Innsbrucker Nachrichten (April 28, 1945)
Der Ruhhandel in San Franzisko
Die diplomatischen Besprechungen und die Gegenvorschläge der Kleinstaaten
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Hermann Göring erkrankt
Berlin, 27. April – Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, der bereits seit längerer Zeit an einem schweren, jetzt in ein akutes Stadium getretenen Herzleiden erkrankt ist, hat den Führer gebeten, ihn von seinen Funktionen als Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe zu entbinden. Der Führer hat dieser Bitte stattgegeben und Generaloberst Ritter von Greim unter gleichseitiger Ernennung zum Generalfeldmarschall zum Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe ernannt.
Führer HQ (April 28, 1945)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
In dem heroischen Kampf der Stadt Berlin kommt noch einmal vor aller Welt der Schicksalskampf des deutschen Volkes gegen den Bolschewismus zum Ausdruck. Während in einem in der neuen Geschichte einmaligen grandiosen Ringen die Hauptstadt verteidigt wird, haben unsere Truppen an der Elbe den Amerikanern den Rücken gekehrt, um von außen her im Angriff die Verteidiger von Berlin zu entlasten.
In den inneren Verteidigungsring ist der Feind von Norden her in Charlottenburg und im Süden über das Tempelhofer Feld eingebrochen. Am Halleschen Tor, am Schlesischen Bahnhof und am Alexanderplatz hat der Kampf um den Stadtkern begonnen. Die Ost-West-Achse liegt unter schwerem Feuer. Fliegende Verbände unterstützten die Kämpfe unter aufopferndem Einsatz der Besatzungen. Trotz stärkster Jagd- und Flakabwehr wurden bei Tag und Nacht Eingreifreserven gelandet und Munition abgeworfen. Unsere Jagd- und Schlachtfliegerverbände vernichteten in den letzten vier Tagen 15 Flugzeuge, 58 Panzer und über 300 Fahrzeuge.
Im Raum südlich Königs Wusterhausen setzten die Divisionen der neunten Armee zum Angriff nach Nordwesten fort und erwehrten sich während des ganzen Tages konzentrischen Angriffen der Sowjets gegen die Flanken. Die von Westen eingesetzten Divisionen warfen den Feind in erbittertem Ringen auf breiter Front zurück und haben Ferch erreicht. Westlich Berlin wurde die Linie Brandenburg-Rathenow-Dremen gegen alle feindlichen Angriffe behauptet. Im Raume von Prenzlau warfen die Sowjets neue Panzer- und Infanterieverbände in den Kampf und erzwangen unter starkem Schlachtfliegereinsatz tiefe Einbrüche. Im nordwestdeutschen Raum kam es gestern nur zu örtlichen Kämpfen. In Bremen hält der Kampfkommandant mit dem Rest der tapferen Besatzung den Nordostteil der Stadt.
An der Donau drang der Feind in Regensburg und Ingolstadt ein. Zwischen Dillingen und Ulm setzten die Amerikaner ihren Vorstoß nach Süden fort. Kämpfe sind im Mindel- und Günztal im Gange. Die Armee in Italien setzte sich hinter den Po und Tessin ab. Während sich die Sowjets im Südabschnitt der Ostfront auf starke örtliche Vorstöße beschränkten, setzten sie ihre Angriffe im Raume Brünn mit starken Kräften fort und konnten trotz zäher Gegenwehr der Besatzung in die Stadt eindringen. Nordwestlich Bautzen, wo bei Meißen die Verbindung mit der Westfront hergestellt wurde, sind unsere Truppen zum Angriff nach Norden angetreten.
