End of World War II in Europe - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The final battles of the European Theatre

European Theatre of World War II

The European Theatre of World War II was a huge area of heavy fighting across Europe from Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 until the end of the war with the German unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945...

of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

as well as the German surrender to the Western Allies and the Soviet Union took place in late April and early May 1945.

Timeline of surrenders and deaths

Germans leave Finland: On 25 April 1945, the last Germans are expelled

Lapland War

The Lapland War were the hostilities between Finland and Nazi Germany between September 1944 and April 1945, fought in Finland's northernmost Lapland Province. While the Finns saw this as a separate conflict much like the Continuation War, German forces considered their actions to be part of the...

by the Finnish Army

Finnish Army

The Finnish Army is the land forces branch of the Finnish Defence Forces.Today's Army is divided into six branches: the infantry , field artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, engineers, signals, and materiel troops.-History of the Finnish Army:Between 1809 and 1917 Finland was an autonomous part of...

from Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

and retreat into Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

.

Mussolini's death: On 27 April 1945, as Allied forces closed in on Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

was captured by Italian partisans. He was trying to flee from Italy to Switzerland and was traveling with a German anti-aircraft battalion. On 28 April, Mussolini was killed in Giulino (a civil parish of Mezzegra

Mezzegra

Mezzegra is a comune in the Province of Como in the Italian region Lombardy.-Geography:It lies on the northwestern shore of Lake Como between Tremezzo and Lenno at the foot of Monte Tremezzo . It is about north of Milan and about northeast of Como...

); the other Fascists captured with him were taken to Dongo and killed there. The bodies were then taken to Milan and hung for public display in one of the main squares of the city. On 29 April, Rodolfo Graziani

Rodolfo Graziani

Rodolfo Graziani, 1st Marquis of Neghelli , was an officer in the Italian Regio Esercito who led military expeditions in Africa before and during World War II.-Rise to prominence:...

surrendered all Fascist Italian armed forces at Caserta. This included Army Group Liguria

Army Group Liguria

Army Group Liguria was an army group formed for the National Republican Army . The ENR was the national army of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's Italian Social Republic...

. Graziani was the Minister of Defense for Mussolini's Italian Social Republic

Italian Social Republic

The Italian Social Republic was a puppet state of Nazi Germany led by the "Duce of the Nation" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Benito Mussolini and his Republican Fascist Party. The RSI exercised nominal sovereignty in northern Italy but was largely dependent on the Wehrmacht to maintain control...

puppet state

Puppet state

A puppet state is a nominal sovereign of a state who is de facto controlled by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette...

.

Hitler's death: On 30 April, as the Battle of Berlin

Battle of Berlin

The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II....

raged above him, realizing that all was lost and not wishing to suffer Mussolini's fate, German dictator Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

committed suicide

Death of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot on Monday, 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. His wife Eva , committed suicide with him by ingesting cyanide...

in his Führerbunker

Führerbunker

The Führerbunker was located beneath Hitler's New Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. It was part of a subterranean bunker complex which was constructed in two major phases, one part in 1936 and the other in 1943...

along with Eva Braun

Eva Braun

Eva Anna Paula Hitler was the longtime companion of Adolf Hitler and, for less than 40 hours, his wife. Braun met Hitler in Munich, when she was 17 years old, while working as an assistant and model for his personal photographer and began seeing him often about two years later...

, his long-term mistress whom he had married less than 40 hours before their joint suicide. In his will

Last will and testament of Adolf Hitler

The last will and testament of Adolf Hitler was dictated by Hitler to his secretary Traudl Junge in his Berlin Führerbunker on April 29, 1945, the day he and Eva Braun married. They committed suicide the next day , two days before the surrender of Berlin to the Soviets on May 2, and just over a...

