We knew that conditions in Holland had been steadily deteriorating and, after the advance of our armies had isolated the area from Germany, the Dutch situation became almost intolerable. Judging from the information available to me, I feared that wholesale starvation would take place and decided to take positive steps to prevent it. I still refused to consider a major offensive into the country. Not only would great additional destruction and suffering have resulted but the enemy’s opening of dikes would further have flooded the country and destroyed much of its fertility for years to come. I warned General Blaskowitz, the German commander in Holland, to refrain from opening any more dikes and pointed out to him that nothing he could do in Holland would impede the speedy collapse of Germany.21
The Nazi High Commissioner in Holland, Seyss-Inquart, offered a local solution by proposing a truce. If the Allied forces would refrain from any westward advance into Holland no further flooding would take place in the country and the Germans would co-operate in the introduction of relief supplies. My military superiors had already given me a free hand in the matter and I accordingly sent my chief of staff, General Smith, to meet Seyss-Inquart on April 30. They agreed upon methods of introducing food and supplies, which the Allies had already accumulated for the purpose. Large-scale deliveries began immediately. Even before this we had been sending small amounts of food into the country by free parachute. General Smith carried to Seyss-Inquart a warning that I would tolerate no interference with the relief program and that if the Germans were guilty of any breach of faith I would later refuse to treat them as prisoners of war. I considered that continued occupation of Holland by the Germans was senseless and that any further repressive acts for which they were responsible should be punished. At the conference General Smith also proposed that the German commander Blaskowitz should surrender his forces at once. Seyss-Inquart reported, however, that as long as the German Government held out Blaskowitz could under no circumstances capitulate.22
Simultaneously with all these operations on the north equally decisive movements were progressing in the south. The principal line of advance was southeast down the Danube Valley toward Linz, with the purpose of joining up with the Russians in Austria. Since Bradley’s offensive in the center had already gained its objectives we had the Third Army available to conduct this drive while the Sixth Army Group gave its entire attention to overrunning the Redoubt area farther to the south and west. In order to make certain of Devers’ rapid advance we assigned to him the U. S. 13th Airborne Division, to use whenever he deemed advisable. So rapid, however, were the ground advances that the 13th Airborne Division was not needed and, as it turned out, this was the only American division to enter Europe that never engaged in active battle.23
The advance of the Third Army down the Danube began April 22. The enemy made an attempt at defense at Regensburg but both the III and XX Corps quickly established bridgeheads across the Danube east and west of the city and advanced rapidly down the river. The XII Corps’s 11th Armored Division plunged ahead on May 5 to receive the surrender of the German garrison at Linz in Austria.24
With his main forces pushing down the Danube, Patton’s Third Army was now reinforced by the V Corps from Hodges’ army. Patton directed the V to push eastward into Czechoslovakia. The corps captured Pilsen May 6. In this area the Russian forces were rapidly advancing from the east and careful co-ordination was again necessary. By agreement we directed the American troops to occupy the line Pilsen–Karlsbad, while south of Czechoslovakia the agreed line of junction ran down the Budějovice–Linz railroad and from there along the valley of the Enns River.25
The final major move of Patch’s Seventh Army in Devers’ army group began April 22. On the right flank the XV Corps moved down the Danube and turned southward to strike at Munich, the place of origin of the Nazi movement. That great city was captured April 30. On May 4 the 3d Division of the same corps captured Berchtesgaden. Other troops occupied Salzburg. The defenses of the entire sector disintegrated.26
The XXI and VI Corps of the Seventh Army crossed the Danube April 22 and advanced steadily toward the National Redoubt. On May 3, Innsbruck was taken and the 103d Division of the VI Corps pushed on into the Brenner Pass. There, on the Italian side of the international boundary, this American division of the Allied command met the American 88th Division of the U. S. Fifth Army, advancing from Italy. My prediction of a year and a half before that I would meet the soldiers of the Mediterranean command “in the heart of the enemy homeland” was fulfilled.