Sicherungsfahrzeuge der Kriegsmarine versenkten östlich Gotenhafen ein sowjetisches Schnellboot und schossen ein weiteres in Brand. Schwächere amerikanische Kampfverbände führten am Tage Angriffe gegen Orte in Süddeutschland. in der Nacht herrschte im übrigen Reichsgebiet nur geringe feindliche Kampftätigkeit. Kleinst-Unterseeboote versenkten aus dem stark bewachten feindlichen Nachschubverkehr zwischen Themse und Schelde zwei vollbeladene Schiffe mit 8.000 Tonnen.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (April 28, 1945)
FROM
(A) SHAEF MAIN
ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section
DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
281100B April
TO FOR ACTION
(1) AGWAR
(2) NAVY DEPARTMENT
TO (W) FOR INFORMATION (INFO)
(3) TAC HQ 12 ARMY GP
(4) MAIN 12 ARMY GP
(5) AIR STAFF MAIN
(6) ANCXF
(7) EXFOR MAIN
(8) EXFOR REAR
(9) DEFENSOR, OTTAWA
(10) CANADIAN C/S, OTTAWA
(11) WAR OFFICE
(12) ADMIRALTY
(13) AIR MINISTRY
(14) UNITED KINGDOM BASE
(15) SACSEA
(16) CMHQ (Pass to RCAF & RCN)
(17) COM ZONE
(18) SHAEF REAR
(19) SHAEF MAIN
(20) HQ SIXTH ARMY GP
(21) WCIA OR OWI WASHINGTON FOR RELEASE TO COMBINED U.S. AND CANADIAN PRESS AND RADIO AT 0900 HOURS GMT
(REF NO.)
NONE
(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR
Communiqué No. 385
UNCLASSIFIED: Allied forces east of the Dutch-German frontier cleared the Rheiderland Peninsula. We occupied the whole of Bremen including the docks. West of Zeven we captured Kirchtimke.
Enemy ships and barges off Cuxhaven; road and rail traffic in the areas of Wilhelmshaven, Oldenburg and Bremen; motor transport between Kiel, Wismar and Wittenberge, and a convoy on the Perleberg-Kritz road were attacked by fighter bombers and rocket-firing fighters.
Our forces have effected a firm juncture with elements of the Russian First Ukrainian Army at Torgau on the Elbe River.
To the south, our units reached a point two miles north of Eger (Cheb) in Czechoslovakia.
Our infantry captured Furth, near the German-Czechoslovakian frontier, and other elements reached the vicinity of Drachselsried in the area northwest of Regen.
Our armor entered Austria at a point two miles south of the intersection of the German, Czechoslovakian and Austrian borders. Other armored elements entered Gegenbach one mile west of the Austrian border.
In the area east of Straubing, our units reached a point one mile northwest of Deggendorf, the Danube River near Bogen, and the vicinity of Straubing north of the river.
South of the Danube, we captured Regensburg. East of Regensburg our bridgehead across the Danube is eight miles wide and four miles deep. West of the town our bridgehead across the Danube is six miles wide and two and one-half miles deep.
Farther southwest we reached the Danube on an 11-mile front and crossed at Eining and at a point five miles southwest of Eining.
Ingolstadt has been captured. In the area east and northeast of the town, our armor captured Menning and entered Forchheim and Mailing. In an advance along the Munich-Nuremberg autobahn our infantry reached a point three and one-half miles south of Ingolstadt.
West of Ingolstadt, our units pushed five miles south of the Danube and to the southwest, we closed on Augsburg from north, west and south. Forward elements are within five miles of the city on the northwest and within eight miles of it to the south.
A number of points were reached on the Lech River along a front of 20 miles to the north and 20 miles to the south of Augsburg. From east of the Iller Canal, armored units advanced 25 miles eastward to cross the Lech at Landsberg.
South of Memmingen, armored spearheads thrust 20 miles southward to Kempten, 12 miles from the Austrian border.
The pocket south of Stuttgart has been eliminated except for stragglers who are being mopped up.
On the Swiss border, Constance was captured.
The Black Forest Pocket, now an area of about 250 square miles just north of the Swiss frontier, is being steadily reduced.
From ten miles east of Ingolstadt to the Iller Canal area, 11,346 prisoners were taken. Between the Iller Canal and the Rhine, 6,500 were captured.
Allied forces in the west captured 46,694 prisoners 26 April.
Road and rail traffic in the Prague-Pilsen-Munich triangle; enemy armor, motor transport, fortified buildings and an ammunition dump in the Munich and Augsburg areas; airfields near München, Straubing and Salzburg; and collection point for enemy troops at Schrobenhausen, between Augsburg and Ingolstadt, were bombed by fighter-bombers.
During the day’s operations, two enemy aircraft were shot down. Seven of our fighters are missing.
COORDINATED WITH: G-2, G-3 to C/S
THIS MESSAGE MAY BE SENT IN CLEAR BY ANY MEANS
/s/
Precedence
“OP” - AGWAR
“P” - Others
ORIGINATING DIVISION
PRD, Communique Section
NAME AND RANK TYPED. TEL. NO.
