It was May 8th 1945 and the German unconditional surrender was a fact.
These were the final battle lines before WW2 in Europe ended.
It this video we're going to look at the territories that were still under German control at that
moment and we're going to discuss the very last battles of WW2 in Europa.
Stay tuned.
Welcome back everyone.
If this is your first time here, welcome to History Hustle.
I'm Stefan, history teacher, hustling history for you.
Please consider subscribing and don't forget to hit the notification bell to join the hustle.
Let's start!
Now if you have watched more of my recent videos you are familiar with this map behind me.
This is an old school map that provides lots of information about WWII and actually more
information than you think.
In this video I'll be focussing on the dotted areas.
These are the territories that were still under German control on May 8th.
Let's start in the north.
Lapland – In Lapland the Finnish forces were fighting the Germans in their third war
of World War II.
You heard that correctly: Finland fought three wars between 1940 and 1945.
Starting with the Soviets invading Finland in 1940.
This war is called the Winter War.
Although not a total defeat the Finnish sued for peace and handed over land to the Soviets.
They were never fully occupied.
Siding with the axis powers the Finnish forces took part in Operation Barbarossa, kicking
off the Continuation War, where they advanced into the Soviet Union all the way to Leningrad.
When the tide of the war changed and the Finnish soldiers were retreating they sued for peace
again, this was September 1944.
The Soviets agreed – later annexed some more land – and Finland therefore switched
sides.
German troops were in the north of the country – in Lapland – as their formed allies
now turned against them.
The clash between them is known as the Lapland War.
While the Germans retreated into occupied Norway they applied a scourched earth policy
causing great damage.
The Germans left Finland on April 27th marking the end of this war.
Norway was invaded in April 1940 and remained largely under German control towards the end
of the war.
Since the Norwegian coastline was part of the Atlantic Wall a large German garrison
was placed there.
When the end of the war was nigh German general Heinz Gudarian urged to repatriate these troops
which Hitler stubbornly refused, because for the German U-boat warfare the Norwegian ports
were of importance.
Hudarian was sacked at the of March 1945.
Already from the autumn the Norwegian resistance backed by Soviet forces fought in the north
of Norway in the region of Finnmark.
Reichskommissar Josef Terboven had plans for a struggle till the bitter end by declaring
Norway a fortress.
Dönitz ordered him to Germany but when Terboven heard of the German surrender he committed
suicide.
Norway at the end of WW2 had the largest of complete Wehrmacht force counting around 400K
men.
British troops were inmediatly flown in to help the Norwegians with the surrender of
such a large force.
Denmark was captured by the German forces within 6 days in the same month as Norway
was.
In the last months of the war many German ships docked at Danish parts.
The ships were filled with German civilians and soldiers from the Eastern territories.
These were the lucky ones that made it out alive when their region was cut off.
Not all ships made it.
Most tragic case was the Wilhelm Gustloff that set off from Gotenhafen (now Gdynia)
and was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in January 1945, resulted
in of 9,000 deaths.
This brings us to the Eastern Front.
Now however most pockets have been mostly liquadated in April 1945 – think of Danzig,
Königsberg and Samland – thousands German troops remained at Hela and became POW.
Most noteworthy pocket was the Kurland pocket, located in Latvia.
The German Army Group North fought over the course of the Summer of 1944 in the Baltics
and was forced to retreat.
When the Soviets launched the Baltic offensive the following autumn and took over Estonia
and large parts of Latvia the German forces retreated to the Courland Peninsula.
With the Soviets reaching the Baltic Sea Army Group North was cut off from East Prussia.
Around 13 of the 33 German divisions were evacuated.
The remaining forces – 250K men – remained on Courland till the end of the war.
The biggest contiguous terrain that was still in German hands on May 8th was in Central
Europe.
In the south of Germany there were serious signs of desintegration of the German troops
and even hostility from local Bavarian and Austrian civilians.
Army Group G – several 100K's men – surrendered to the Americans.
This was one of the partial surrenders of which Dönitz hoped to achieve the dreadfull
allied demand of an unconditional surrender.
Dönitz wanted to avoid that large amounts of troops would end up in Soviet captivity.
While the hostilities in the west had to cease the fighting in the east had to go on.
“The amenability of the Americans to these partial surrenders gave Dönitz shortlived
hope that he could come to an arrangement with Eisenhower that would fall short of total
capitulation.
He imagined he could still reach a deal to prevent the huge numbers of troops facing
the Red Army being taken into Soviet captivity.
Announcing the surrender in the west, ‘since the fight against the western powers has lost
its meaning’, Keitel added that ‘in the east, nevertheless, the struggle continues
in order to rescue as many Germans as possible from Bolshevization and slavery’.”
Army Group Ostmark (previously Army Group South) – around 450K men led by Lothar Rendulic
– was pushed back to Lower Austria by the Red Army.
Redulic wasn't able to contact German contral command and tried to sue for peace with the
Americans.
He offered American general Patton his surrender on May 7th.
This was rejected however the Americans allowed them to cross their lines till the point of
the unconditional surrender so they wouldn't fall into the hands of the red army.
Actually one really strange battle occured on May 5 where Americans fought side by
side German wehrmacht troops against the SS.
This happened at Itter Castle.
Look it up!
