WASHINGTON (UP) – Soldiers recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor by their commanders will be immediately relieved from hazardous duty, the War Department announced today.
Recipients, except for Regular Army officers will be discharged from the service upon application.
The policy is applicable to 82 holders of the Medal of Honor now serving in the Army. Four others are missing in action.
WASHINGTON – Floodlights played on the U.S. Capitol dome and the Washington Monument from dusk last night until dawn today in celebration of Victory in Europe.
By Walker Stone
WASHINGTON – Impressions of a civilian just returned from a tour covering the final two weeks of the European war:
Not in modern times, surely, has a nation been so utterly defeated as Germany.
Plough under the rubble of Cologne and Coblenz, sow the areas with salt, and you have Carthage all over again.
The city of Essen, home of the great Krupp works, and through the Ruhr where we drove, is an expanse of debris – shattered masonry and twisted steel girders where great industrial plants once were. Blasted homes, demolished bridges, locomotives and freight cars lying in the ditches. No vehicles are on the road, except American Army jeeps and trucks – our tanks, artillery and halftracks had long since passed on into Germany’s interior.
Wrecked equipment of the once-mighty Wehrmacht lines the roadside. Once-haughty generals, gauleiters, oberlieutenants fled or surrendered. Their demoralized troops hiding out or eating well in our prisoner-of-war camps.
How about inviting Jap generals?
It was a good idea of Gen. Eisenhower to invite groups of well-nourished and skeptical editors to come to Germany to be convinced of the atrocities in the political prisoner-slave labor camps of Buchenwald and Dachau.
It might be a better idea to invite groups of Jap generals, industrialists and political leaders to tour that devastated land and be convinced they’d better surrender unconditionally while they still have something to surrender.
Miserable people in those industrial areas – miserable but unrepentant. No sense of guilt, no sense of shame no feeling of responsibility for what Germany has brought on the world and on herself.
Only knowledge of defeat, fear of consequences, and self-pity. The unfathomable German mind claims credit to the whole people for the achievements of any one, but disavows all individual or collective blame for the acts of their organized society.**
America, they say, made a “mistake” in “interfering” with their war. But now that it is all over, ands our Army is on the scene, won’t the Americans please save the “innocent” Germans from those “awful” Russians? Yes, they would like to forget everything and start again from scratch.
Hot water, yes; windows, no
Munich, hometown of the Nazi Party, once had a population the size of Washington’s. Now it is doubtful that 10,000 sleep between sheets and with a roof overhead. There’s only one small hotel with hot water, and it has no windows.
The beer hall where the Nazi Party was born is only a shell. The beer hall of the “Putsch” blown up, rebuilt, bombed again – and down in the famous cellar is the loot of the synagogues of Europe, and the litter of mementoes of the Nazis’ years of power. A bronze bust of Horst Wessel lies dusty on the floor.
In the largest and grandest of the beer halls is a desk bearing a plaque which says it was the first desk used by Adolf Hitler. Our Army used that desk to sign the orders for the military government of Munich.
In front of Munich’s city hall, from where our Army now governs, stood a large crowd of Germans, come to petition for redress. Most of their protests were about the petty thievery of overcoats and bicycles by “displaced persons.”
DPs are the liberated slaves of Germany – Poles, Russians, French, Belgians, Dutch, Danes, Norwegians, you see plodding endlessly along every country road, on foot and on bicycles, trying to find their way back home.
We asked the protesting Germans whether they knew of the privations suffered by slaves and political prisoners at the nearby horror camp of Dachau. They pretended to know nothing about that.
We asked if they ever congregated to protest about anything while Hitler ruled.
“No. of course not – but the Americans are different!”
We asked if they thought the city of Munich could ever be rebuilt.
“Yes, if we can get the money to do it.”
“And where do you expect to get the money?”
“From America, maybe – we hope.”
Untouched in Munich is the building where Chamberlain and Daladier signed the Munich Pact. Untouched also are the two impressive monuments enclosing the iron caskets of the 16 Nazi hoodlums who were killed in the ill-fated “putsch.” It will be interesting to observe how the Germans feel about leaving those monuments standing.