Throughout the front principal objectives in all sectors were attained by the end of April or their early capture was a certainty. The great advances had the effect of multiplying many of the administrative, maintenance, and organizational problems with which we constantly had to wrestle. Again a tremendous strain was placed upon our supply lines. Distance alone would have been enough to stop our spearheads had we been dependent solely upon surface transport, efficient as it was. Distant and fast-moving columns were sometimes almost solely dependent upon air supply, and during April we kept 1500 transport planes constantly working in our supply system. They became known as “flying boxcars” and were never more essential than in these concluding stages of the war. Besides these planes we stripped and converted many heavy bombers to the same purpose. During the month of April the air forces delivered to the front lines 60,000 tons of freight, in which was included 10,000,000 gallons of gasoline.27
Our troops were everywhere swarming over western Germany and there were few remaining targets against which the air force could be directed without danger of dropping their bombs on either our own or the Russian troops. In the late days of the war, however, the air force carried out two important bombing raids. One was by British Bomber Command against the fortress island of Heligoland, which was attacked in order to help Montgomery in case he found it necessary to assault across the Kiel Canal.28 The other one was by the U. S. Eighth Air Force against Berchtesgaden. That stronghold and symbol of Nazi arrogance was thoroughly pounded with high explosives. The bombing took place when we still thought the Nazis might attempt to establish themselves in their National Redoubt with Berchtesgaden as the capital. The photo reconnaissance units brought back pictures that showed our bombers had reduced the place to a shambles; from them we derived a gleeful and understandable satisfaction.29
On each return trip from the front our transports and converted bombers brought back planeloads of recaptured Allied prisoners. These men were concentrated at convenient camps for rehabilitation and early transfer to the homelands. Near Le Havre, in one camp alone, called Lucky Strike, we had at one time 47,000 recovered American prisoners. The British had similar camps at various places in northwest France and Belgium. The recovery of so many prisoners in such a short space of time presented delicate problems to the Medical Corps, to the Transport Service, and indeed to all of us. In many instances the physical condition of the prisoners was so poor that great care had to be exercised in their feeding. The weaker ones were hospitalized and for a period our hospitals were crowded with men whose joy at returning to their own people was almost pathetic, but who at the same time were suffering so badly from malnutrition that only expert care could save them. Some of the Americans had been prisoners since the early battles in Tunisia in December 1942. On the British side we recovered men who had been captured at Dunkirk in 1940.
One day I had an appointment to meet five United States senators. As they walked into my office I received a telegram from a staff officer, stating that a newspaper article alleged the existence at the Lucky Strike camp of intolerable conditions. The story said that men were crowded together, were improperly fed, lived under unsanitary conditions, and were treated with an entire lack of sympathy and understanding. The policy was exactly the opposite. Automatic furloughs to the States had been approved for all liberated Americans and we had assigned specially selected officers to care for them.
Even if the report should prove partially true it represented a very
definite failure to carry out strict orders somewhere along the line. I determined to go see for myself and told my pilot to get my plane ready for instant departure. I turned to the five senators, apologized for my inability to keep my appointment, and explained why it was necessary for me to depart instantly for Lucky Strike. I told them, however, that if they desired to talk with me they could accompany me on the trip. I pointed out that at Lucky Strike they would have a chance to visit with thousands of recovered prisoners of war and that at no other place could they find such a concentration of American citizens. They all accepted with alacrity.
In less than two hours we arrived at Lucky Strike and started our inspection. We roamed around the camp and found no basis for the startling statements made in the disturbing telegram. There were only two points concerning which our men exhibited any impatience. The first of these was the food. It was of good quality and well cooked but the doctors would not permit salt, pepper, or any other kind of seasoning to be used because they were considered damaging to men who had undergone virtual starvation over periods ranging from weeks to years. The senators and I had dinner with the men and we agreed that a completely unseasoned diet was lacking in taste appeal. However, it was a technical point on which I did not feel capable of challenging the doctors.
The other understandable complaint was the length of time that men were compelled to stay in the camp before securing transportation to America. This was owing to lack of ships. Freighters, which constituted the vast proportion of our overseas transport service at that stage of the war, were not suited for transportation of passengers. These ships lacked facilities for providing drinking water, while toilet and other sanitary provisions were normally adequate only for the crew. The men did not know these things and it angered them to see ships leaving the harbor virtually empty when they were so anxious to go home.
So pleased did the soldiers seem to be by our visit that they followed us around the camp by the hundreds. When we finally returned to the airplane we found that an enterprising group had installed a loud-speaker system, with the microphone at the door of my plane. A committee of sergeants came up and rather diffidently said that the men would like to see and hear the commanding general. There were some fifteen to twenty thousand in the crowd around the plane.
In hundreds of places under almost every kind of war condition I had talked to American soldiers, both individually and in groups up to the size of a division. But on that occasion I was momentarily at a loss for something to say. Every one of those present had undergone privation beyond the imagination of the normal human. It seemed futile to attempt, out of my own experience, to say anything that could possibly appeal to such an enormous accumulation of knowledge of suffering.
Then I had a happy thought. It was an idea for speeding up the return of these men to the homeland. So I took the microphone and told the assembled multitude there were two methods by which they could go home. The first of these was to load on every returning troopship the maximum number for which the ship was designed. This was current practice.
Then I suggested that, since submarines were no longer a menace, we could place on each of these returning ships double the normal capacity, but that this would require one man to sleep in the daytime so that another soldier could have his bunk during the night. It would also compel congestion and inconvenience everywhere on the ship. I asked the crowd which one of the two schemes they would prefer me to follow. The roar of approval for the double-loading plan left no doubt as to their desires.
When the noise had subsided I said to them: “Very well, that’s the way we shall do it. But I must warn you men that there are five United States senators accompanying me today. Consequently when you get home it is going to do you no good to write letters to the papers or to your senator complaining about overcrowding on returning ships. You have made your own choice and so now you will have to like it.”
