May 6th, 1945.
Remesams, France.
A dull, gray, rainy day.
In a small red brick schoolhouse, the fate of the world was being decided.
This was the supreme headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, S H A E F.
Outside, the streets were lined with military police.
Inside, the air was thick with cigarette smoke and nervous energy.
Generals from America, Britain, Russia, and France were waiting.
They checked their watches.
They drank bad coffee.
They waited.
And then a car pulled up, outstepped a man who looked like the perfect Prussian villain.
Colonel General Alfred Yodel, the chief of operations of the German high command, Hitler’s right-hand man for six years.
The man who had signed the orders to bomb London, to invade Russia, to execute commandos.
He walked into the schoolhouse.
He held his head high.
He wore his monle.
His uniform was crisp.
His iron cross hung around his neck.
He walked with the arrogance of a man who still believed he was superior.
He expected to be treated like a gentleman.
He expected to meet with his equal, the Supreme Commander, General Dwight D.
Eisenhower.
He expected to sit down, drink brandy, and negotiate a soldiers piece.
He was wrong.
Eisenhower was sitting in his office down the hall.
He saw Yodel arrive, but Eisenhower didn’t stand up.
He didn’t walk out to greet him.
Instead, he turned to his aid and gave an order that shattered the German ego.
I will not see him.
I will not speak to him.
And I will not shake his hand.
Tell him he is here to sign, not to talk.
For the next 24 hours, General Yodel was left to sweat.
He was treated not as a dignitary but as a criminal and when he tried to play games.
Eisenhower delivered a threat so brutal it forced the Germans to their knees.
This is the true story of the German surrender.
It is the story of how the Nazis tried to trick the Allies one last time and how Eisenhower used silence, anger, and a fountain pen to destroy the Third Reich forever.
To understand the arrogance of General Yodel, we have to look at what was happening in Germany.
Adolf Hitler was dead.
He had shot himself in his bunker on April 30th.
But the Nazi government didn’t die with him.
It mutated.
Hitler had named Grand Admiral Carl Dernitz as his successor.
Dernitz was in Flynnburg near the Danish border.
He formed a new government.
He still believed Germany had power.
He still believed he could make a deal.
Dernitz’s plan was simple.
Split the allies.
He wanted to surrender to the Americans and British in the west, but keep fighting the Russians in the east.
He wanted the Americans to help him save the German army from Stalin’s revenge.
He called General Alfred Yodel, “Go to Eisenhower, talk to him, delay the surrender, buy us time.
Every day we talk is a day we can move more soldiers to the west.
Yodel agreed.
He packed his bags.
He thought he was going on a diplomatic mission.
He thought he could outsmart the American cowboy Eisenhower.
He didn’t realize that Eisenhower had been waiting for this moment for 3 years.
And Eisenhower had no patience left.
Before Yodel arrived, the Germans sent a test envoy.
Admiral Hans Gayog vonfriedberg.
He arrived in Reams on May 5th.
He walked into the headquarters expecting a banquet.
Instead, he was taken to a small plain room.
The walls were covered with maps.
Maps that showed the German army collapsing everywhere.
He was met by Eisenhower’s chief of staff, General Walter Bedell Smith.
Beetle Smith was known as Eisenhower’s hatchet man.
He had a temper.
He had an ulcer and he hated Nazis.
Friedberg tried to make a speech.
We want to surrender the forces in the north, he said, but we must keep fighting the Russians.
Bedell Smith looked at him.
No, we will only accept unconditional surrender on all fronts, east and west, simultaneously, Friedberg argued.
But the Russians are savages.
You cannot ask us to surrender to them.
Smith pointed to the map.
Look at your situation, Admiral.
You don’t have an army left.
You have ghosts.
Friedberg broke down.
He started crying.
He said he didn’t have the authority to sign a total surrender.
He was just a messenger.
Smith realized this man was useless.
He told him, “Get on the radio.
Tell Durnit to send someone who can actually sign and tell him to hurry up.
May 6th, late afternoon, the car pulled up.
General Yodel stepped out.
He was different from Fredberg.
He wasn’t crying.
He looked around the American headquarters with disdain.
