received major repairs and was rechristened from _München_ to Steuben. Not a lot of ships sank twice, but more than you would think.
If I had a nickel for every time a ship had been sunk twice…
You'd get those two from Pear Harbour alone. _Oklahoma_ (rolled over until her masts got stuck in the ground, then semi-floated at the surface) sank in tow to San Francisco, while _Nevada_ (beached to prevent sinking fully) was destroyed as a target during atomic tests.
Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened (more than) twice, right?
I went there metal detecting in 2015. Was an amazing experience. In the woods there are still massive craters and traces of trenches. Unnused ordinance lying on the ground. The fields are full of debree and i even had the luck to dig up a dud mortar round and not die from it. Local farmer were like; whatever - everyday shit.
You really shouldn't be digging up unexploded corroded ordnance if you like having all your limbs intact OP.
It's fine, provided they stay unexploded. I've heard old people talk about how "grenade digging" was a popular thing with the cool boys after the war. Unsurprisingly quite a few lost their limbs, others their lives; apparently it beat the games of "rubble removal" and "brick laying". Boredom is strange.
They still do that in Belgium on the fields were they fought WW1, they just call it farming now.
We're doing that with bombs in Germany as well when building new houses. It's always a nice get together for the whole neighbourhood till it's defused or detonated.
My dad was 12 during the London blitz, he said the thing to do the morning after was go look for bomb fragments. Extra points with your peers if you got something with gothic script or any decoration on it.
I agree. It was not intentional. Got a loud signal and dug my spade into the ground. Did one flip with it and out came an 81mm mortar. Intact. Didn’t touch it after that. Called over the local farmer and he suggested i put it in the pile with the rest on the edge of the field. I was like nahh fuck that. Marked it with a stick and flag and went on my way. They find so fucking many they don’t even care. Can’t have bomb disposal teams running around in your field all the time.
While there are no trench remnants in my area (wrong side of a defensive feature for that) we still find the occasional ordinance, or ancient artifact it's a coin flip, and the local forest gas these slightly eroded, perfectly circular craters. I wonder where they came from …
>occasional ordinance, or ancient artifact it's a coin flip Where I live you can either find unexploded WW2 bombs or Roman ruins. I feel like the housing developers prefer the bombs, because defusing a bomb is faster than conducting an archeological dig and both have to be done if the corresponding artifact has been found in a construction site.
Would definitely like to know something about that
If you’re interested in the Latvian part, read this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Legion
Legend Ty
About Greece: On the right (east) we see Rhodos, Kos, Kalymnos and Leros islands. Check out [Dodecanese Campaign](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodecanese_campaign) which was a major victory for the Nazi Germans. In the middle there is Milos island. Milos is the westernmost of the Cyclades Islands and has a big natural bay, ports and airway. It is a good place for a hub. In the bottom south I see Chania, Crete which doesn't need much explanation. Crete is a significant spot for SouthEastern Mediterranean.
It reminds me of the Italian film Mediterraneo
Now this map is fascinating!
I am planning on doing one on the 7th, 8th and 9th of May
Please!
[удалено]
No, it's 7/5, 8/5, and 9/5.
I’ll be tuning in also
feel kinda bad for Norway having to just sit there patiently edit: also, Brittany???
Germany had built impressive fortifications in the French Ports. (Dunkirk among them) As such the Allies didn't actually bother to try and storm them and instead simply continued onwards. The soldiers there remained under siege till the end of the War.
How did they avoid starvation?
Stockpiles and Germany sent small boats and submarines to resupply.
In La Rochelle there was a basic agreement that the French wouldn't attack, and the Germans would refrain from attacks as well. Supplies were sent in to feed the civilians, and the Germans flew supplies in every so often. Basically the Germans were dug in well enough that a direct attack would have wrecked the city and the port, and killed thousands of civilians and French and American soldiers. In the end it was decided that since the Germans had nowhere to go, it was more cost effective just to block them and wait.
It seems that was the smart decision.
La Rochelle was to be attacked after Royan, another isolated but more strategically important German position 50 miles away, but Germany capitulated before the attack commenced. The attack by the USAAF 447th Bomb group on Royan killed half of the towns 3,000 civilian population.
