The Pittsburgh Press (May 2, 1945)
NAZIS QUIT IN ITALY
Almost million troops affected by surrender; West Austria included
By Herbert G. King, United Press staff writer
SURRENDER IN ITALY by the German forces collapsed the southern side of the Nazi redoubt. Surrender also affected German troops in Western Austria. Meanwhile, the U.S. Third and Seventh Armies were smashing into Austria from the north, and were reported within 40 miles of Berchtesgaden. Far to the north, the British Second Army drove to the Baltic Sea at Wismar, near a juncture with Red Army troops reported near Rostock.
ROYAL PALACE AT CASERTA, Near Naples, Italy (UP) – The German Armies of Northern Italy and Western Austria formally surrendered unconditionally to the Allies today, effective at 8 a.m. ET.
The surrender affects between 600,000 and 900,000 men commanded by Col. Gen. Heinrich von Vietinghoff and Gen. Karl Wolff, chief of police and security for Northern Italy and Western Austria.
Lt. Gen. W. D. Morgan of the British Army, who negotiated on behalf of Field Marshal Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, supreme commander in the Mediterranean Theater, said the terms “in effect are complete and unconditional surrender.”
The documents were signed in the Royal Palace here on Sunday by Gen. Morgan and two German officers, one of whom represented von Vietinghoff and the other Wolff.
The surrender will permit the Allies to make an unhindered advance to within 10 miles of Adolf Hitler’s former country home at Berchtesgaden. It also uncovers the flank of Col. Gen. von Lehr, commanding enemy troops in the Trieste area.
The surrender documents were signed in the presence of a group of Allied officers which included Russians. Secret negotiations for the surrender have been going on for several days.
The terms are the immediate immobilization and disarmament of enemy ground, sea and air forces.
Near Brenner Pass
The surrender imposes upon the German commander-in-chief the obligation to carry out any further orders issued by Marshal Alexander.
Von Vietinghoff’s command includes all of Northern Italy to the Isonzo River and the Austrian provinces of Vorarlberg, Tyrol, Salzburg and parts of Carinthia and Styria.
As the surrender was announced, the positions of the Allied troops in Italy were as follows:
The U.S. Fifth Army north of Lake Garda was within 35 miles of the Austrian border and 83 miles of the Brenner Pass. Farther east, the Fifth Army captured Feltre, 52 miles from the Austrian border. To the southeast, the British Eighth Army captured Udine, 38 miles west of Yugoslavia.
Near French frontier
Fifth Army units on the west were within 35 miles of the French frontier.
Yugoslav Marshal Tito, meanwhile, announced that his forces had captured the Italian port of Trieste. Tito’s forces made a juncture with British troops west of Trieste.
Two thousand troops of the Fascist Italian Ligurian Army’s Lombardy Corps surrendered in response to the capitulation order issued by Marshal Rodolfo Graziani.
Truman: ‘Part of general triumph’
WASHINGTON (UP) – President Truman declared today that the unconditional surrender of German forces in Italy was “but a part of the general triumph we are expectantly awaiting on the whole continent of Europe.”
At the same time, he called upon Japan as well as Germany to “understand the meaning of these events.”
Mr. Truman said “only folly and chaos can now delay the general capitulation of the everywhere defeated German armies.”
And the Japanese, too, he added, “must recognize the meaning of the increasing, swifter-moving power now ready for the capitulation or the destruction of the so-recently arrogant enemies of mankind.”
First announcement
The president’s was the first announcement in this country or abroad of the German surrender in Italy.
Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew said the German surrender in Italy would greatly reduce “the possibility of prolonged resistance” in Southern Germany and Austria.
The president immediately sent messages to Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander and Gen. Mark Clark, congratulating them for the “complete defeat of the Germans in Italy.”
Thanks generals
In breaking the news of the complete victory over German forces in Italy, the president said “the Allied armies in Italy have won the unconditional surrender of German forces on the first European soil to which, from the west, we carried our arms and our determination.”
In his messages to Marshal Alexander and Gen. Clark, he congratulated them on their persistent, difficult campaign. He said no praise was adequate to tell of “the heroic achievements and magnificent courage of every individual” under their command “during this long and trying campaign.”
The president told this country that the Allied and American officers who led the victorious forces in Italy “deserve our praise for the victory – we have the right to be proud of the success of our armies.”