, Hitler appointed his successors; Großadmiral Karl Dönitz

Karl Dönitz

Karl Dönitz was a German naval commander during World War II. He started his career in the German Navy during World War I. In 1918, while he was in command of , the submarine was sunk by British forces and Dönitz was taken prisoner...

as the new Reichspräsident

Reichspräsident

The Reichspräsident was the German head of state under the Weimar constitution, which was officially in force from 1919 to 1945. In English he was usually simply referred to as the President of Germany...

("President of Germany") and Joseph Goebbels

Joseph Goebbels

Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...

as the new Reichskanzler (Chancellor of Germany). However, Goebbels committed suicide on 1 May 1945, leaving Dönitz as sole leader of Germany.

German forces in Italy surrender: On 1 May, SS

Schutzstaffel

The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

General Karl Wolff

Karl Wolff

Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff was a high-ranking member of the Nazi Schutzstaffel , ultimately holding the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS. He became Chief of Personal Staff to the Reichsführer and SS Liaison Officer to Hitler until his replacement in 1943...

and the Commander-in-Chief

Commander-in-Chief

A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...

of the Army Group C

Army Group C

Army Group C was an army group of the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War.-Career:Army Group C was set up from Heeresgruppenkommando 2 in Frankfurt on 26 August 1939...

, General Heinrich von Vietinghoff

Heinrich von Vietinghoff

Heinrich Gottfried Otto Richard von Vietinghoff genannt Scheel was a German Colonel-General of the German Army during the Second World War....

, after prolonged unauthorised secret negotiations with the Western Allies

Allies of World War II

The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

named Operation Sunrise

Operation Crossword

During World War II, Operation Crossword or Operation Sunrise was a series of secret negotiations conducted in March 1945 in Switzerland between representatives of Nazi Germany and the Western Allies to arrange a local surrender of German forces in northern Italy...

, which were viewed as trying to reach a separate peace

Separate peace

The phrase "separate peace" refers to a nation's agreement to cease military hostilities with another, even though the former country had previously entered into a military alliance with other states that remain at war with the latter country...

by the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, ordered all German armed forces in Italy to cease hostilities and signed a surrender document which stipulated that all German forces in Italy were to surrender unconditionally to the Allies on 2 May.

German forces in Berlin surrender: The Battle of Berlin

Battle of Berlin

The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II....

ended on 2 May. On that date, General of the Artillery Helmuth Weidling

Helmuth Weidling

Helmuth Otto Ludwig Weidling was an officer in the German Army before and during World War II...

, the commander of the Berlin Defense Area, unconditionally surrendered the city to General Vasily Chuikov

Vasily Chuikov

Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov was a Russian lieutenant general in the Red Army during World War II, twice Hero of the Soviet Union , who after the war became a Marshal of the Soviet Union.-Early life and career:Born into a peasant family in the village of Serebryanye Prudy, he joined the Red Army during...

of the Soviet army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

. On the same day the officers commanding the two armies of Army Group Vistula

Army Group Vistula

Army Group Vistula was an Army Group of the Wehrmacht, formed on January 24, 1945. It was put together from elements of Army Group A , Army Group Centre , and a variety of new or ad-hoc formations...

north of Berlin, (General Kurt von Tippelskirch

Kurt von Tippelskirch

Kurt Oskar Heinrich Ludwig Wilhelm von Tippelskirch was a general in the German Army during World War II.-Personal life:Kurt von Tippelskirch was born on 9 October 1891 in Berlin...

commander of the German 21st Army and General Hasso von Manteuffel

Hasso von Manteuffel

Hasso-Eccard Freiherr von Manteuffel was a German soldier and liberal politician of the 20th century.He served in both world wars, and during World War II was a distinguished general...

commander of Third Panzer Army) surrendered to the Western Allies.

German forces in North West Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands surrender: On 4 May 1945, the British Field Marshal

Field Marshal

Field Marshal is a military rank. Traditionally, it is the highest military rank in an army.-Etymology:The origin of the rank of field marshal dates to the early Middle Ages, originally meaning the keeper of the king's horses , from the time of the early Frankish kings.-Usage and hierarchical...