Army Group E – 180K men strong led by Alexander Löhr – was fighting in Croatia together
with Croations against the Yugoslav Resistance Army or Partisans.
Some of them managed to reach the British posts in Austria.
I read that over 100K were taken by Tito's partisans.
Croations soldiers that reached the British lines were repatriated and thousands of them
were massacred by the partisans during the Bleiburg Massacre.
The Croations would fight the Yugoslav Partisans in the battle of Odzak that ended on May 25
and would be the last battle of WW2 in Europe.
Army Group Centre – 600K men strong under Ferdinand Schörner – were stuck in the
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (former Czechslovakia).
Schörner which was a ruthless commander who punished everyone that showed signs of desertion
mercilessly contacted German high command on May 2nd that he wasn't able to hold out
much longer.
Apart from the pressure of the Red Army the political situation was highly unstable.
On May 5 the Prague Uprising took place by the Czech Resistance.
With that happening the Soviets marched onto the Czech capital inmediatly.
On May 9 they took the city.
In the intermediate days several thousand Czech resistance fighters were killed by the
Germans.
What made Schörner's situation so precarious was that the Americans didn't march into the
area since they had agreed with the Soviets is was theirs to take.
A Soviet advance from the north would mean that Schörner's army would be cut off from
the west and end up as POW's of the Soviets.
Meanwhile the allies demanded a full surrender or else the the allied bombings would resume
and borders would be shut for German units coming in from the east.
Now this was on May 7 and the cease-fire would take effect on midnight from the 8th
to 9 of May, which gave the German armies 48 hours to move west.
Issues were ordered to the eastern army groups to move their way west inmediatly in order
to be taken captive by the Americans.
For Army Group Centre this was not possible any longer, since an attack by the Red Army
had blocked their way west, so they had to fight their way west.
It would never come this far.
Schörner abandoned his troops either on the 8 or 9 May by leaving in a plane in
civilian clothing towards the Austrian Alps.
Here we have a man who enforced discipline with a rod of iron.
Under whose command countless of German soldiers were executed because they were cowards.
A man who spoke on May 5 to his troops with these words: ‘You can have trust in me,
that I will lead you out of this crisis.’
That man, now left his troops to fend for themselves by sneaking out on a plane.
I just can't get this.
The majority of Army Group Centre was captured by the Soviets.
Italy wanted to surrender in September 1943 after the allies had taken of Sicily.
The Germans then rushed in to take control over the country.
Imprisioned facist leader Benito Mussolini was then rescued by the Germans and made head
of a puppet Italian state in the north named Italian Social Republic.
By the end of 1944 the allies had pushed further and further up north.
In March 1945 there were surrender talks held in Switzerland between Obergruppenführer
Karl Wolff and head of the American Office of Strategic Services Allan Dulles.
These talks were hastened in April as the situation deteriorated.
On May 2 German Army Group C surrendered in the north of Italy.
Mussolini was arrested and executed several days prior.
Italy did keep in control of the Dodecanese Islands, although in reality German troops
were calling the shots.
And the same goes for the western part of Crete that was still in German hands at the
end of the war.
Although France was almost fully liberated in 1944, some pockets at the Atlantic coast
held much longer.
When Germany unconditionally surrendered the besieged Atlantic pockets in France, in Dunkirk
and La Rochelle surrendered.
In the days after the Pocket of Lorient and of Saint-Nazaire surrendered.
Also the German garrisons on the heavily fortified Channel Islands surrendered after the war
was over.
Perhaps the starkest contrast was seen in the Netherlands.
While the south was already liberated in the autumn of 1944, the western and northern parts
remained occupied much longer.
This was due to the faillure of Operation Market Garden.
The western part of the Netherlands remained under German occupation till the end of the
war and had endured a severe famine in which 20,000 Dutch people died.
To liberate the north the allies had to push through Germany and from there fight their
way back into the north of the Netherlands liberating the provinces of Gelderland, Overrijssel,
Drenthe, Groningen and Friesland.
When 5 May was there some nothern parts of Friesland and Groningen were still
under German control, as well as the Wadden Islands.
Most striking but often forgotten episode was the Georgian Revolt on the island of Texel.
This is a really striking story.
Where it came down to was that soldiers of the Georgian Legion – that were drafted
in the German army and stationed on the island of Texel – saw the end of the war was there
and they were on the losing side.
Therefore they made a last stand and rebelled against the German soldiers on the island.
You can call it a mutiny in some way.
The Georgians were assisted by the Dutch resistance and a terrible battle
started at the end of April.
This battle ended on May 20 after the Canadians intervened.
By that time around 800 Germans, over 500 Georgians and over 100 Dutch laid dead.
Till the end of the war the northwest of Germany (Oost-Friesland, Sleewijk-Holstein) weren't
taken by the enemy yet.
It was at the border town of Flensburg that a new German government was formed that still
functioned as the Third Reich.
On April 30 Hitler had commited suicide.
Hitler had appointed a successor: Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz.
The Flensburg government remained on its post till May 23.
On May 23 the Allies arrested the leaders of this rump government and with that the
Third Reich came to its end.
The very last Germans would surrender in September, a few days after the Japenese surrender.
These were stationed on the Norwegian island of Svalbard.
But that's the story for another time.
Don't forget to subscribe.