By Fred Othman
WASHINGTON – V-E Day was a surprise to me. I was looking for dancing in the streets.
President Truman made the announcement. There was a whoop and a crash in the White House.
Then throughout the capital the biggest news of the generation had no more outward, superficial effect on the population than the rain that slithered down outside. Thankfulness, yes – and on with the job.
So it was at the Senate too.
For a solid hour I listened to the Senate War Investigating Committee investigate the carbon black situation. Carbon black is a kind of soot. Our current capacity is 1,104,000 tons of the stuff per year, or enough to make about all the auto tires we’ll need, the War Production Board hopes. The experts talked about carbon black and nobody jumped up or down or even mentioned the fact that there was no war in Europe.
I went over to the House (after stopping off for a porkchop lunch) and there was some oratory there under the floodlights. But it was no joyous celebration. Mostly they were talking about the hard job ahead in the Pacific. They were right, of course.
Widow Smith disappointed
Downtown the federal clerks were clerking as usual. There were a couple of streamers of sodden ticker tape hanging from a press building window. Three ladies stood in a second-floor beauty parlor around the corner and threw out torn-up bits of paper, but nobody paid them any attention.
By all outward signs it was just another May 8; a wet one at that. And it brought disappointment to the Widow Smith. Poor gal.
She’s the wife of Merriman Smith, White House correspondent of the United Press. Her husband spent so much time traveling with the late President Roosevelt that people began to call her a widow.
When President Truman went into the White House, she thought perhaps she’d get to see her husband occasionally. It was not to be. Smith soon began spending a lot of his might hours in the executive offices, waiting for peace to be announced.
The widow then began pinning her wifely hopes on V-E Day. Surely, she said, the coming of peace would let her become acquainted again with her husband. That’s what she thought.
Breaks fast at barrier
Glance back at the second paragraph of this dispatch. You’ll note a reference to a whoop and a crash. That was Smith.
His job is to get the news and deliver it in a hurry. This involves a foot race from the executive office to the White House press room when there is hot news in a presidential press conference.
Smith got away from Mr. Truman’s desk in near-record time, but at the door hit a protruding ladder left there by a photographer and tripped to the floor. Picking himself up on the bounce he kept going and threw himself into his phone booth and began dictating the story you probably read about the presidential speech on peace. It was a good story.
When he’d finished dictating, doctors took over and discovered that he’d seriously dislocated his shoulder when he hit the floor. To the hospital went Smith.
He’s resting easily at this writing. Eventually he’ll get to go home – the widow hopes.
After signature, Keitel requests 24 hours’ grace, meets rebuff
By Joseph W. Grigg Jr., United Press staff writer
MARSHAL ZHUKOV’S HQ, Berlin (UP) – The final seal was set on the German Army’s defeat and humiliation before the world when Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, titular head of the once-proud German High Command, was brought to Marshal Gregory K. Zhukov’s headquarters in the devastated German capital early this morning and signed the formal ratification of Germany’s unconditional surrender.
As one of the first two American newspapermen officially permitted to go to Berlin since the Russian occupation, I witnessed the signature in the large whitewashed hall of an army technical school in the eastern residential suburb Karlshorst, now used by Marshal Zhukov as his headquarters.
The document was more or less identical terms as that signed at Reims on Monday morning, with certain additions requested by the Russians defining more closely the surrender of German troops and equipment.
On the Allied side, it was signed by Marshal Zhukov for the Russians, and by Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur W. Tedder on behalf of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was witnessed by Gen. Carl A. Spaatz and Gen. de Lattre de Tassigny. On the German side, Keitel, as chief of the German Army, signed together with Adm. Friedeburg, commander-in-chief of the German Navy, and Col. Gen. Paul Stumpff, commander-in-chief of the Nazi Air Force.
Bars German claim
With signatures of the heads of all the German Armed Forces appended, this historic document forestalls forever any future German claim that the German Army ended the war unbeaten.