Montgomery took the unconditional military surrender from Generaladmiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg

Hans-Georg von Friedeburg

Hans-Georg von Friedeburg was the deputy commander of the U-Boat Forces of Nazi Germany and the last Commanding Admiral of the Kriegsmarine....

, and General Hans Kinzel, of all German forces "in Holland, in northwest Germany including the Frisian Islands and Heligoland and all other islands, in Schleswig-Holstein, and in Denmark… includ[ing] all naval ships in these areas." at the Timeloberg on Lüneburg Heath

Lüneburg Heath

The Lüneburg Heath is a large area of heath, geest and woodland in northeastern part of the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. It forms part of the hinterland for the cities of Hamburg, Hanover, and Bremen and is named after the town of Lüneburg. Most of the area is a nature reserve...

; an area between the cities of Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Hanover

Hanover

Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...

and Bremen.
On 5 May, Großadmiral Dönitz ordered all U-boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

s to cease offensive operations and return to their bases.
At 16:00, General Johannes Blaskowitz

Johannes Blaskowitz

Johannes Albrecht Blaskowitz was a German general during World War II. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords...

, the German commander-in-chief in the Netherlands, surrendered to Canadian General Charles Foulkes

Charles Foulkes (Canadian)

Charles Foulkes, was a Canadian soldier, and an officer of The Royal Canadian Regiment.-Military career:Foulkes was born in Stockton-on-Tees, England and joined the Canadian Army in 1926...

in the small Dutch town of Wageningen

Wageningen

' is a municipality and a historical town in the central Netherlands, in the province of Gelderland. It is famous for Wageningen University, which specializes in life sciences. The city has 37,414 inhabitants , of which many thousands are students...

in the presence of Prince Bernhard (acting as commander-in-chief of the Dutch Interior Forces).

German forces in Bavaria surrender: At 14:30 on 4 May 1945, General Hermann Foertsch

Hermann Foertsch

Hermann Foertsch was a highly decorated General der Infanterie in the Wehrmacht during World War II who held commands at the divisional, corps and army levels. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme...

surrendered all forces between the Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

n mountains and the Upper Inn river

Inn River

The Inn is a river in Switzerland, Austria and Germany. It is a right tributary of the Danube and is approximately 500km long. The highest point of its drainage basin is the summit of Piz Bernina, at 4,049 metres.- Geography :...

to the American General Jacob L. Devers

Jacob L. Devers

General Jacob "Jake" Loucks Devers , commander of the 6th Army Group in Europe during World War II. He was the first United States military officer to reach the Rhine after D-Day.-Biography:...

, commander of the American 6th Army Group.

Central Europe: On 5 May 1945, the Prague uprising

Prague uprising

The Prague uprising was an attempt by the Czech resistance to liberate the city of Prague from German occupation during World War II. Events began on May 5, 1945, in the last moments of the war in Europe...

started by the Czech resistance. The following day, the Soviets launch the Prague Offensive

Prague Offensive

The Prague Offensive was the last major Soviet operation of World War II in Europe. The offensive, and the battle for Prague, was fought on the Eastern Front from 6 May to 11 May 1945. This battle for the city is particularly noteworthy in that it ended after the Third Reich capitulated on 8 May...

. In Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Gauleiter Martin Mutschmann

Martin Mutschmann

Martin Mutschmann was the Nazi Region Leader of the state of Saxony during the time of the Third Reich.-Biography:...

let it be known that a large-scale German offensive on the Eastern Front was about to be launched. Within two days, Mutschmann abandoned the city and was captured by Soviet troops while trying to escape.
German forces in Breslau surrender: At 18:00 on May 6, General Hermann Niehoff

Hermann Niehoff

Hermann Niehoff was a German officer during World War II. He was born on 3 April 1897 and died in 1980. Niehoff was born in Papenburg/Ems. He was a German infantry general and was the garrison commander of Fortress Breslau during the Battle of Breslau.-Commands:* Commanding Officer of the 211th...

the commandant of Breslau, a fortress city

Festung

Festung is a generic German word for a fortress. Whilst it is not in common usage in English it is used in a number of historical contexts involving German speakers:* For historical fortresses in Austria, Germany or Switzerland...

surrounded and besieged for months, surrendered to the Soviets.