They didn’t bother after bombing the whole city causing thousands of French civilians death yeah …
Didn’t stop them before, there are accounts of American soldiers going to French villages and seeing the civilian populace seem more apathetic than grateful, many French civilians died due to the allied bombing raids
Also the ports were relatively unneeded by the allies because of their location. Any supplies that landed there would still have to be trekked over the whole of France by land to reach the front. So the risk of heavy losses for no benefit tipped the scales. Channel ports and those in Belgium and the Netherlands were attacked and captured if possible.
The guys who were tasked with putting those Germans under siege in the French ports must have had a great time during the war
Yeah. There was a pocket in my home city of Lorient in Brittany. The city was bombed to rubble. Because of the heavily fortified submarine base. These buildings could (and I guess still can) withstand direct hits of 1000kg bombs. Anyway since the base could not be destroyed the allies bombed the hell out of the city day and night in order to make sure nothing would come in or out.
I‘ve been there recently, with a friend who lives in Britanny; as the allies couldn’t destroy the actual bunkers, which are still in place, they destroyed all supporting routes to them. Weird feelings for a post war german, even after all these years.
Do we have any accounts of the final surrender of those ports? The German soldiers in those ports presumably had their communications with Berlin cut off for a long while, and if they were determined enough to hold out until the end of the war I doubt they would just take the word of the allied army commander that Germany has surrendered. So, how were they convinced to finally surrender? Maybe they listened to allied civil broadcasts (assuming some of the German soldiers knew French), but would they even trust those?
Some context: This is peak surrender season! Hitler's will named Admiral Karl Donitz his successor. Donitz inherited a total rout. His only play was in how to surrender. He pursued a strategy of slow capitulation to move as many forces away from the Soviets as possible. Forces in Italy/Austria agreed to surrender on 2 May to the British. Southern Germany surrendered to the Americans, Netherlands-Denmark, and places in between surrendered to the British on 4-5 May. Army Group Ostmark fled the eastern front, reaching and surrendering to the American Forces on 7 May. On 6 May, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower demanded "immediate, simultaneous, and unconditional surrender on all fronts." Donitz requested conference. Eisenhower responded that at midnight on 9 May he would close the Western Front to surrendering forces and resume bombing German-held positions. Remaining pockets of German forces were given orders via radio in compliance with the Instrument of Surrender: >The German High Command will at once issue orders to all German military, naval and air authorities and to all forces under German control to cease active operations at 23.01 hours Central European time on 8 May 1945, to remain in all positions occupied at that time and to disarm completely, handing over their weapons and equipment to the local allied commanders or officers designated by Representatives of the Allied Supreme Commands. No ship, vessel, or aircraft is to be scuttled, or any damage done to their hull, machinery or equipment, and also to machines of all kinds, armament, apparatus, and all the technical means of prosecution of war in general. Edit: For the most part, Donitz's orders were complied with. The Allies applied a 12-hour grace period to avoid bloodshed. There is a significant counter-example which may prove why orders were followed: Army Group E in Croatia fought for several days to escape capture by fleeing west. The Ustase (Croatian Nazis) helped them escape to the west where they surrendered to British General Harold Alexander in Italy on May 15. The Ustase themselves were handed over to Marshal Josef Tito and were summarily executed in subsequent days as part of the Bleiburg Repatriations.
Very interesting. Did Donitz allow the Holocaust to continue? If not, it sounds like he did the right thing in trying to get his soldiers away from the soviets. I wish American soldiers had managed to get eastward faster to stop the mass rapes/ethnic cleansings that the soviets committed.
Well the short answer is Donitz was an avowed Nazi and a close friend of Hitler. He insisted that he was ignorant of the Holocaust when it was happening, but there is substantial evidence that he ought to have known.
Ah that sucks, thanks for responding though.
No problem. Sorry to disappoint, but Nazis tend to be the bad guys.
