Churchill Hints Peace This Week; 2-Day Celebration Is Authorized
By CLIFTON DANIEL
By Wireless to The New York Times
LONDON, May 1 – The general belief that peace with Germany will be announced this week persisted in Britain today, encouraged by Prime Minister Churchill himself and by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz’s announcement of the death of Adolf Hitler.
The War Cabinet again held a session tonight but so far as was known did not have any concrete proposal to consider. The chances that Heinrich Himmler ultimately will deliver an acceptable peace are now held in some official quarters to be only “fifty-fifty.”
Nevertheless the buoyant Prime Minister told the House of Commons today that he might have “information of importance” to announce before Saturday.
The public’s hopes were raised still further by a long Home Office circular giving the Government’s views on how Britain should observe V-E Day, which the British, it appears, will be expected to celebrate strictly according to form.
[Stockholm reported, with the return there of Count Bernadotte, the “imminent liberation” of Denmark and Norway – already taking effect locally in Denmark – as a phase of a prospective general German capitulation that must be acceptable to the Allies’ military commands.]
The hurrahing will begin with the announcement of the cessation of hostilities by Mr. Churchill over a nation-wide radio network. The King will speak at 9 o’clock that evening. And throughout that day and the next all Britain, except for bank clerks and other essential public servants, will be on holiday – and probably a binge.
The military disintegration of Germany is proceeding now at such a pace that even the dampening news from Stockholm, Sweden, that Count Folke Bernadotte had no new offer from Himmler did not abate Britain’s peace fever.
In any case, the three major powers will make absolutely certain that Himmler can produce a genuine and total unconditional military surrender, before accepting any offer from him.
Mr. Churchill reiterated today that the political leaders would be guided by the military commanders in this matter.
He also hinted that the announcement, which he hoped to make this week, might not concern all enemy forces. Additional point was given to this remark tonight when the possibility arose that Admiral Doenitz might be acting independently of, or in competition with, Himmler, and might try to keep some German forces, including the Navy, in the fight.
Reports of the evacuation of German troops from Denmark also lent support to the supposition that the German surrender might still be a piece-meal affair.
Yet Britain had no doubt that peace was on the way. Authoritative quarters prepared the public for the inevitable delays attendant upon signing any surrender document and consultation between the three major powers to fix the time for announcing the end of hostilities.
Two-day celebration sanctioned
Mr. Churchill let the House know today that he would not be surprised at an unofficial leakage of the news, but he assured the members that he would not hold up the announcement unduly and that it would not wait upon full, formal occupation of Germany.
If the end of hostilities takes the form of a three-power declaration, Britain’s V-E Day plans may be changed. But until further notice the Government wants the churches to be open and the bells rung; it also wants thanksgiving services on the Sunday following V-E Day, flood-lighting wherever available, but not full street lighting; bonfires of non-salvagable material, full programs in all places of entertainment; later hours for dancing than normal, open-air celebrations, longer hours for saloons, parades on thanksgiving Sunday, and food stores to be kept open long enough to prevent people from going hungry.
‘Deep Satisfaction’ Is Felt by U.S. Troops At Death
American soldiers in the field received reports of Adolf Hitler’s death not with joy but with deep satisfaction, Richard Hottelet, CBS war correspondent, reported from the First Army in Germany yesterday.
“We will fight as long as the German soldiers shoot at us,” was the chief reaction, he said.
“We don’t now any details of Hitler’s death except that the German radio says he was killed in action,” he added. “The news is just beginning to spread around to the soldiers here in the First United States Army.
“Hitler has become hated among the soldiers of our Army, hated personally and violently, as the man who kept fighting a senseless fight, kept the slaughter going for absolutely no reason. There’s a feeling here that justice has been done, and certainly a determination that none of the lesser Nazis shall escape.”
Hitler’s Birthplace Taken As Germans Tell of Death
PARIS, Wednesday, May 2 (AP) – Braunau, the little Austrian town where Adolf Hitler was born fifty-six years ago, was captured last night by the American Third Army just as the German radio was telling the world that Hitler was dead. The Thirteenth Armored Division took Braunau on the Inn River after having stormed across the Isar River and driven twenty-five miles.
‘The Bloody Dog Is Dead’
LONDON, May 1 (U.P.) – In its first comment on the announcement of Hitler’s death, the British radio started off: “‘The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.’ That, from the last scene of Shakespeare’s '’King Richard III,’ is as good for a first comment on Hitler’s death.”