German forces on the Channel Islands surrender: At 10:00 on May 8, the islanders were informed by the German authorities that the war was over. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

made a radio broadcast at 15:00 during which he announced: "Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight, but in the interests of saving lives the 'Cease fire' began yesterday to be sounded all along the front, and our dear Channel Islands

Channel Islands

The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...

are also to be freed today."
Jodl and Keitel surrender all German armed forces unconditionally: thirty minutes after the fall of "Fortress Breslau" (Festung Breslau), General Alfred Jodl

Alfred Jodl

Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl was a German military commander, attaining the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel...

arrived in Reims

Reims

Reims , a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies east-northeast of Paris. Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire....

and, following Dönitz's instructions, offered to surrender all forces fighting the Western Allies. This was exactly the same negotiating position that von Friedeburg had initially made to Montgomery, and like Montgomery the Supreme Allied Commander

Supreme Allied Commander

Supreme Allied Commander is the title held by the most senior commander within certain multinational military alliances. It originated as a term used by the Western Allies during World War II, and is currently used only within NATO. Dwight Eisenhower served as Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary...

, General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

, threatened to break off all negotiations unless the Germans agreed to a complete unconditional surrender. Eisenhower explicitly told Jodl that he would order western lines closed to German soldiers, thus forcing them to surrender to the Soviets. Jodl sent a signal to Dönitz, who was in Flensburg

Flensburg

Flensburg is an independent town in the north of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg is the centre of the region of Southern Schleswig...

, informing him of Eisenhower's position. Shortly after midnight, Dönitz, accepting the inevitable, sent a signal to Jodl authorizing the complete and total surrender of all German forces.

At 02:41 on the morning of May 7, at the SHAEF

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force , was the headquarters of the Commander of Allied forces in north west Europe, from late 1943 until the end of World War II. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was in command of SHAEF throughout its existence...

headquarters in Reims

Reims

Reims , a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies east-northeast of Paris. Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire....

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, the Chief-of-Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command, General Alfred Jodl

Alfred Jodl

, signed the unconditional surrender documents for all German forces

German Instrument of Surrender, 1945

The German Instrument of Surrender was the legal instrument that established the armistice ending World War II in Europe. It was signed by representatives of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht and the Allied Expeditionary Force together with the Soviet High Command, French representative signing as...

to the Allies. General Franz Böhme

Franz Böhme

Franz Friedrich Böhme was an Austrian who later went on to become a military officer...

announced the unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway on May 7, the same day as Jodl signed the unconditional surrender document. It included the phrase "All forces under German control to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European Time

Central European Time

Central European Time , used in most parts of the European Union, is a standard time that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time . The time offset from UTC can be written as +01:00...

on May 8, 1945." The next day, General Wilhelm Keitel

Wilhelm Keitel

Wilhelm Bodewin Gustav Keitel was a German field marshal . As head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht and de facto war minister, he was one of Germany's most senior military leaders during World War II...

and other German OKW representatives traveled to Berlin, and shortly before midnight signed a similar document, explicitly surrendering to Soviet forces, in the presence of General Georgi Zhukov. The signing ceremony took place in a former German Army Engineering School in the Berlin district of Karlshorst

Karlshorst

Karlshorst is a locality in the borough of Lichtenberg in Berlin. It houses a harness racing track and the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin , the largest University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, and the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst.-History:Established in 1895 as the...

which now houses the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst

German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst

The German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst is dedicated to German-Soviet and German-Russian relations with a focus on the German-Soviet war 1941-1945.- The museum building :...

http://www.museum-karlshorst.de.

