Marshal Stalin to President Truman
Moscow, May 7, 1945
[Translation]
I am in receipt of your message of May 7, about announcing Germany’s surrender. The Supreme Command of the Red Army is not sure that the order of the German High Command on unconditional surrender will be executed by the German armies on the Eastern Front. We fear, therefore, that if the Government of the USSR announces today the surrender of Germany we may find ourselves in an awkward position and mislead the Soviet public. It should be borne in mind that the German resistance on the Eastern Front is not slackening but, judging by the intercepted radio messages, a considerable grouping of German troops have explicitly declared their intention to continue the resistance and to disobey Dönitz’s surrender order.
For this reason the Command of the Soviet troops would like to wait until the German surrender takes effect and to postpone the Government’s announcement of the surrender till May 9, 7 p.m. Moscow time.
740.00119 EW/5-745: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union to the Secretary of State
Moscow, May 7, 1945 — 2 p.m.
[Received 3:15 p.m.]
1487.
I wish to invite attention to my several telegrams pointing out the markedly casual and inconspicuous treatment which the Soviet press has given to the surrenders of German forces in Italy and in the Western Theater and the general crumbling of German resistance there. News of these events has been made available to the Soviet public only in minor back page items in the daily press, has been accompanied by no editorial comment of any sort and has not been singled out in any way for the attention of the readers.
It is not possible to be sure of the motives dictating this extreme reserve in releasing news of victories which one might have thought would be highly gratifying to both the Soviet Government and public. The most likely explanation, in my opinion, is that the Soviet leaders, while not daring to withhold the news entirely are not happy over the fact that the big local surrenders have been exclusively to our forces and not to theirs; that they do not wish it to be suggested that the forces of the Western nations are less feared and hated than the Soviet forces among the peoples of central Europe and that they choose not to draw the attention of their public to the full extent of German disintegration until they are able to announce complete surrender and cessation of resistance on all fronts, including their own, and to attribute this primarily to the heroic efforts of the Red Army.
Sent Department as 1487, repeated to Paris for Reber and Murphy as 101.
KENNAN