D. R. JORDAN, Lt Col FA4655
AUTHENTICATING SIGNATURE
/s/
U.S. Navy Department (April 28, 1945)
CINCPOA Communiqué No. 346
Troops of the XXIV Army Corps moved slowly forward in the Southern sector of Okinawa on April 27 (East Longitude Date) destroying pillboxes, caves and strong points. Heavy artillery was employed to break up troop concentrations in the enemy’s rear areas and planes of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing joined with carrier aircraft of the Pacific Fleet to give close support to the troops. Naval gunfire continued to be effective in destroying enemy fortified positions.
During the night of April 27‑28, two groups of enemy aircraft attacked U.S. shipping off Okinawa beaches causing some damage and sinking one auxiliary surface unit. Twenty-five enemy aircraft were shot down and two were probably destroyed. Enemy small craft activity increased during the night and a number of small boats were destroyed by our forces.
On April 28, combat air patrols from fast carriers shot down 32 enemy planes in the areas around Okinawa, Kikai and Yaku Islands in the Ryukyus.
Search aircraft of Fleet Air Wing One sank three small cargo ships, forced another to beach and damaged several other small ships in the area around Kyushu on April 28.
Aircraft from escort carriers of the Pacific Fleet continued to bomb and strafe airfields on islands of the Sakishimas on April 27.
Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force bombed installations at Truk in the central Carolines on April 26. A search Privateer of FlAirWing One sank a small ship and several fishing boats in Truk Harbor on April 28.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 28, 1945)
Rebellion in Munich
Two U.S. armies near Bavarian city as rebels ask help
Slashing ahead in the south, the U.S. Third and Seventh Armies were running riot over the defenses of the Nazi redoubt. An anti-Nazi revolution was raging in Munich. The Seventh Army reached the Austrian border at Fuessen. The Third Army, across the border to the east, was driving for a junction with the Second Ukrainian Army west of Vienna. To the north, the First Ukrainian Army reached the Elbe River and another junction with the U.S. First Army at Wittenberg.
PARIS, France (UP) – Revolutionists seized control in Munich today and radioed an urgent appeal for American help in overthrowing the Nazis.
At midday, however, a broadcast purporting to come from the Nazi gauleiter in the city claimed the uprising had been suppressed.
From confused radio broadcasts and censored front dispatches, one clear fact emerged – the fires of revolution had been lighted in Bavaria, once the strongest citadel of Nazidom.
And two U.S. armies were racing in on Munich from positions less than 30 miles to the west and north in answer to a desperate appeal from the rebels for immediate help.
The Nazi gauleiter called on Bavaria to continue what obviously was a hopeless fight against the converging American armies and declared that the Munich “traitors” had been dealt with ruthlessly.
There was no confirmation of the Nazi claim which in itself was the first enemy admission that the dreaded peace revolution had begun, just as it did in 1918 in the final hours of World War I.
‘Hour of freedom has struck’
Field dispatches from the Third Army front identified the rebel leader as Gen. Franz Ritter von Epp, last reported as a member of the Hitler government and one of the first Nazis elected to the Reichstag.
A rebel broadcast to the people of Munich and apparently also to French slave workers in Bavaria quoted von Epp as announcing that Germany’s capitulation was “imminent” and that “the hour of freedom has struck.”
Von Epp, or a spokesman, declared that he had decided to break off the fighting against the Americans.
He said:
In this hour, there is but one thing that matters, namely calmly and with faith in the new leadership to see to it that the bloodshed be discontinued and that the calamity which has befallen the German people be not aggravated by a fight between Germans and Germans.
Preserve calm and order, thereby making it possible for the new leaders to restore normal life as quickly as possible.
Later, a speaker claiming to be Paul Giesler, Nazi gauleiter of Munich and Upper Bavaria, broadcast over the same wavelength a claim that the Nazis had regained control of the situation.
He admitted that some of the rebels still were at large, although he contended the uprising was staged by a “handful” of traitors led by an obscure German Army captain.
Appeals to Bavarians to back Nazis
Without naming von Epp, the Nazi spokesman charged the rebels with the false use of high Nazi names as a “front” for their movement.
He said in an appeal to the people of Bavaria to stand by the Nazi regime:
By mentioning the names of high officers, this captain, who speaks over a treasonable transmitter, is deceiving the population.
Apart from his small band, a mere handful of men, nobody has the slightest intention of making an end of the struggle in this fight for our homeland.