Keitel, tall haughty gray-haired figure wearing the full-dress uniform and red striped pants of a German field marshal, maintained his Prussian arrogance to the bitter end.
After his signature already had been appended to the document and while the Allied chiefs were signing, Keitel made a last-minute attempt to play for time. He beckoned the Russian interpreter to him and began haranguing him bitterly protesting there was an insufficient time to notify the forces under his command of minor modifications in the capitulation text and asking for another 24 hours’ grace before it became effective.
He could be heard clearly saying to the interpreter: “I insist you go to the colonel general – I mean Marshal Zhukov – and tell him I must demand another 24 hours’ respite.”
The interpreter hesitated and appeared uncertain what to do and finally went and consulted members of Marshal Zhukov’s staff. As no reply was conveyed back to Keitel, it appeared that the Russians ignored the request.
Drove 1,000 miles
For Marshal Zhukov the ceremony was the triumphant climax to a bitter 1,000-mile battle from the ruins of Stalingrad into the heart of devastated Berlin.
Marshal Zhukov’s headquarters were established at Karlshorst as there is not a single building in the whole fantastic nightmare of devastation of Central Berlin that could house even a company headquarters, let alone that of a great army. Keitel, too, had the final supreme humiliation of being driven in a Russian staff car to meet Marshal Zhukov through the blasted shambles of Central Berlin, which witnessed the greatest triumph of his and Hitler’s armed forces a bare 3½ years ago.
Marshal Tedder, Gen. Spaatz and other members of the SHAEF delegation left Reims yesterday morning and touched down on the airstrip at Stendal near the Elbe at 11 a.m., where a rendezvous had been made with a Russian fighter escort and a plane bringing Keitel and Friedeburg from Flensburg.
Stumpff, who once commanded the Nazi Air Force group in Norway and Finland and later had an important Western Front command, rode with Marshal Tedder from Reims. A party of eight American, British and French newsmen and broadcasters flew with Marshal Tedder.
Keitel’s plane was late for the rendezvous and it was not until 12:20 that all five planes took off again. Almost immediately they were joined by an escort of six Russian Yaks, which flew circles around the slow transports all the way into Tempelhof Airport in Berlin.
City like skeleton
As the planes circled slowly over Berlin preparing to land, the city underneath looked like an incredible Wellsian setting. Mile after mile of gaunt, roofless shells of houses stood silent and skeleton-like. There was no traffic in the streets except Russian military vehicles. Over the whole dead capital there was a thick smoke haze. Columns of smoke from buildings still burning could be seen curling lazily into the still air over the city.
The SHAEF delegation was met at the airfield by a guard of honor of a Soviet guards’ regiment with flags of the Soviet Union, United States and Britain. The party was welcomed officially by Army Gen. Ivan Sokolobsky, representing Marshal Zhukov, and a Gen. Bersarin, the Red Army’s commandant for Berlin. During the official presentation, some 60 or more Red Army cameramen and newsreelmen swarmed around the delegation.
The day was warm and sunny. The band played the three national anthems and a guard of honor carrying long bayonets fixed on their rifles gave three hurrahs and staged a formal parade.
The planes landed at 2 p.m. Immediately after the ceremony the Allied delegation and the newsmen were whisked off in a cavalcade of cars through Berlin’s devastated East End to Marshal Zhukov’s headquarters. At 4:30 p.m., Marshal Tedder, Gen. Spaatz and their staff paid a formal call on Marshal Zhukov in his office, a small, simply-furnished room with a red flag and maps as the only decorations on the wall.
In a brief informal ceremony, Marshal Tedder presented Marshal Zhukov with a silken SHAEF banner sent as a personal gift by Gen. Eisenhower. Marshal Zhukov replied with a brief speech of thanks.
Marshal Zhukov, medium-sized and stocky, with his hair close cropped and thinning on top, wore a full-dress uniform and was a dignified soldierly figure throughout. He spoke only Russian.