Victory in Europe: News of the surrender broke in the West on May 8, and celebrations erupted throughout Europe. In the U.S., Americans awoke to the news and declared May 8 V-E Day

Victory in Europe Day

Victory in Europe Day commemorates 8 May 1945 , the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. The formal surrender of the occupying German forces in the Channel Islands was not...

. As the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

was to the east of Germany it was May 9 Moscow Time

Moscow Time

Moscow Time is the time zone for the city of Moscow, Russia and most of western Russia, including Saint Petersburg. It is the second westernmost of the nine time zones of Russia. Moscow Time has been UTC+4 year-round since 27 March 2011....

when German military surrender became effective, which is why Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

and many other European countries east of Germany commemorate Victory Day

Victory Day (Eastern Europe)

Victory Day or 9 May marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union in the Second World War...

on May 9.

German units cease fire: Although the military commanders of most German forces obeyed the order to surrender issued by the German Armed Forces High Command (German acronym OKW

Oberkommando der Wehrmacht

The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was part of the command structure of the armed forces of Nazi Germany during World War II.- Genesis :...

), not all commanders did so. The largest contingent not to do so were Army Group Centre

Army Group Centre

Army Group Centre was the name of two distinct German strategic army groups that fought on the Eastern Front in World War II. The first Army Group Centre was created on 22 June 1941, as one of three German Army formations assigned to the invasion of the Soviet Union...

under the command of Feldmarshal Ferdinand Schörner

Ferdinand Schörner

Ferdinand Schörner was a General and later Field Marshal in the German Army during World War II.-Early life:Schörner was born in Munich, Bavaria...

who had been promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the Army on 30 April in Hitler's last will and testament

Last will and testament of Adolf Hitler

. On May 8, Schörner deserted his command and flew to Austria, and the Soviet Army sent overwhelming force against Army Group Centre

Army Group Centre

in the Prague Offensive

Prague Offensive

, forcing German units in Army Group Centre to capitulate by May 11 (the last

Battle of Slivice

The Battle of Slivice was the last large World War II battle in the area of Czech lands. During 11–12 May 1945, German troops defended themselves against the partisans and the Soviet Army. The Germans eventually capitulated during early hours of May 12...

did on 12 May). The other forces which did not surrender on May 8 surrendered piecemeal:

The Second Army, under the command of General von Saucken
Dietrich von Saucken
Friedrich Wilhelm Eduard Kasimir Dietrich von Saucken was a general in the German army, the Wehrmacht Heer, during World War II...

, on the Heiligenbeil and Danzig beachheads, on the Hel Peninsula
Hel Peninsula
Hel Peninsula |Nehrung]]) is a 35-km-long sand bar peninsula in northern Poland separating the Bay of Puck from the open Baltic Sea. It is located in Puck County of the Pomeranian Voivodeship.- Geography :...

in Vistula delta surrendered on May 9, as did the forces on the Greek islands; and the garrisons of St. Nazaire, La Rochelle
La Rochelle
La Rochelle is a city in western France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department.The city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988...

(after the Allied siege of La Rochelle
Allied siege of La Rochelle
The Allied siege of La Rochelle occurred during the Second World War in 1944–45, when Allied troops invaded France. La Rochelle was an important German base on the Atlantic, especially a major submarine base from where U-Boat campaigns were launched...

) and Lorient.
On May 13, the Red Army halted all offensives in Europe. Isolated resistance pockets in Czechoslovakia were mopped up by this date.
The garrison on Alderney
Alderney
Alderney is the most northerly of the Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency. It is long and wide. The area is , making it the third-largest island of the Channel Islands, and the second largest in the Bailiwick...

, one of the Channel Islands
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...

occupied by the Germans
Occupation of the Channel Islands
The Channel Islands were occupied by Nazi Germany for much of World War II, from 30 June 1940 until the liberation on 9 May 1945. The Channel Islands are two British Crown dependencies and include the bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey as well as the smaller islands of Alderney and Sark...