He was the brain of the German army.
He believed he could talk his way out of anything.
He was escorted into the war room.
It was a large room, formerly a classroom.
Remes was a school.
There was a large ping-pong table in the middle covered with a green cloth.
This would be the surrender table.
Yodel looked around.
Where is General Eisenhower? He asked.
The American officer replied, “General Eisenhower is not here.
You will deal with General Smith.” Yodel was insulted.
He was a colonel general.
He outranked Smith.
He demanded to see the Supreme Commander.
The request was denied.
Eisenhower stayed in his private office behind a closed door.
He refused to breathe the same air as the Nazi general until the war was officially over.
It was a calculated insult.
It told Yodel, “You are not a head of state.
You are a prisoner.” The negotiations began.
or rather the argument began.
Yodel sat at the table.
He played his cards.
“We are willing to surrender to the west,” he said.
“But we cannot order our troops in the east to stop fighting.
They are terrified of the Red Army.
If we order them to surrender, they will disobey.” He proposed a phased surrender.
Let us surrender to you Americans now, but give us 48 hours to move our troops out of Russia.
It was a trick.
Yodel wanted to use those 48 hours to save the Panza divisions so they could maybe fight again later.
He wanted to create a rift between America and Russia.
Bed Smith went back to Eisenhower’s office.
He told Ike what Yodel was saying.
Eisenhower was pacing the floor, smoking.
He knew exactly what Yodel was doing.
He knew the Germans were stalling.
Eisenhower stopped pacing.
He looked at Smith.
His face was red with anger.
He gave the order that ended the game.
Smith walked back into the war room.
He didn’t sit down.
He stood over Yodel.
He delivered Eisenhower’s message.
General Eisenhower says no.
No delays, no phases, no deals.
Yodel tried to interrupt.
But General Smith slammed his hand on the table.
Listen to me.
The Supreme Commander has ordered.
You will sign the unconditional surrender immediately.
If you do not sign, he will order the Allied lines to be closed.
Yodel froze.
closed.
“Yes,” Smith said.
“We will seal the Western Front.
We will not let a single German soldier cross into our lines.
We will force them back.
We will leave them to the Russians.” And then the final blow.
And we will stop accepting German refugees.
This was the checkmate.
Millions of German civilians were fleeing west.
If Eisenhower closed the border, they would be trapped between the Americans and the Soviets.
They would be slaughtered.
Eisenhower was effectively saying, “Sign the paper or I will let your people die.” Yodel went pale.
He realized the Americans weren’t playing.
The gentleman’s war was over.
This was the end.
He asked for permission to Radio Admiral Dernitz.
He sent a coded message.
Eisenhower insists on immediate total surrender.
Threatens to close lines.
No choice.
Request permission to sign.
Hours passed.
The tension in the room was unbearable.
Coffee cups piled up.
Ashtrays overflowed.
Finally, at midnight, the reply came.
Dernit’s authorizes signature.
2:41 a.m.
May 7th, 1945.
The cameras were brought in.
The lights were bright.
Reporters stood on chairs to get a view.
Yodel sat at the table.
Next to him was Admiral Friedberg.
Opposite them sat Bedell Smith representing Eisenhower, a French general, a Russian general.
The document was placed in front of Yodel.
Act of military surrender.
It was short, simple.
We the undersigned surrender unconditionally all forces.
Yodel picked up a pen.
His hand was shaking slightly.
He signed his name, Alfred Yodel.
Then the others signed.
It took only a few minutes.
The war in Europe, which had killed 60 million people, was turned off with a drop of ink.
After signing, Yodel put down the pen.
He stood up.
He adjusted his tunic.
He looked at the Allied officers.
He wanted to say something.
He wanted to have the last word.
He spoke in English.
General, with this signature, the German people and the German armed forces are, for better or worse, delivered into the victor’s hands.
He paused.
He tried to look sympathetic.
In this war which has lasted more than 5 years, both have achieved and suffered more than perhaps any other people in the world.
He was asking for pity.
He was talking about German suffering.
He didn’t mention the Jews.
He didn’t mention the Poles.
He didn’t mention the Blitz.
He stood there, the architect of the Holocaust, asking for sympathy.