Confers with Tedder
Keitel and the other Germans, meanwhile, had been escorted to a nearby villa to await the capitulation document. Marshal Zhukov asked Marshal Tedder to stay behind and confer alone with him for a few minutes. The two remained closeted about a half hour while Marshal Tedder gave Marshal Zhukov the draft of the capitulation terms embodying certain changes which the Russians desired. At 5:30 p.m., they came out and Marshal Zhukov asked Marshal Tedder to give him until 8 p.m. (1 p.m. ET) to consider the exact wording.
A long wait then began. At 8 p.m. Marshal Zhukov and the SHAEF experts had not yet agreed on the terms.
Tedder was called away to confer again personally with Marshal Zhukov. It was not until shortly before midnight that the document was finally completed, typed and presented to the Germans.
At midnight, Marshal Zhukov gave word to the delegates to enter the hall for the signing.
The large whitewashed hall of the former Army Technical School was brilliantly lit with Klieg lights, spotlighting the Soviet, American, British and French flags immediately behind the chief Allied delegates. The long tables were arranged like a letter “E.” Marshal Zhukov, stern-faced, took the middle seat, with Marshal Tedder and Soviet Assistant Foreign Commissar Vyshinsky and Adm. Sir Harold Burrough, the Allied supreme naval commander, on his right, and Gen. Spaatz followed by Gen. de Tassigny, who had arrived independently, from the French First Army. Other members of the Allied delegation included American Maj. Gen. H. R. Bull, head of SHAEF G-3, and British Maj. Gen. K. W. D. Strong, head of SHAEF G-2. The newsmen were escorted by Capt. Harry Butcher, USNR; Brig. W. A. S. Turner and Col. Ernest Dupuy, of SHAEF public relations.
Calls Germans
The delegates spent several minutes posing for the Russian photographers who swarmed all over the hall. At 12:07, Marshal Zhukov rose and read the text of the capitulation document and then ordered the German delegation to be brought in.
At 12:25, Keitel walked in and was followed by Friedeburg and Stumpff. Keitel, haughty and self-possessed, his face slightly flushed, slammed his marshal’s baton down on the table and took a seat, looking straight ahead, ignoring the photographers. Once or twice, he fingered his collar and nervously wetted his lips. He was determined, however, to carry his old school Potsdam arrogance through to the bitter end.
The Germans sat at a separate table near the door with four uniformed aides and two Allied interpreters standing behind.
When he was seated Marshal Tedder arose and asked in a cold voice in English: “I ask you: Have you read this document of unconditional surrender? Are you prepared to sign it?” After the translation, Keitel picked up a copy of the document off the table and replied in harsh Prussian accent in German, “Yes, I am ready.”
Marshal Zhukov then motioned him to come over to the table. Keitel picked up his cap, his marshal’s baton and gloves and slowly and carefully inserted his monocle in his right eye, walked over and sat down to sign in a long scrawling hand the single word “Keitel.” The first signature was appended at exactly 12:15 a.m. There was a total of nine copies to sign – three each in Russian, English and German, of which the Russian and English texts were official for the record.
Marches haughtily
After signing, Keitel returned to his seat and Friedeburg and Stumpff followed immediately afterward. Marshal Zhukov, Marshal Tedder and Gens. Spaatz and Tassigny then signed. It was while this was proceeding that the incident of Keitel demanding an extra 24 hours’ grace occurred.
As the signing was completed, Marshal Zhukov rose and said coldly in Russian, “I now request the German delegation to leave the room.”
Keitel rose, snapped together the folder in which he was carrying his copy and marched out haughtily, followed by the other Germans.
The Allied leaders then shook hands all around. Later, Marshal Zhukov gave a banquet to the Allied delegation which lasted till 6 a.m., during which no less than 25 toasts were drunk. In one toast to Gen. Eisenhower, Marshal Zhukov described him as “one of the greatest generals of present times,” adding, “I want him to know how much the Soviet Army and people appreciate his tremendous achievements.”
Keitel returned to Flensburg this morning and Marshal Tedder and Gen. Spaatz to SHAEF.
Hitler would chew carpets if he saw French engineers prying into secrets of chalet
By Jack Fleischer, United Press staff writer
…
…
By Gracie Allen
Well, it’s a relief to get even one war off our hands these days, isn’t it? However, a war of the size we’ve got left used to be more than enough, and I guess it still is.