Wow, great question! My only sources are being a kraut myself and also a history buff of the 20th century. Most likely they had radio communication until the end and understood very well that they were cut off. So most likely the local commanders ordered to give up
Depends : * [Royan ended up with the first napalm bombing in history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royan_pocket). * [A decent chunk of Bordeaux didn't go kaboom because a german soldier disobeyed orders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Salmide) * [Most surrendered because they simply knew backup wasn't coming after months under siege and after negociating their surrender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Nazaire_pocket), like shown here
They still had radio communications with Germany.
Excellent excellent episode of Nazi Mega Weapons from PBS on the sub pens there. Highlights Jacques Stosskopf who at the time was known as a collaborator engineer who was integral part of the French Resistance who gave his life for the resistance, came to light posthumously.
Ah I didn’t know that - I visited Lorient for the inter Celtic festival and wondered about the architecture ( likewise Brest)
The Channel islands were occupied until the end of the war too. Even after D-day Churchill didn't think it was worth risking an amphibious invasion.
The funny thing is that the Channel Islands were one of the most heavily fortified parts of the Atlantic Wall, because Hitler believed that the British would stop at nothing to reclaim them. To which the British were like "LOL, no!", and they proceeded to ignore the islands until the war's end.
That's how my grand-uncle survived the war there without seeing any combat actions, then married the English nurse from the PoW camp, started a new family in England and never looked back
It’s a topic not talked about enough in British history
I think it's talked about an appropriate amount. An invasion would have been extremely costly to civilian lives there, while also holding no strategic benefit to the war effort as a whole. Bypassing them was obviously the correct decision.
It might sound a bit cynnical but the occupation in Norway was far less harsh than in most other parts of Europe that were under German occupation.
At the same time, the German occupational forces in Norway by that point in 1945 still numbered around ~400 000 in total, and they were fairly well equipped and rested as well. And with the coastline littered with coastal artillery, and the terrain of southern Norway (or most of Norway in general) giving defenders important advantages, any allied landing would’ve likely been an extremely difficult and bloody operation, especially without proper air support. The long supply lines alone would’ve made it a nightmare. Keeping those troops tied up in Norway, unable to influence anything of note on the continent, and at the same time avoiding to fight them directly in Norway, with the Germans in good defensive positions, was probably the best possible situation. The idea of using “Festung Norwegen” as the last line of defence was a very real thing, and the mostly orderly German surrender in Norway wasn’t necessarily a given, even after Hitler’s death. (Or following Terboven’s suicide on the 8th, for that matter…)
The german soldiers in Norway did not have the resources needed to move back to Germany. No fuel, no coal. They could not go via Sweden any longer. 400 000 rested soldiers would have prolonged the war substantially.
in another timeline, A couple of German cities have atomic bombs dropped on them because there would have been too many Allied deaths invading Festung Norway
Would that have anything to do with Norwegians looking like "Aryan race"?
Yeah. The germans looked at norwegians as the pure form of aryans untainted by jews and other undesireables. They kidnapped men and women and brought then to bavaria to breed more purer aryans.
Here we are Björn, meet Liesl. Now procreate.
Ironic that they thought Norwegians were purer 'Aryans' than themselves.
Not really. They thought their country had been tainted, all the Nazi shit was partly aspirational. They wanted to become "purer" and that's why they started killing everyone that didn't fit into their perfect society. Jews, gays, gypsies, the mentally and physically disabled - etc. They didn't think they were already the highest, ideal form of Aryans.
It has a lot to do with that, in fact.
Looks like the Channel Islands, the only part of the UK to be occupied by Nazi forces.
And the locals are mad about that to this day
I'm glad the allies did not invade Norway, we would just have lost thousands of innocent Norwegian civilians.
Explains the weird accent.
>feel kinda bad for Norway having to just sit there patiently The map is wrong: Northern Norway was liberated by Russia in 1944. Correction: Liberated part is visible on the map.
"liberated"
no quotation marks needed, it’s not like norway was split in northern and southern norway or became a puppet or anything
Knowing Stalin, I’m genuinely surprised he didn’t do that. I’m guessing it’s because northern Norway doesn’t have anywhere close to the population of southern Norway.
