V-CN Day.
Breslau, Hitler's Final Fortress finally falls, May 6, 1945
Hitler's Final Fortress is the first full length account of the notorious siege of Breslau in English, is based on painstaking research of official documents, newspapers, letters, diaries and personal testimonies.In January 1945, the Red Army unleashed its long-awaited thrust into Germany with terrible fury. One by one the provinces and great cities of the German East were captured by the Soviet troops. Breslau, capital of Silesia, a city of 600,000 people, stood firm and was declared a fortress by Hitler. A bitter struggle raged as the Red Army encircled Breslau, then tried to pummel it into submission while the city's Nazi leadership used brutal methods to keep the scratch German troops fighting and maintain order. Aided by supplies flown in nightly and building improvised weapons from torpedoes mounted on trolleys to an armoured train, the men of Fortress Breslau held out against superior Soviet forces for four months. The price was fearful. By the time Breslau surrendered on May 6, 1945, four days after Berlin had fallen, the city was a wasteland and 25,000 soldiers and civilians had died. Savage retribution was visited on the survivors by the Russian conquerors. What was left of the city was pillaged, its women raped and every German inhabitant driven out of the city which became Wroclaw in post-war Soviet-occupied Poland.
http://adst.org/2014/10/halt-we-want-to-surrender/
Moments in U.S. Diplomatic History
Halt! We Want to Surrender!
I found myself staring directly into the cannon of an SS tank with a fresh and lively looking crew of SS soldiers on top! — George Jaeger
May 1945 the end of World War II. Time to drink a beer, have fun, and enjoy the countryside. But hold on whats that on the horizon? A Nazi Panzer division?
George Jaeger was born in Vienna, emigrated to the U.S. and became an interpreter for the U.S. Army. He later served as a Foreign Service officer. You can read about his experience with the Kindertransport, when he and thousands of other children were taken to the UK right after Kristallnacht.
Jaeger:
By early May the German Army had virtually disintegrated, the Americans and the Russians had met at the Elbe, the battle of Berlin was under way and we all knew, as we pressed on across the Bavarian border, that the war was almost over.
In our final push Fifth Corpss Sixteenth Armored Division, supported by another Division from the south, liberated Pilsen on May 6, 1945 a glorious, deliriously happy day.
I remember vividly how our command car, wedged into an endless column of muddy American trucks and tanks of the 16th Armored Division, rolled into town (at left). The long streets running through Pilsens then grubby, rundown suburbs were lined with thousands of jubilant, cheering Czechs! Girls were throwing us flowers, people were singing and shouting, everyone was waving flags and handkerchiefs and, although desperately deprived after years of war and occupation, people offered us sausages, bread and even bottles of the then very thin Pilsner beer.
When we arrived in town, the main square too was jammed with cheering people and was already decked out with an American flag. It was all a smaller-scale rerun of the tumultuous scenes which had played out at the liberation of Paris! It was great! The following day, May 7, 1945 the war was officially over!
On a particularly lovely day just after our arrival in Pilsen I liberated a bike, slung my carbine over my back and, with a sandwich in my pocket, went off to explore the countryside.
I may have gone several miles, whistling and celebrating in my own way that the war was over, when, coming around a bend on a narrow dirt road at the edge of a forest, I found myself staring directly into the cannon of an SS tank with a fresh and lively looking crew of SS soldiers on top! To make matters worse, behind it I could see a seemingly endless column of other tanks, their SS standards flying, their weathered, battle hardened crews perched on the turrets sunning themselves, all silently staring at me! It was a totally absurd situation!
The question, of course, was: What do you do on a bicycle, with your carbine on your back, when you are looking at a German SS Panzer division at about 20 yards? If I stopped and reached for my gun, I was clearly a dead duck. If I didnt, and just went on biking, I remember thinking, I would at least not be shot in the back and would show them that I was not a coward!
So I biked on, past the first tank, waved at the fellows in the tank, who looked absolutely gobsmacked, as the British would say, then past the second. Nothing happened! After passing a dozen or so more tanks, I saw someone waving farther down the line.
An SS officer came running toward me. This is it, I thought. But he only signaled that I should stop, then stepped aside and left me facing the SS Panzer Divisions SS leather-jacketed Commanding General standing between two tanks, surrounded by several other officers!
He explained, formally and very politely my German was very helpful at this point that they had retreated before the oncoming Soviet forces and had been hiding for several days looking for a safe way to surrender to the Americans!
My arrival was therefore most fortunate, since they did not want to become involved in any accidental fire fight with the Americans. Would I therefore accept the Divisions surrender on behalf of the United States?
I tried to look as dignified, under these clearly historic circumstances, as was possible for an only recently promoted Private First Class; said I would be glad to do so; but needed the Generals Luger pistol as a token of his surrender to take to my superiors! He simply handed it to me, we shook hands and both saluted. I got back on my rusty bike and pedaled back, the way I had come, waving to my prisoners of war with new assurance!
Back at V Corps Headquarters it took a bit of convincing, given the nature of chains-of command, to get some follow-up. When I told my sergeant that I had just accepted the surrender of an SS Panzer division, he came very close to putting me on a weeks KP [kitchen patrol]! Even when I had talked my way up the ladder, a major on duty was certain there were no stray Panzer divisions around.
I finally spoke to the colonel in charge of our intelligence: Oh my God, he said, weve been looking for this division, and we couldnt find it. Thank you very much!
So my facts were confirmed and a second more official surrender was arranged, to which, I am annoyed to report, I was not even invited! They even kept the Luger!