It seems to be that we have good cause for rejoicing that the fire is out in the West Wing of the house, though still smoldering, of course. But we mustn’t forget that the house is still on fire – in the East Wing. Strangely enough, this is a fire that has to be fought with such things as gasoline and ammunition. So, let’s keep sending our firefighters more supplies – and send them faster than ever before.
By Chester L. Smith, sports editor
…
President objects to 6-month rule
…
…
Temporary decline in output expected
…
…
Großadmirals HQ (May 9, 1945)
20 Uhr und 3 Minuten. Reichssender Flensburg und die angeschlossenen Sender. Wir bringen heute den letzten Wehrmachtsbericht dieses Krieges.
In Ostpreußen haben deutsche Divisionen noch gestern die Weichselmündung und den Westteil der Frischen Nehrung bis zuletzt tapfer verteidigt, wobei sich die 7. Infanterie-Division besonders auszeichnete. Dem Oberbefehlshaber, General der Panzertruppe von Saucken, wurden in Anerkennung der vorbildlichen Haltung seiner Soldaten die Brillanten zum Eichenlaub mit Schwertern zum Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes verliehen.
Als vorgeschobenes Bollwerk fesselten unsere Armeen in Kurland unter dem bewährten Oberbefehl des Generaloberst Hilpert monatelang überlegene sowjetische Schützen- und Panzerverbände und erwarben sich in sechs großen Schlachten unvergänglichen Ruhm. Sie haben jede vorzeitige Übergabe abgelehnt. In voller Ordnung wurden mit den nach Westen noch ausfliegenden Flugzeugen nur Versehrte und Väter kinderreicher Familien abtransportiert. Die Stäbe und Offiziere verblieben bei ihren Truppen. Um Mitternacht wurde von deutscher Seite, entsprechend den unterzeichneten Bedingungen, der Kampf und jede Bewegung eingestellt.
Die Verteidiger von Breslau, die über zwei Monate lang den Angriffen der Sowjets standhielten, erlagen in letzter Stunde nach heldenhaftem Kampf der feindlichen Übermacht. Auch an der Südost- und Ostfront, von Fiume über Brünn bis an die Elbe bei Dresden, haben alle höheren Kommandobehörden den Befehl zur Einstellung des Kampfes erhalten. Eine tschechische Aufstandsbewegung in fast ganz Böhmen und Mähren kann die Durchführung der Kapitulationsbedingungen und die Nachrichtenverbindungen in diesem Raum gefährden. Meldungen über die Lage bei den Heeresgruppen Löhr, Rendulic und Schörner liegen beim Oberkommando der Wehrmacht zur Stunde noch nicht vor. Fern der Heimat haben die Verteidiger der Atlantikstützpunkte, unsere Truppen in Norwegen und die Besatzungen der Ägäischen Inseln in Gehorsam und Disziplin die Waffenehre des deutschen Soldaten gewahrt.
Seit Mitternacht schweigen nun an allen Fronten die Waffen. Auf Befehl des Großadmirals hat die Wehrmacht den aussichtslos gewordenen Kampf eingestellt. Damit ist das fast sechsjährige heldenhafte Ringen zu Ende. Es hat uns große Siege, aber auch schwere Niederlagen gebracht. Die deutsche Wehrmacht ist am Ende einer gewaltigen Übermacht ehrenvoll unterlegen.
Der deutsche Soldat hat, getreu seinem Eid, im höchsten Einsatz für sein Volk für immer Unvergessliches geleistet. Die Heimat hat ihn bis zuletzt mit allen Kräften unter schwersten Opfern unterstützt. Die einmalige Leistung von Front und Heimat wird in einem späteren gerechten Urteil der Geschichte ihre endgültige Würdigung finden.
Den Leistungen und Opfern der deutschen Soldaten zu Wasser, zu Lande und in der Luft wird auch der Gegner die Achtung nicht versagen. Jeder Soldat kann deshalb die Waffen aufrecht und stolz aus der Hand legen und in den schwersten Stunden unserer Geschichte tapfer und zuversichtlich an die Arbeit gehen für das ewige Leben unseres Volkes.