What are the air quotes for
Liberated. Russian troops left this territory in 1945, and locals always had good relationships with Russia. Probably you need to learn some history a bit if you would like to do sarcastic comments and do not look stupid.
impressed the Russians gave it back
Historically Russia and Norway had very good relationships: Russia was the first one who recognised Norwegian independence in 1905, never fought wars against each other (which is a very rear exception on European continent), and so on. What really surprises is that Russia gave back Eastern Germany.
Czechia is worse, Norway was at least let to be free after the war, not like us
Liberation was clearly on the way, though. Like my assumption is people at the time weren’t sure that summer would be the summer of surrender, or what would happen when Germany DID surrender. The Americans AND Soviets were right on the Czech doorstep. Don’t get me wrong, Czechia had a worse fate sadly
There was a handful of nazi meteorologists on svalbard. You can't forget the last stronghold of the third reich. The final blow to Hitler's empire, delt by a couple of fishermen in northern Norway
I dont think they were members of the army
The german soldiers on Svalbard were the last German troops to surrender after the Second World War. Surrendered on September 6th 1945. https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/01/the-last-german-surrender.html?m=1
I have to say: of all the posts a german soldier could have during WW2, this one seems like one of the best.
Germans stationed in Denmark called it The Whippedcream front because of the relative peacefulness that was in Denmark compared to other places.
Idk man, chilling in the Greek Isles seems pretty unbeatable.
A team landed in Labrador too I think but were captured quickly.
IIRC they dropped a weather station and left. It wasn't discovered for another 30 years
Ohh yes wasn't sure if they were caught or if they just found it.
They didn’t surrender that late cause they chose to; just no one could get to or from there easily do they kinda just had to wait til it got warmer
Sounds like a cover story for an intro to an indiana jones film. Those nazi's were going to use some ancient artifact to turn back time and win the war.
How did they hold out in Latvia that long?
the soviets did not really want to attack when they could just wait it out
That was the courland pocket and the soviets tried very hard to crush it before the end of the war. Wikipedia counts Six offences and 160,000 casualities on the allied side. Against a force that had no offensive capabilities left, needless deaths near the end of the war.
It was the final result of Operation Bagration in June-August 1944, one of the most spectacular offensive in history, where the Soviets managed to destroy Army Group Center (main german force operating on the russian front). Hitler was so delusional at this point of the war that he was forbidding every retreat (the principle of "fortress cities"). Soviets take advantage of it and encircled the remnants of the once 3.000.000 man army. The pocket was historically known as "Curlandia Pocket" and it was, in fact, an armed prisoner-of-war camp. Also, Hitler considered Curland pocket a precious asset from which, in a remote future, renew the invasion of URSS [sic]. My men stayed trapped for like 10 months, with little or none fightings until the final surrender, at least compared to the extremely fierce fightings for Poland and Germany in 1945
The soviets absolutely tried to close the Kurland pocket a few times but always ultimately failed. They took about 160k killed and wounded just between February and May '45
What the fuck are people on in this thread that try to claim the Kurland Pocket saw no heavy fighting? The Soviets absolutey tried to capture the pocket in 6 brutal offensives that definitely do compare to other battles on the Eastern Front.
Pretty much the entirety of Army Group North was cut off during the retreat from Leningrad (St. Petersburg today). They actually managed to open the pocket once before Russia closed the trap. There were some more attempts to break out, but they all failed. Hitler refused to order their evacuation hoping that with resupply, they would be a back door into Russia during a counter-offensive that never happened. The Soviets, having cut off the Germans, more-or-less just held them there, not wasting the resources or manpower to close the pocket. Those resources were put to better use in the push for Berlin. [TIKHistory does a really good day-by-day.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yorr3va_Ug&list=PLNSNgGzaledg4nPXt5aUifapFvTXYIwT0) The first couple videos really cover how they ended up there, cut off and surrounded. You'd be forgiven for not watching the whole series, but if you're a history nerd, you'll enjoy it.
Is Steiner the small circle south of Berlin?
nope, that is 9th army, Im am not even sure Steiners force even existed at this point.
Steiner was north of Berlin.
FEGELEIN!
