V-E Day Anniversary Fort Devens Dispatch Tuesday, May 5, 1964 Page 5
19 Years Ago - 7 May, Germany Surrendered
by jim hopkins
On May 7, 1945, representatives of Admiral Karl Doenitz, successor to the Fuhrer, surrendered unconditionally to the western allies and the U.S.S.R. at General Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims. All of Germany was occupied by the Soviet, British, American and French troops, and the Third Reich came to it’s end.
The Reichstag election of March 5, 1933 was the last free election in Germany, until the state elections of 1947. On March 21, 1933, in the Garrison church of Potsdam, the Third Reich was formed with Hitler as the supreme leader. Hitler and Herman Goring, with the Security Police of the Elite Guard and the Reichswehr, killed several thousand opponents.
Under the authoritarian leadership of Hitler, Germany adopted an aggressive foreign policy which led to the second world war. Complete absorbtion of the remaining territory of Czechoslovakia ,was accomplished in mid-March 1939, quickly followed by the occupation of memel, on the Baltic Sea, expressed hostility to Russia indicated Hitler's design of a great German Empire.
World War II
After Germany invaded Poland, without warning, on 1 September, 1939, the threat of their independence guaranteed by Great Britain and France, was followed on 3 September, by a declaration of war against Germany by Great Britain and France.
On April 9, 1940, Germany-occupied Denmark invaded Norway and pulled a surprise attack on the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. By June 17th, French resistance had been broken, and German forces quickly occupied Paris and the Northern two-thirds of France. Hitler next attempted to prepare for the invasion of Great Britain by massive air attacks. When these failed, operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion, had to be abandoned.
The quest for missing key raw materials, as well as deep-seated animosity of Hitler for the Soviet Union, lead to the East ...on June 22, 1941, German Allies attacked the U.S.S.R. By mid-November, 1941, the Armies had laid seige to Leningrad and Moscow.
After Japan's surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war against the United States on December 11, 1941. The United States set in motion a vast mobilization of manpower and resources aimed at smashing Germany as the military core of the Axis. The American-British counteroffensive began in Africa. On October 22, 1942, the British Eighth Army, under Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery attacked the Axis forces of General Erwin Rommel at E1 Alamein and began the expulsion of the Axis powers from North Africa.
Soviet attacks, together with mounting air offensive of British and American forces against Germany's large industrial cities, marked the turning point of World War II. Allied Armies landed in Sicily and advanced on Naples and Rome. Mussolini, the Italian dictator was overthrown.
On June 6, 1944 General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Allied expeditionary forces landed in Normandy. By January 1945 the Soviet Army had advanced into central Poland and East Prussia and was continuing its victorious sweep into the Balkin countries. The Western Allied Armies drove the German forces from the Ruhr and Rhineland and advanced to the Elbe River, central Germany and Bavaria.
Hitler, who had survived three major military conspiracies against himself, died before Berlin surrendered on May 2, 1945 to the First White Russian and First Ukranian Armies. Surrender terms signed 7 May 45, which were to become effective at 0001, 9 May 45. However, 8 May is V-E Day.