The shout of laughter that went up left no doubt that the men were completely happy with their choice. I never afterward heard of a single complaint voiced by one of them because of discomfort on the homeward journey.
The war’s end was now in sight. The possible duration of hostilities could be measured in days; the only question was whether the finale would come by linking up throughout the gigantic front with the Red Army and the forces from Italy, or whether some attempt would be made by the German Government to capitulate.
Some weeks before the final surrender we received intimations that various individuals of prominence in Germany were seeking ways and means of accomplishing capitulation. In no instance did any of these roundabout messages involve Hitler himself. On the contrary, each sender was so fearful of Nazi wrath that he was as much concerned in keeping secret his own part in the matter as he was in achieving the surrender of the German armies.
One early hint of German defection was a feeler that came through the British Embassy in Stockholm. Its stated purpose was to arrange a truce in the west; this was an obvious attempt to call off the war with the Western Allies so that the German could throw his full strength against Russia. Our governments rejected the proposal.30
Another came out of Switzerland, under mysterious circumstances, from a man named Wolff. There was apparently afoot a plot to surrender to Alexander the German forces in Italy.31 Our own headquarters had nothing to do with this particular instance but we were kept informed because of the definite signs of weakening determination on the part of higher German officials. Receipt of any such tip or of a bona fide message always caused a terrific amount of work and involved much care because of the numbers of nations involved on the Allied side, each of which was naturally concerned that its own interests be fully protected. In the Wolff incident the Western Allies, although proceeding in good faith to determine the authenticity of the message and the authority of the man who initiated it, incurred the suspicion of the Soviets. A great deal of explanation was necessary and it put us definitely on notice to be careful if any such message should reach us.
The first direct suggestion of surrender that reached SHAEF came from Himmler, who approached Count Bernadotte of Sweden in an attempt to get in touch with Prime Minister Churchill.32 On April 26, I received a long message from the Prime Minister, discussing Himmler’s proposal to surrender the western front. I regarded the suggestion as a last desperate attempt to split the Allies and so informed Mr. Churchill. I strongly urged that no proposition be accepted or entertained unless it involved a surrender of all German forces on all fronts. My view was that any suggestion that the Allies would accept from the German Government a surrender of only their western forces would instantly create complete misunderstanding with the Russians and bring about a situation in which the Russians could justifiably accuse us of bad faith. If the Germans desired to surrender an army, that was a tactical and military matter. Likewise, if they wanted to surrender all the forces on a given front, the German commander in the field could do so, and the Allied commander could accept; but the only way the government of Germany could surrender was unconditionally to all the Allies.
This view coincided with the Prime Minister’s, and he and the President promptly provided full information to Generalissimo Stalin, together with a statement of their rejection of the proposal.
However, until the very last the Germans never abandoned the attempt to make a distinction between a surrender on the western front and one on the eastern. With the failure of this kind of negotiation German commanders finally had, each in his own sector, to face the prospect of complete annihilation or of military surrender.
The first great capitulation came in Italy. Alexander’s forces had waged a brilliant campaign throughout the year 1944 and by April 26, 1945, had placed the enemy in an impossible situation. Negotiations for local surrender began and on April 29 the German commander surrendered. All hostilities in Italy were to cease May 2.
This placed the German troops just to the north of Italy in an equally impossible situation. On May 2 the German commander
requested the identity of the Allied commander he should approach in order to surrender and was told to apply to General Devers. He was warned that only unconditional surrender would be acceptable. This enemy force was known as Army Group G and comprised the German First and Nineteenth Armies. They gave up on May 5, with the capitulation to be effective May 6.33
Far to the north, in the Hamburg area, the German commander also saw the hopelessness of his situation. On April 30 a German emissary appeared in Stockholm to say that Field Marshal Busch, commanding in the north, and General Lindemann, commanding in Denmark, were ready to surrender as quickly as the Allied advance reached the Baltic. We were told that the Germans would refuse to surrender to the Russians but that, once the Western Allies had arrived at Lübeck and so cut off the forces in that region from the arrival of fanatical SS formations from central Germany, they would immediately surrender to us. Montgomery’s forces arrived in Lübeck May 3. By then, however, a great change in the governmental structure of Germany had taken place.
Hitler had committed suicide and the tattered mantle of his authority had fallen to Admiral Doenitz. The admiral directed that all his armies everywhere should surrender to the Western Allies. Thousands of dejected German soldiers began entering our lines. On May 3, Admiral Friedeburg, who was the new head of the German Navy, came to Montgomery’s headquarters. He was accompanied by a staff officer of Field Marshal Busch. They stated that their purpose was to surrender three of their armies which had been fighting the Russians and they asked authority to pass refugees through our lines. Their sole desire was to avoid surrender to the Russians. Montgomery promptly refused to discuss a surrender on these terms and sent the German emissaries back to Field Marshal Keitel, the chief of the German high command.
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