Die Wehrmacht gedenkt in dieser schweren Stunde ihrer vor dem Feind gebliebenen Kameraden. Die Toten verpflichten zu bedingungsloser Treue, zu Gehorsam und Disziplin gegenüber dem aus zahllosen Wunden blutenden Vaterland.
Neues Österreich (May 10, 1945)
London, 9. Mai – Der Krieg in Europa endete offiziell heute eine Minute nach Mitternacht. Im verwüsteten der geschlagenen deutschen Wehrmacht die Ratifikationsurkunde der in Reims unterzeichneten Kapitulation.
Die Konferenz trat gegen Mitternacht in der Aula der Technischen Hochschule in Berlin zusammen. Zehn Minuten nach Mitternacht betraten die deutschen Bevollmächtigten, Generalfeldmarschall Keitel, Generaladmiral Friedeburg und Generaloberst Stumpf, den Saal. Sie nahmen die ihnen reservierten Sitze ein.
Marschall Schukow ergriff das Wort: Meine Herren, wir schreiten zur Unterfertigung der Vertragsurkunde der bedingungslosen Kapitulation Deutschlands. Zunächst möchte ich an die deutschen Bevollmächtigten drei Fragen richten: Sind Sie im Besitz einer Abschrift dieser Urkunde? Haben Sie sich mit dem Inhalt der Urkunde vertraut gemacht? Sind die Vertreter des deutschen Oberkommandos zur Unterschrift bereit?
Nach einer kurzen Pause erwiderte Generalfeldmarschall Keitel: „Jawohl, ich bin zur Unterschrift bereit.“
Hierauf legte er die Ermächtigungsurkunde vor, mit welcher Großadmiral Dönitz die Delegierten zur Unterzeichnung der Urkunde autorisierte. Die deutschen Bevollmächtigten traten dann einer nach dem anderen vor, um die Urkunde zu unterzeichnen. Um ¾1 Uhr war die Unterzeichnung beendet. Generalfeldmarschall Keitel wurde eine Abschrift des Dokuments in drei Sprachen überreicht.
Hierauf sagte Marschall Schukow: „Die deutsche Delegation kann sich jetzt entfernen.“
London, 9. Mai – Die 3. amerikanische Armee vereinigte sich bei Linz mit der Roten Armee.
Die Rote Armee hat Hollabrunn und Stockerau erobert. Sie steht außerdem im Raum von Graz. Die britische 8. Armee setzt ihren Vormarsch in Österreich fort. Die 6. britische Panzerdivision ist in Klagenfurt eingezogen.
London, 9. Mai – König Georg hielt gestern Abend zum britischen Volk eine Rede über den Rundfunk:
Deutschland, das Europa in den Krieg stürzte, ist endgültig geschlagen. müssen wir aber den Kampf gegen Japan weiterführen. Zur Durchführung dieser Aufgabe werden wir uns mit äußerster Entschlossenheit und allen unseren Machtmitteln einsetzen.
Schwere Arbeit erwartet uns, Arbeit für den Wiederaufbau unseres eigenen Landes, Arbeit bei der Wiederaufrichtung von Friede und gerechter Ordnung in einer Welt, die in ihren Grundfesten erschüttert ist. Ein tiefer Trost liegt in dem Gedanken, dass die dunklen Jahre der Gefahr, in denen unsere Kinder aufwachsen mussten, für immer vorüber sind. Dafür sei Gott unser Dank.
Wir würden unsere Aufgabe aber nicht erfüllt haben und das Blut unserer Lieben wäre vergebens geflossen, wenn der Sieg, den sie errungen haben, nicht zu einem dauernden Frieden führen würde, einem Frieden, der sich auf Gerechtigkeit gründet und auf die Mitarbeit aller.
Vom Obersten Alliierten Hauptquartier wird bekanntgegeben, dass Göring und Kesselring von der 7. amerikanischen Armee gefangengenommen wurden.