Do not let yourselves be turned in treason. Nobody will follow a man who sells Germany. He will not escape his punishment… Wherever individual traitors appear they must be dealt with on the spot.”
Von Epp appealed to the Americans to bomb Field Marshal Albert Kesselring’s headquarters at Pullach, six miles south of Munich.
United Press writer Robert Richards reported from the Third Army Front that the spokesman announced formation of a “Free Action of Bavaria” group and warned that any Germans remaining loyal to the Nazis would be treated as war criminals.
Confirmation of the Munich revolution came on the Swiss border from a high diplomat who arrived in Switzerland with a story of disorder and anti-Nazi violence throughout the Reich.
The diplomat said Hitler and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels had been shot three days ago.
Regensburg and Augsburg, twin outer citadels of Munich 60 and 30 miles to the north and northwest, were in American hands and German troops were surrendering by the thousands all around the city’s approaches.
At the same time, U.S. Seventh Army troops raced down to the Austrian border at Fuessen, 55 miles southwest of Munich, in an apparent bid to envelop the former Nazi citadel and choke off any possible reinforcement through the Brenner Pass from Italy.
At Fuessen, the Yanks were only 38 miles from Innsbruck, northern gate to the Brenner Pass.
Gen. George S. Patton’s U.S. Third Army was closing on Munich from the north after capturing Regensburg, and his armored task forces were plunging into Austria 60-odd miles farther east in a drive that threatened to envelop Hitler’s Alpine hideout at Berchtesgaden.
Gen. Patton’s troops were in direct radio contact with Russian troops in Austria and field dispatches said the two armies were on the verge of linking up for a joint assault on Berchtesgaden.
Coming on the heels of the American-Russian juncture in the north that cut Germany in two and split the enemy’s surviving divisions into isolated islands of resistance, the American hammer blows in the south plainly were beating Hitler’s Reich to its knees.
55,000 surrender
On the northern and western roads to Munich, the U.S. Third and Seventh Armies were running roughshod over the wreckage of what had been the mightiest military machine m history.
An estimated 55,000 crack Nazi troops surrendered to the Americans in the area yesterday: 32,000 taken by Gen. Patton’s troops and 23,000 by Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch’s Seventh Army.
The survivors of the Bavarian host that Hitler had gathered to hold the ramparts of his southern redoubt were scattering in wild confusion through the mountain passes south and southeast of Munich.
Capture Landsberg
Units of Gen. Patch’s 10th Armored Division struck down to Fuessen and the Austrian border and sent a strong column to take Landsberg, midway between Augsburg and Fuessen and 28 miles due west of Munich.
Gen. Patton’s troops on the Seventh Army’s left flank were spilling across the Danube on a broad front east and west of Regensburg.
With that city firmly in their hands, the Third Army troops raced more than 10 miles southward in a half-dozen columns last night to reach positions less than 40 miles from Munich.
All organized resistance appeared to have broken in their path and it seemed likely that they would be at the gates of Munich with the Seventh Army in a matter of hours.
German resistance was also beginning to fall apart in the northwestern coastal pocket, where British Second Army troops cleared the last diehard Nazi fanatics from the wrecked docks of Bremen.
Other British troops and units of the Canadian First Army converged on the Wilhelmshaven-Emden coastal area with increasing speed, and front dispatches said the remaining Germans there were believed fleeing by sea to Norway and Denmark.
Himmler asks peace
Offer of surrender must include Russia, U.S., Britain tell Nazis
LONDON, England (UP) – The government today took official cognizance, without affirmation or denial, of a report that Heinrich Himmler had offered to guarantee the unconditional surrender of Germany to America and Britain – excluding Russia – and had received a blunt rejection.
A statement from No. 10 Downing Street, apparently written by Prime Minister Churchill, hinted that some offer of capitulation might be received from the Nazis at any time.
In Washington, the White House disclaimed knowledge of the reported German peace offer, but made clear that when unconditional surrender comes it must be offered to all of the Allies.
The exceptional procedure of issuing such a statement, coupled with its assertion that the government had no information on the subject “at this moment,” suggested that Mr. Churchill might be standing by for any proposal.
The report on which the official statement was based said that Himmler, German interior minister and Gestapo chief, offered to guarantee the unconditional surrender of Germany to the United States and Britain.
In the words of the Downing Street statement, the report added that the Western Allies “replied, saying that they will not accept unconditional surrender except on behalf of all the Allies including Russia.”
