RUTHFULLY YOURS

The War in Europe is Ended! Surrender Is Unconditional; V-E Will Be Proclaimed Today; Our Troops on Okinawa Gain

By Edward Kennedy

Associated Press Correspondent

 

Reims, France, May 7 — Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Western Allies and the Soviet Union at 2:41 A. M. French time today. [This was at 8:41 P.M., Eastern Wartime Sunday.]

The surrender took place at a little red school house that is the headquarters of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The surrender, which brought the war in Europe to a formal end after five years, eight months and six days of bloodshed and destruction, was signed for Germany by Col. Gen. Gustav Jodl. General Jodl is the new Chief of Staff of the German Army.

The surrender was signed for the Supreme Allied Command by Lieut. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, Chief of Staff for General Eisenhower.

It was also signed by Gen. Ivan Susloparoff for the Soviet Union and by Gen. Francois Sevez for France.

[The official Allied announcement will be made at 9 o’clock Tuesday morning when President Truman will broadcast a statement and Prime Minster Churchill will issue a V-E Day proclamation, Gen. Charles de Gaulle also will address the French at the same time.]

General Eisenhower was not present at the signing, but immediately afterward General Jodl and his fellow delegate, Gen. Admiral Hans Georg Friedeburg, were received by the Supreme Commander.

Germans Say They Understand Terms

They were asked sternly if they understand the surrender terms imposed upon Germany and if they would be carried out by Germany.

They answered Yes.

Germany, which began the war with a ruthless attack upon Poland, followed by successive aggressions and brutality in internment camps, surrendered with an appeal to the victors for mercy toward the German people and armed forces.

After having signed the full surrender, General Jodl said he wanted to speak and received leave to do so.

“With this signature,” he said in soft-spoken German, “the German people and armed forces are for better or worse delivered into the victors’ hands.

“In this war, which has lasted more than five years, both have achieved and suffered more than five years, both have achieved and suffered more than perhaps and other people in the world.”

[The first announcement that Germany had capitulated came at 8:09 A.M., Eastern Wartime, when German Foreign Minister Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk stated in a broadcast over the Flensburg radio that Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, new Chancellor of Germany, had ordered the unconditional surrender of all German armed forces.

[In his broadcast announcing the German surrender, Count Schwerin von Krosigk called upon the Germans “to stand loyally by the obligations we have undertaken.”

[“Then we may hope that the atmosphere of hatred which today surrounds Germany all over the world will give place to a spirit of reconciliation among the nations, without which the world cannot recover,” he added. “Then we may hope that our freedom will be restored to us, without which no nation can lead a bearable and dignified existence.”]

Germany’s formal capitulation marked the official end of war in Europe, but it did not silence all the guns, for battles went on in Czechoslovakia.

Boehme Says Troops Were Unbeaten

In Norway, however, Gen. Franz Boehme, German Commander in Chief, broadcast an Order of the Day over the Oslo radio tonight commanding his troops to lay down their arms in obedience to Count Schwerin von Krosigk’s “announcement of unconditional surrender of all German fighting troops.”

The Norwegian garrison surrendered at the order of Boehme, who said that the capitulation “hits us very hard because we are unbeaten and in full possession of our strength in Norway and no enemy has dared to attack us.”

“In spite of all that,” he added, “in the interests of all that is German we also shall have to obey the dictate of our enemies. We hope that in the future we shall have to deal with men on the other side who respect a soldier’s honor * * * clench your teeth and keep discipline and order. Obey your superiors. Remain what you have been up to now – descent German soldiers who love their people and homeland more than anything in the world.”

He said he also “expected” that the Norwegian population “will keep the discipline with respect to the Germans that the German soldiers in Norway always kept toward the Norwegians.”

Under the terms of the capitulation, the Germans will march across the border into internment in Sweden.

The Swedish Telegraph Agency in a broadcast said an Allied naval force of forty-eight ships had been sighted at the entrance of Oslo Ford and a landing was expected “at any moment.”

Sevez Says Negotiators Differed

By Wireless to The New York Times

Paris, May 7 — There was one official voice on the surrender heard in Paris tonight or rather it will be heard when the Figaro appears tomorrow morning. That was the voice of General Sevez who, in spite of German’s capitulation, told a reporter for the Figaro, that it was he who had signed the capitulation for France.

General Sevez said that the discussion sent on all afternoon and late into the night. German General Friedeberg seemed crushed by the emotional effect of the surrender, General Sevez said.

“Sometimes we were separated from the Germans and discussed questions among the Allies,” he declared. “Sometimes the Germans took places facing us. Each point discussed led to further discussion.

“We were seated behind a narrow school table. General Smith had General [Lieut. Gen. Sir Frederick E.] Morgan and me at his right while General Susloparoff was at his left. When the Germans came in, we were already seated. All three Germans bowed before us without a word.

“Repeatedly the Germans went to a telephone booth connected directly with Doenitz. We did the same to talk with our superiors. Only General Smith remained in direct contact with General Eisenhower, whose residence was at Reims.

“When the capitulation was signed General Eisenhower received the three Germans. It was finished at 2:40 o’clock Monday morning. I was called by telephone by General Eisenhower who put a plane at my disposal to take me to Reims. Soon afterward I arrived in the small schoolhouse where the offices of the Supreme Command were.”

General Sevez, who is Assistant Chief of Staff of the French Army, said he was called because the French Chief of Staff, Gen. Alphonse-Pierre Juin, was in San Francisco.

Surrender of Criminals Required

By Wireless to The New York Times

London, May 7 — The terms made ready for Germany by the European Advisory Commission are believed first of all to call for the disarmament of all forces, the surrender of war criminals and complete obedience to the orders of Allied Military Government authorities for restoring order in Germany.

At a time to be jointly decided by the Allies, the Allied Control Commission, composed of the Commanders in Chief of the British, American, Soviet and French forces in Germany, will take charge of the Reich.

The permanent shape of the future Reich is not expected to be decided until the peace conference is held, perhaps two years hence, but some adjustments of the German border in favor of Poland and the Soviet Union may take place in the interim.

One question that may be settled ‘promptly’ is that of drafting labor from Germany to rebuild the devastated European countries. More than 10,000,000 men may soon be in Allied captivity and until peace has been signed they will remain prisoners of war and can be sent to work wherever they are needed.

The British and American forces will soon have captured more Germans than the total number of men in their own forces and consideration must be given to the reallocating of these prisoners.