The room went cold.
Nobody answered him.
Nobody nodded.
They just stared at him with stone faces.
Yodel realized he wasn’t going to get any sympathy here.
He snapped a salute and he turned to leave.
But before he could leave the building, Yodel was told, “General Eisenhower will see you now.” Yodel straightened up.
He thought, “Finally, soldier to soldier, he will respect me.” He walked down the hall to Eisenhower’s office.
He entered.
Eisenhower was standing behind his desk.
He looked like a giant.
He didn’t smile.
He didn’t offer a chair.
And most importantly, he didn’t offer his hand.
To a German officer, a handshake is everything.
It signifies honor, mutual respect.
By refusing to shake hands, Eisenhower was saying, “You are not an honorable man.
You are dirt.” Eisenhower spoke.
His voice was icy.
General Yodel, you understand the terms of this surrender? Yodel nodded.
Yovil, you understand that all German forces must cease fire immediately and that any violation will be punished.
Yavul.
Eisenhower stared at him for a long moment.
That is all.
It was a dismissal like you dismiss a servant.
Yodel stood there stunned.
He saluted again.
Eisenhower didn’t return the salute immediately.
He waited.
Then he gave a barely perceptible nod.
Get him out.
Eisenhower signaled to the guards.
Yodel walked out of the room.
He looked broken.
The arrogance was gone.
He realized that to the Americans he wasn’t a great general.
He was just a loser.
After Yodel left, the tension in the room broke.
Eisenhower’s staff crowded around him.
They were cheering, shaking hands, opening champagne.
Eisenhower picked up the two gold pens he had used to create the victory message.
He held them up.
He gave one to Bedell Smith.
He gave one to the British commander.
But he saved the V for victory sign made with the pens for the photographers.
He smiled.
The famous Ike smile finally returned.
He held up two pens in a Vshape.
Victory.
Then he sat down to send the official message to Washington and London.
His staff had drafted long poetic speeches.
The forces of freedom have triumphed over tyranny.
etc.
Eisenhower read them.
He shook his head.
Too many words, he said.
He took a piece of paper and he wrote the most famous message of the war.
Five words.
The mission of this Allied force is fulfilled.
May 7th, 1945.
Simple, true, powerful.
What happened to the men in that room? Admiral Fredberg, the man who cried.
Two weeks later, he couldn’t take the shame.
He went into a bathroom and swallowed poison.
General Alfred Yodel.
He thought he had negotiated a deal.
He thought he would retire.
Instead, the Allies arrested him.
They put him on trial at Nerburgg, the video we made earlier.
They charged him with war crimes.
He was hanged in 1946.
The man who signed the surrender died at the end of a rope.
And Eisenhower, he became the president of the United States.
The man who refused to shake hands with a Nazi became the leader of the free world.
The surrender at Reams was more than just a legal procedure.
It was a moral statement.
Eisenhower’s refusal to treat Yodel as an equal set the tone for the post-war world.
It established that the Nazis were not just enemies who lost a game.
They were criminals who had broken the laws of humanity.
By refusing that handshake, Eisenhower washed the hands of the Allied armies.
He kept them clean.
It was the ultimate insult and the ultimate justice.
Eisenhower refused to show respect to the Nazi general.
Some say he should have been more diplomatic.
Most say he was 100% right.
What would you have done in his place? Shake the hand or turn your back.
Let me know in the comments.
And if you enjoyed this story of victory, make sure to like and subscribe.
We have more incredible stories coming soon.
Thanks for watching.
May 6th, 1945.
Remesams, France.
A dull, gray, rainy day.
In a small red brick schoolhouse, the fate of the world was being decided.
This was the supreme headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, S H A E F.
Outside, the streets were lined with military police.
Inside, the air was thick with cigarette smoke and nervous energy.
Generals from America, Britain, Russia, and France were waiting.
They checked their watches.
They drank bad coffee.
They waited.
And then a car pulled up, outstepped a man who looked like the perfect Prussian villain.
Colonel General Alfred Yodel, the chief of operations of the German high command, Hitler’s right-hand man for six years.
The man who had signed the orders to bomb London, to invade Russia, to execute commandos.