Message quoted
The version of the report as broadcast by the Allied-controlled Luxembourg radio and recorded here by the BBC said:
The following message has been conveyed to the foreign ministers of the United States, Great Britain and Russia.
Heinrich Himmler has sent a message in which he guarantees the unconditional surrender of Germany to the United States and Great Britain. The governments of the United States and Great Britain have replied that unconditional surrender will only be accepted if the offer is addressed to all the Allies.
Report not denied
Soon after the Luxembourg broadcast, No. 10 Downing Street, official residence of the Prime Minister, issued the formal statement on the report.
Nowhere did the statement say that the report was false. The implication appeared to be that it might be true. The statement said only that the government had no information to give about it.
It concluded with a reiteration of the oft-expressed Allied policy:
It must be emphasized that only unconditional surrender to the three major powers will be entertained, and that the closest accord prevails between the three powers.
Warning renewed
Thus was renewed implicitly the warning to the remnants of Germany that there was no need to try the old dodge of playing the Anglo-Americans against the Russians.
In the past, Himmler has been reputed to feel that Germany should make a deal with Russia, whereas the other Nazi leaders favored the Western powers.
Himmler himself has faded away in the fog shrouding the twilight of Nazism. He has been rumored dead on several occasions recently. It was impossible to ascertain how he might have made the reported offer to the Allies.
White House: ‘Nothing to say’
WASHINGTON (UP) – The White House today disclaimed knowledge of an official German peace offer, but made clear that when unconditional surrender comes it be offered to all of the Allies.
White House Press Secretary Jonathan Daniels, in response to inquiries about reports from Europe that Germans had offered to surrender to the United States and Great Britain, but not to Russia, said:
It is clear at a time like this that there will be lots of rumors, and it is equally clear that there can be no offer of unconditional surrender that does not include all the Allies.
This government has nothing to say at this time.
Under questioning, Mr. Daniels said he knew nothing about any peace proposals from Europe.
Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew said he had nothing to say at this time on the reported surrender offer.
It was learned, however, that the State Department’s European experts had been called into a special meeting early today. Purpose of the emergency session was not disclosed, but the group included department experts on Germany and Allied plans for post-war control of the defeated enemy country.
Berlin almost clear of Nazis, Moscow says
Few enemy troops left in capital
LONDON, England (UP) – The Nazi suicide garrison of Berlin has virtually been wiped out, Moscow dispatches said today.
Only relatively small units of fanatical elite guards and Volkssturmers (home guards) remained to fight the last hours of the nearly-ended battle, the dispatches said, after Soviet forces killed or captured 19,500 Nazi troops yesterday.
The German High Command admitted that Soviet troops had slashed to the Brandenburg Gate and Alexander Platz in the heart of Berlin.
Sounds like pep talk
A Nazi communiqué said German troops on the Elbe have turned their backs on the Americans in order to relieve the defenders of Berlin by “attacks from outside.” But it sounded like a pep talk.
The Russian barrier around the capital was now wide, and two U.S. armies were ready to pounce from the rear on any army turning toward Berlin.
At the Brandenburg Gate, the Russians were a block from where the famous Hotel Adlon stood and almost as close to the Reichstag building. Adolf Hitler’s Reichs Chancellery was only a few hundred feet to the southeast.
Reach Elbe
A Moscow dispatch said Soviet Cossack divisions swept nearly 50 miles west of Berlin and reached the Elbe River opposite the U.S. Ninth Army. The Russians were awaiting an imminent junction with the Ninth Army, Moscow said.
South of Berlin, the Russian Army organ Red Star said, two more Soviet divisions had linked up with the Americans following the original junction at Torgau, 60 miles below the capital.
Red Star said only that the two divisions met the Americans elsewhere than Torgau and added: “The linkup of our armies on a broad front became a fact.”
At least nine-tenths of Berlin was already under Russian control following a new junction of the First White Russian and First Ukrainian Armies in the Charlottenburg district just west of the Tiergarten.
Intensifying their assault, the Russians smashed into Schoenberg and Wilmersdorf, the last two districts south of the Tiergarten and Unter den Linden.
Soviet “daredevil units” swept into the Tiergarten itself, Berlin’s heavily-fortified central park, against “unrelaxingly bitter resistance,” Moscow said.