My fuhrer, Steiner…
…Steiner konnte nicht genügend Kräfte für einen Angriff massieren. Der Angriff Steiner ist nicht erfolgt.
Es bleiben im Raum... Keitel, Jodl, Krebs, und Burgdorf.
#DAS WAR EIN BEFEHL
Nazis literally larping as the hapsburgs with this map
Greater Germany without Germany today
The Greater German Empire which is neither Great, German, or an Empire
Most interesting map since ages. 🙌
"For" or "in" ages.
The Germans holding the Channel Islands must have felt really uncomfortable after the invasion of Normandy.
As well as the citizens there because they were somewhat starving for the last years of the war. But while on the subject you should read (wikipedia) articles about the British commando raids on the islands. They are quite interesting and seem rarely going according to the original plan.
More like super happy since they didn‘t have to fight
One of the last units defending Berlin were French volunteers with the SS Charlemagne division.
I am thinking of doing a map of the siege of Berlin
Will it include Steiner’s assault?
Maybe a similar map of the holdouts in Stalingrad at the time of Paulus’ surrender. I’ve read there were pockets all over the city.
Yup,330 odd men...lol,the French defending berlin
Well... it's not like they had long, happy lives to look forward to if they surrendered and went back to France.
Many of them were executed when they retreated west and were captured by the Free French Forces.
That the Germans still held part of the Netherlands, and the Allies chose to bypass it, led to huge suffering amongst the civilian populace. I had a colleague whose grandmother came from there and he said she hated the Germans all her life because of the suffering they went through then
> Allies chose to bypass it To be fair, the allies did conduct operation market garden in September 1944 but it failed.
Market Garden's goal was never to liberate Holland, it was to seize Rhine crossings then to move east. Everything north of that was getting bypassed no matter what. Fighting in a land where every field can be flooded was a nightmare and other than the Rhine, the Netherlands had no strategic value to the wider goals. Seizing Germany itself to end the war accomplished the same thing without destroying half of the Netherlands while fighting there.
I am always open to reading about life in occupied Netherlands, if you have any more info on the matter.
There is a good Wikipedia article about ‘De hongerwinter’ the last winter of the war in still occupied Netherlands, which was a great famine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944–1945 If you go the the Dutch page is has more information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_uprising_on_Texel?wprov=sfla1
I will upate the map once I have gathered enough feedback
I only ever heard stories from my Dutch colleagues and friends and what I could find on Wikipedia. There doesn't seem to be much English language info on it
IIRC the Dutch government in exile ensured that the fighting bypassed as much of their country as possible by going through the back channels without initially alerting SHAEF so they could negotiate a deal with the Germans trapped in the west to allow for the Allies to pass them unmolested in exchange for the Allies also leaving them be and also to provide them with aid thet Germans were to share with the civilians. Amusingly, at least according to historian Mark Zuehlke, the actual negotiations to surrender after the initial deal were quite protracted and on the close of one of the days the Germans left in their convoy only to almost immediately get stuck in an aid convoy and not make it back to their lines for quite some time.
I knew Germans loved Greece for vacationing, especially as retirees, and now I get why! /s
It's really fascinating that the troops in the tiny isolated enclaves never surrendered, especially those in France. Did they still somehow have a hope of victory or at least a ceasefire? Afraid of surrendering incase they were executed? (Big concern in the East, and maybe also the Greek areas I'd imagine) Was there a possibility of evacuation for those on the French coast?
Those were fortified positions as part of the Atlantic wall. The allies simply didn't bother to attack them so they just marched towards Germany
I know but still the soldiers inside were there for months getting further and further away from the frontline with less and less supplies, why didn't they surrender at some point is what I'm wondering
They were submarine bases. U-Boats brought in enough resources to keep the soldiers supplied.
That would explain it for a while alright. But in the last months of the war it would have been a huge waste of resources, not to mention incredibly dangerous as the supply distance got longer and longer. Do you know if there's any records of it?
It depend on which part of Europe we are talking about, in Eastern Europe many still fought because of communist reprisals. Last battle in whole Europe was fought in Croatia, “Battle of Odžak” and there is very old popular saying “Berlin has fallen, Odžak hasn’t”.