He walked into the schoolhouse.
He held his head high.
He wore his monle.
His uniform was crisp.
His iron cross hung around his neck.
He walked with the arrogance of a man who still believed he was superior.
He expected to be treated like a gentleman.
He expected to meet with his equal, the Supreme Commander, General Dwight D.
Eisenhower.
He expected to sit down, drink brandy, and negotiate a soldiers piece.
He was wrong.
Eisenhower was sitting in his office down the hall.
He saw Yodel arrive, but Eisenhower didn’t stand up.
He didn’t walk out to greet him.
Instead, he turned to his aid and gave an order that shattered the German ego.
I will not see him.
I will not speak to him.
And I will not shake his hand.
Tell him he is here to sign, not to talk.
For the next 24 hours, General Yodel was left to sweat.
He was treated not as a dignitary but as a criminal and when he tried to play games.
Eisenhower delivered a threat so brutal it forced the Germans to their knees.
This is the true story of the German surrender.
It is the story of how the Nazis tried to trick the Allies one last time and how Eisenhower used silence, anger, and a fountain pen to destroy the Third Reich forever.
To understand the arrogance of General Yodel, we have to look at what was happening in Germany.
Adolf Hitler was dead.
He had shot himself in his bunker on April 30th.
But the Nazi government didn’t die with him.
It mutated.
Hitler had named Grand Admiral Carl Dernitz as his successor.
Dernitz was in Flynnburg near the Danish border.
He formed a new government.
He still believed Germany had power.
He still believed he could make a deal.
Dernitz’s plan was simple.
Split the allies.
He wanted to surrender to the Americans and British in the west, but keep fighting the Russians in the east.
He wanted the Americans to help him save the German army from Stalin’s revenge.
He called General Alfred Yodel, “Go to Eisenhower, talk to him, delay the surrender, buy us time.
Every day we talk is a day we can move more soldiers to the west.
Yodel agreed.
He packed his bags.
He thought he was going on a diplomatic mission.
He thought he could outsmart the American cowboy Eisenhower.
He didn’t realize that Eisenhower had been waiting for this moment for 3 years.
And Eisenhower had no patience left.
Before Yodel arrived, the Germans sent a test envoy.
Admiral Hans Gayog vonfriedberg.
He arrived in Reams on May 5th.
He walked into the headquarters expecting a banquet.
Instead, he was taken to a small plain room.
The walls were covered with maps.
Maps that showed the German army collapsing everywhere.
He was met by Eisenhower’s chief of staff, General Walter Bedell Smith.
Beetle Smith was known as Eisenhower’s hatchet man.
He had a temper.
He had an ulcer and he hated Nazis.
Friedberg tried to make a speech.
We want to surrender the forces in the north, he said, but we must keep fighting the Russians.
Bedell Smith looked at him.
No, we will only accept unconditional surrender on all fronts, east and west, simultaneously, Friedberg argued.
But the Russians are savages.
You cannot ask us to surrender to them.
Smith pointed to the map.
Look at your situation, Admiral.
You don’t have an army left.
You have ghosts.
Friedberg broke down.
He started crying.
He said he didn’t have the authority to sign a total surrender.
He was just a messenger.
Smith realized this man was useless.
He told him, “Get on the radio.
Tell Durnit to send someone who can actually sign and tell him to hurry up.
May 6th, late afternoon, the car pulled up.
General Yodel stepped out.
He was different from Fredberg.
He wasn’t crying.
He looked around the American headquarters with disdain.
He was the brain of the German army.
He believed he could talk his way out of anything.
He was escorted into the war room.
It was a large room, formerly a classroom.
Remes was a school.
There was a large ping-pong table in the middle covered with a green cloth.
This would be the surrender table.
Yodel looked around.
Where is General Eisenhower? He asked.
The American officer replied, “General Eisenhower is not here.
You will deal with General Smith.” Yodel was insulted.
He was a colonel general.
He outranked Smith.
He demanded to see the Supreme Commander.
The request was denied.
Eisenhower stayed in his private office behind a closed door.
He refused to breathe the same air as the Nazi general until the war was officially over.