Bypass War Ministry
These shock forces presumably bypassed the German War Ministry on Bendlerstrasse, beneath which neutral sources have reported Adolf Hitler was directing the defense of Berlin from an underground fortress.
Bendlerstrasse is just south of the Tiergarten.
West of Berlin, Marshal Gregory K. Zhukov’s First White Russian Army captured Rathenow, 32 miles beyond the capital, in a drive within 16 miles of the U.S. Ninth Army along the lower Elbe River.
The First Ukrainian Army south of the capital broadened its corridor of junction with the U.S. First Army by capturing Wittenberg, on the Elbe 25 miles northwest of the original linkup point at Torgau.
North of Berlin, Marshal Konstantin K. Rokossovsky’s Second White Russian Army captured Hammer, 21 miles southeast across Stettin Bay from the German Navy base of Swinemuende, and Angermuende, 31 miles above the capital and 35 miles southwest of Stettin.
New U.S. landing near, Japs say
Tokyo reports fleet massed at Okinawa
GUAM (UP) – Tokyo said today that a 100-ship American invasion fleet off Okinawa appeared to be preparing for “new operations.”
The fleet includes four or five battleships, six cruisers, 10-odd destroyers and approximately 80 transports, a Tokyo broadcast said.
On Okinawa itself, XXIV Army Corps troops in the southern sector reached the vicinity of Machinato Airfield, two miles north of the capital city of Naha, in a general advance. Enemy strongpoints in the west coast village of Nakama were bypassed.
The Americans were believed already through the strongest Jap defenses and the complete conquest of the island appeared in sight.
Nearly 400 miles to the northeast, American B-29 Superfortresses blasted six Jap suicide-plane bases on Kyushu, southernmost of the Jap home islands today for the third straight day.
It was the first time that the giant bombers have carried out such a sustained offensive. Between 100 and 150 B-29s participated in the attack, bombing from medium altitudes.
A few Jap planes broke through to the American ships off Okinawa yesterday morning, a Pacific Fleet communiqué said.
A Tokyo broadcast reported the “apparent preparations” by the American Fleet for new operations. It said 10 transports were in Nago Bay on the west coast of Okinawa, while the remainder of the ships were cruising off the island.
Big Four foreign ministers to run ‘Frisco conference
Compromise reached on leadership but new fight is faced on post-war treaty review
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
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Fiesta of fraternization as Yanks meet Reds
Russians lecture sloppy U.S. writers
By William H. Stoneman
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Russians joyful over juncture
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In Washington –
Bigger meat subsidies demanded by senators
Amendments to price control extension threatened as committee cracks whip
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Pittsburgh girl singer kills Jap
But she was merely trying out machine gun for thrill while entertaining in Pacific
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Crashed plane’s gas supply probed
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SUICIDE OF HITLER NEAR, CAPTURED SPOKESMAN SAYS
End of war few days off, Dittmar claims
Reports Goebbels also in Berlin
By Clinton B. Conger, United Press staff writer
MAGDEBURG, Germany – Adolf Hitler will kill himself or be killed in Berlin within a few hours or days and the war will end, Lt. Gen. Kurt Dittmar, German High Command spokesman, said in his final war commentary – in American custody.
Dittmar, who surrendered to the Ninth Army on the Elbe River Wednesday, told his captors that Hitler and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels were in Berlin and will die there.
Dittmar said:
The war will end in a few days. Hitler will either be killed or he will commit suicide. One of three generals – von Brauchitsch, Guderian, or von Rundstedt – will take control and will make peace immediately on almost any terms.
Talks of redoubts
The elegantly-uniformed general outlined the war situation for correspondents, just as he used to do for Radio Berlin listeners when the Nazi Army was overrunning Europe.
Asked about the Bavarian redoubt, he said, there’s talk about it and the map will now you that to pockets are being formed, one in the north including Norway and Denmark and one in the south in the Alps and Italy. But that is probably less by intention than by force of circumstance.
Al any rate, he thought, the war could not last after the fall of Berlin.
Fears reprisals
Dittmar first crossed the Elbe with a white flag of truce at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday with a major and two enlisted men, who rowed his boat. He tried to arrange for the evacuation of civilians and wounded soldiers in the path of the Russian advance, and when he was refused, he returned to the river bank.
Two and a half hours later, Dittmar returned to surrender accompanied by his 16-year-old son, Bernhardt.
“It occurred to me the highest command might learn I had been here and I was worried about reprisals,” he explained.