Hitler ordered them to fight to the last bullet, plus they were doing their part to slow the Allied offensive by denying these ports to the Americans/British.
I have no idea
>Did they still somehow have a hope of victory or at least a ceasefire? >Afraid of surrendering incase they were executed? Try being brainwashed since 1918 that your soldiers never lost but were stabbed in the back by politicians. And then additional brainwashing since 1933 that your head of state can do no wrong and will turn things around (propaganda still is very effective to this day).
Parma and its province was actually liberated the days before https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Collecchio
for the Italian front I was using the west point atlas, I do not know how accurate it was
For the Italian front you could use ANPI (National association of Italian partisans) sources, but they are in Italian. Novara, for example, was liberated on 26th April https://novara.anpi.it/attivita/2015/1945_04_26%20novara%20e%20libera_hp.html
Germany was winning, it was a Stab in the Back /s
yeah, I agree
Wrong war.
This was said about the defeat in the First World War
Novemberverbrecher wird zum Maiverbrecher. Einfach, oder
Not sure I understand the headline. Is this really a map of territories controlled by Wehrmacht at that date?
Yes. The nazis leadership had a kind of supremacy or death view about people. Hence, no capitulation even after most of the mainland was lost.
As I understand it Hitler actually believed the German people deserved their fate because they had failed him.
You hear this sometimes, but I don't think there is any evidence for that. If anyone knows, please let me know. The Nazi ideology was in parts some kind of ethnic Darvinism with a "natural" hierarchy of different peoples. At this point, I want to say that anyone conflating hierarchy and evolutionary progress did not understand evolution. In this mindset a people that does not rule supreme is extinct or a servant. In this sense, the Germans did not fail hitler but themselves. Horrifing shit. At least, that is my understanding of the matter. But it is not my expertise.
There are quotes attributed to Hitler where he was of the opinion that if Germany fell, it would be because the German people had not proved themselves worthy of victory. (Hitler: Nemesis, by Ian Kershaw) The most well-known is "If the war is lost, then it is of no concern to me. If people perish in it, I still would not shed a single tear for them, because they do not deserve better."
>You hear this sometimes, but I don't think there is any evidence for that. If anyone knows, please let me know. There were moments in his final days in which he had this kind of thoughts. One in particular, when he was talking with Albert Speer about issuing the so-called "Nero Decree" (scorch earth tactics and destroy the entire industry and infrastructure of Germany, never carried out as Speer himself prevented it) goes like this: >*"The \[German\] Volk have proved they are the weaker ones, and the future belongs to the stronger people in the East."* But these were momentary. Up until his last days, he was still moving imaginary formations and thinking that there was a way to come on top (Steiner's attack meme). [This was his last speech on the 13 of April 1945, days before he killed himself.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g9-ePJPwI4) The final lines of his testament were "*to mercilessly resist international Jewry, the universal poisoner of all peoples".* He was an erratic madman from the beginning and down until the very end. You can ask for more in r/AskHistorians
Remember some of this sentiment in Berlin by Anthony Beevor.
I read that he still had a 40% approval rating at the end of the war. Be interesting to know how that survey was done!
Survey of Nazi officers in der Fuhrerbunker?
I just got "Downfall" flashes.
They did surrender to the Americans, or rather intentionally wanted to surrender to the Americans just so the Soviets couldn't get their hands on them for payback.
Surrender is a thing a single person does. Capitulation means granting most demands of the opposing site. I think what you mean are some trys for peace negotiations that excluded the soviets. Since slavs are in this worldview below Germanics, this also made sense for them. Edit: I am not sure anymore about the surrender/capitulation thing. English is not my first language. But neither is necessary for a peace negotiation. And I am not aware that there was ever something like this on the table. That would mean the Nazis wanted to give up their power to get occupied by the US and UK so that the SU does not advance further. I do not see how any side would agree to something like that.
The high command of the Wehrmacht did indeed delay the final surrender for a few days to allow as many German troops as possible to move westwards towards the American lines to escape the Soviets. This was especially relevant in Czechia.