, surrendered on May 16 one week after the garrisons on the other Channel Islands which surrendered on May 9.
The Georgian Uprising of Texel
Georgian Uprising of Texel
The Georgian Uprising on Texel was an insurrection by the 882nd Infantry Battalion Königin Tamara of the Georgian Legion of the German Army stationed on the German occupied Dutch island of Texel . The battalion was made up of 800 Georgians and 400 Germans, with mainly German officers...

(April 5–May 20) was Europe's last battlefield in World War II. It was fought between Georgian nazi-collaborationist army units on Texel against the German occupiers of that Dutch island.
Another military engagement took place in Slovenia, on May 15, known as the Battle of Poljana
Battle of Poljana
The Battle of Poljana was a battle of World War II in Europe. It started at Poljana, near the village of Prevalje in Yugoslavia , and was the culmination of a series of engagements between the Yugoslav Partisans and a large retreating Axis column, numbering in excess of 30,000 men...

.
A small group of German soldiers was abandoned on Svalbard
Svalbard
Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic, constituting the northernmost part of Norway. It is located north of mainland Europe, midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The group of islands range from 74° to 81° north latitude , and from 10° to 35° east longitude. Spitsbergen is the...

. They were supposed to establish and man a weather station
Operation Haudegen
Operation Haudegen was the name of a German operation during the Second World War to establish meteorological stations on Svalbard....

there and after losing radio contact in May 1945, they were isolated, and were found by some Norwegian seal hunters in September.

Dönitz government ordered dissolved by Eisenhower: Karl Dönitz continued to act as the German head of state, but his Flensburg government

Flensburg government

The Flensburg Government , also known as the Flensburg Cabinet and the Dönitz Government , was the short-lived administration that attempted to rule the Third Reich during most of May 1945 at the end of World War II in Europe...

(so-called because it was based at Flensburg

Flensburg

Flensburg is an independent town in the north of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg is the centre of the region of Southern Schleswig...

and controlled only a small area around the town) was given no regard after the surrender on May 8. On May 23, a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

liaison officer was sent to Flensburg and read to the Flensburg government Eisenhower's order dissolving the government and ordering the arrest of its members. The Allies had a problem, because they realized that although the German armed forces had surrendered unconditionally, SHAEF had failed to use the document created by the "European Advisory Commission

European Advisory Commission

The formation of the European Advisory Commission was agreed on at the Moscow Conference on October 30, 1943 between the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Anthony Eden, the United States, Cordell Hull, and the Soviet Union, Molotov, and confirmed at the Tehran Conference in November...

" (EAC) and so the civilian German government had not. This was considered a very important issue, because just as the civilian, but not military, surrender in 1918 had been used by Hitler to create the "stab in the back

Dolchstosslegende

The stab-in-the-back legend is the notion, widely believed in right-wing circles in Germany after 1918, that the German Army did not lose World War I but was instead betrayed by the civilians on the home front, especially the republicans who overthrew the monarchy...

" argument, the Allies did not want to give a future hostile German regime a legal argument to resurrect an old quarrel.

Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany and the Assumption of Supreme Authority by Allied Powers was signed by the four Allies on June 5. It included the following:
It is disputed whether this assumption of power constituted debellation or not.

The Potsdam Agreement was signed on August 2, 1945, in connection to this the Allied leaders planned the new post-war German government, resettled war territory boundaries, de facto annexed a quarter of pre-war Germany situated east of the Oder-Neisse line

Oder-Neisse line

The Oder–Neisse line is the border between Germany and Poland which was drawn in the aftermath of World War II. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...

, mandated and organized the expulsion of the millions of Germans

Expulsion of Germans after World War II

The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...

remaining in the annexed territories and elsewhere in the east, ordered German demilitarization, denazification

Denazification

Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...