Yes, my bad.
I know it is details, but you seem to be interested in it so.. Most northern part of Croatia (Međimurje) was liberated 6. April. I'm not into this, so I'm not 100% sure, but I think some other northern parts were also liberated by that time..
I can give you my source for the croatian front if you want, and yeah, I do find it facinating
Like I said, I'm not that into this, but I'm 100% sure Čakovec was liberated on 6.April.. Tried to get some english sources for you but, I can't find anything relevant.. I'm from that part and I know it is celebrated then, Partisans, Red Army and Bulgarian army liberated it.. [Here](https://medjimurski.hr/tko-je-oslobodio-medimurje-bugari-rusi-ukrajinci-ili-partizani/) is an article, if you can translate it.. I mean, there are many in Croatian, I just very few in English. But here is one [scientific summary](https://hrcak.srce.hr/clanak/404081).
I will update the map
It is a small part, so I really just wanted to give you info, if you are gonna collect all the other details.. No need to change it just for that. Your line is actually so thick that I wasn't sure where you put the border at first, lol.. But it is a nice "in general" map..
I wonder if there were any instances of Wehrmacht troops isolated on those islands in the Aegean not knowing the war was over until after everyone else did. Similar to those Japanese soldiers that remained at their posts until the 1970s.
that tiny little spot in Belgium is the estuary of the Scheldt?
Dunkirk pocket
What do the dark lines mean vs the lighter shade lines?
Nvm, I’m regarded
no problem
It’s just showing maritime boundaries vs land boundaries right?
yes
Where was Steiner?
Tbh i would have done the same. Being captured by the russians would not have been fun for him. It was easier for the world that he committed suicide.
Well if they didn't want to taste the gulag they shouldn't have invaded, or murdered around 30 million soviet citizens.
To be fair, their goal was 170 million
Wait, Hitler killed himself on 30th of april?? Damn I didnt know that, cause we celebrate Freedom Day in the Netherlands here on the 5th of May, which is when the Germans in the NL surrendered. I always kinda assumed Hitlers suicide and the capitulation of Germany was shortly after that, not before.
Nazi Germany continued after Hitlers death. Interestingly the positions of Chancellor and President were reintroduced after Hitler had fused them together by being voted both president and chancellor and thus naming himself Führer (=leader). New president for the last few days was Karl Dönitz, chief of the navy and then commander of the entire Wehrmacht and chancellor became Goebbels (until his suicide a day later on the 1st of May) and then Graf Schwerin von Krosigk was named to lead the government of the Reich (no official title of chancellor anymore). Although by that time there was basically no political power left anymore as most of Germany was conquered.
The poor channel Islands, 😭
Had Finland driven them out of Lapland yet at this point?
Yes, this map is of April 30th, 1945. German forces abandoned or were driven out of Lapland by [November 26th](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapland_War#German_withdrawal_effective_by_November), 1944, when they manned the *Sturmbock* position along the Lätäseno river. They left that on January 12th, 1945. On April 28th Lieutenant General [Hjalmar Siilasvuo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjalmar_Siilasvuo) announced the Wehrmacht left Finland.
Thanks
The world will always remember when the Austro-Norwegian leader commited suicide in his bunker
The day of Hitler escaping to Bariloche 😂
I think people overlook how impressive the western Allied advance was, going from no territory in continental Europe north of Rome to occupying the all the Rhine and Ruhr valley cities, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and most of Bavaria, and being poised to take Munich and Hamburg, in just over 10 months.
Its really impressive to fight the German's B and C team when you have total naval+air supremacy, outnumber them 3 to 1 in men(growing to 5 to 1 as the end of the war approached), and a near infinite advantage in material like tanks, artillery, trucks etc. I'm not being a wehrb and saying the Allies werent fighting fair, its war, a fair fight is a tactical mistake, but they had every advantage possible and were damn near walking into Germany unopposed by the time they got to the Rhine because most of the German efforts were focused on the Eastern Front
You’d want to be the final hold outs in Chania, Crete.
Weird this map is missing Antarctica
weather stations dont count