, industrial disarmament

Industrial plans for Germany

The Industrial plans for Germany were designs the Allies considered imposing on Germany in the aftermath of World War II to reduce and manage Germany's industrial capacity.-Background:...

and settlements of war reparations

War reparations

War reparations are payments intended to cover damage or injury during a war. Generally, the term war reparations refers to money or goods changing hands, rather than such property transfers as the annexation of land.- History :...

.

The Allied Control Council
Allied Control Council
The Allied Control Council or Allied Control Authority, known in the German language as the Alliierter Kontrollrat and also referred to as the Four Powers , was a military occupation governing body of the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany after the end of World War II in Europe...

was created to effect the Allies assumed supreme authority over Germany, specifically to implement their assumed joint authority over Germany. On August 30, the Control Council constituted itself and issued its first proclamation, which informed the German people of the Council's existence and asserted that the commands and directives issued by the Commanders-in-Chief in their respective zones were not affected by the establishment of the Council.

Cessation of hostilities between the United States and Germany was proclaimed on December 13, 1946 by U.S. President Truman.

Paris Peace Conference ended on 10 February 1947 with the signing of peace treaties

Paris Peace Treaties, 1947

The Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Paris Peace Treaties signed on February 10, 1947. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland .The...

by the wartime Allies with the minor European Axis powers (Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, and Finland

Finland

).

The Federal Republic of Germany had its first government formed on September 20, 1949 while the German Democratic Republic was formed on October 7.

End of state of war with Germany was declared by many former Western Allies in 1950. In the Petersberg Agreement

Petersberg agreement

The Petersberg Agreement is an international treaty that extended the rights of the Federal Government of Germany vis-a-vis the occupying forces of Britain, France, and the United States, and is viewed as the first major step of Federal Republic of Germany towards sovereignty...

of November 22, 1949, it was noted that the West German government wanted an end to the state of war, but the request could not be granted. The U.S. state of war with Germany was being maintained for legal reasons, and though it was softened somewhat it was not suspended since "the U.S. wants to retain a legal basis for keeping a U.S. force in Western Germany".
At a meeting for the Foreign Ministers of France, the UK, and the U.S. in New York from September 12-December 19, 1950, it was stated that among other measures to strengthen West Germany

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

's position in the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

that the western allies would "end by legislation the state of war with Germany". In 1951, many former Western Allies did end their state of war with Germany: Australia (9 July), Canada, Italy, New Zealand, the Netherlands (26 July), South Africa, the United Kingdom (9 July), and the United States (October 19). The state of war between Germany and the Soviet Union was ended in early 1955.

"The full authority of a sovereign state" was granted to the Federal Republic of Germany on May 5, 1955 under the terms of the Bonn–Paris conventions. The treaty end the military occupation of West German territory, but the three occupying powers retained some special rights, e.g. vis-à-vis West Berlin

West Berlin

West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

.

Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany
Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany
The Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany, was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic , and the Four Powers which occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the...

: Under the terms of this peace treaty

Peace treaty

A peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, that formally ends a state of war between the parties...

, the Four Powers renounced all rights they formerly held in Germany, including Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. As a result, Germany became fully sovereign

Sovereignty

Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...

on March 15, 1991. Germany remains however without the normal protection of the UN charter due to articles 53 and 107 in the charter which has not been amended since the end of the war.

Concentration camps and refugees

In the last months of the war and immediately afterwards, Allied soldiers discovered a number of locations that had been used by the Nazis to imprison and exterminate an estimated 11 million people, 6 million of whom were Jews. Romanis, Slavs, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...

and various minorities and disabled persons, as well as political enemies of the Nazi regime (particularly communists

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

) formed the remaining 5 million.

The best-known of these camps is the death camp Auschwitz

Auschwitz concentration camp

Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...

in which about 1.1–1.6 million Jews and political prisoners were killed. Studies estimate that the total lives lost in the holocaust could have been anywhere from 11 to 17 million.

Timeline of surrenders and deaths

Concentration camps and refugees

See also

Further reading