It was a calculated insult.
It told Yodel, “You are not a head of state.
You are a prisoner.” The negotiations began.
or rather the argument began.
Yodel sat at the table.
He played his cards.
“We are willing to surrender to the west,” he said.
“But we cannot order our troops in the east to stop fighting.
They are terrified of the Red Army.
If we order them to surrender, they will disobey.” He proposed a phased surrender.
Let us surrender to you Americans now, but give us 48 hours to move our troops out of Russia.
It was a trick.
Yodel wanted to use those 48 hours to save the Panza divisions so they could maybe fight again later.
He wanted to create a rift between America and Russia.
Bed Smith went back to Eisenhower’s office.
He told Ike what Yodel was saying.
Eisenhower was pacing the floor, smoking.
He knew exactly what Yodel was doing.
He knew the Germans were stalling.
Eisenhower stopped pacing.
He looked at Smith.
His face was red with anger.
He gave the order that ended the game.
Smith walked back into the war room.
He didn’t sit down.
He stood over Yodel.
He delivered Eisenhower’s message.
General Eisenhower says no.
No delays, no phases, no deals.
Yodel tried to interrupt.
But General Smith slammed his hand on the table.
Listen to me.
The Supreme Commander has ordered.
You will sign the unconditional surrender immediately.
If you do not sign, he will order the Allied lines to be closed.
Yodel froze.
closed.
“Yes,” Smith said.
“We will seal the Western Front.
We will not let a single German soldier cross into our lines.
We will force them back.
We will leave them to the Russians.” And then the final blow.
And we will stop accepting German refugees.
This was the checkmate.
Millions of German civilians were fleeing west.
If Eisenhower closed the border, they would be trapped between the Americans and the Soviets.
They would be slaughtered.
Eisenhower was effectively saying, “Sign the paper or I will let your people die.” Yodel went pale.
He realized the Americans weren’t playing.
The gentleman’s war was over.
This was the end.
He asked for permission to Radio Admiral Dernitz.
He sent a coded message.
Eisenhower insists on immediate total surrender.
Threatens to close lines.
No choice.
Request permission to sign.
Hours passed.
The tension in the room was unbearable.
Coffee cups piled up.
Ashtrays overflowed.
Finally, at midnight, the reply came.
Dernit’s authorizes signature.
2:41 a.m.
May 7th, 1945.
The cameras were brought in.
The lights were bright.
Reporters stood on chairs to get a view.
Yodel sat at the table.
Next to him was Admiral Friedberg.
Opposite them sat Bedell Smith representing Eisenhower, a French general, a Russian general.
The document was placed in front of Yodel.
Act of military surrender.
It was short, simple.
We the undersigned surrender unconditionally all forces.
Yodel picked up a pen.
His hand was shaking slightly.
He signed his name, Alfred Yodel.
Then the others signed.
It took only a few minutes.
The war in Europe, which had killed 60 million people, was turned off with a drop of ink.
After signing, Yodel put down the pen.
He stood up.
He adjusted his tunic.
He looked at the Allied officers.
He wanted to say something.
He wanted to have the last word.
He spoke in English.
General, with this signature, the German people and the German armed forces are, for better or worse, delivered into the victor’s hands.
He paused.
He tried to look sympathetic.
In this war which has lasted more than 5 years, both have achieved and suffered more than perhaps any other people in the world.
He was asking for pity.
He was talking about German suffering.
He didn’t mention the Jews.
He didn’t mention the Poles.
He didn’t mention the Blitz.
He stood there, the architect of the Holocaust, asking for sympathy.
The room went cold.
Nobody answered him.
Nobody nodded.
They just stared at him with stone faces.
Yodel realized he wasn’t going to get any sympathy here.
He snapped a salute and he turned to leave.
But before he could leave the building, Yodel was told, “General Eisenhower will see you now.” Yodel straightened up.
He thought, “Finally, soldier to soldier, he will respect me.” He walked down the hall to Eisenhower’s office.
He entered.
Eisenhower was standing behind his desk.
He looked like a giant.
He didn’t smile.
He didn’t offer a chair.
And most importantly, he didn’t offer his hand.
To a German officer, a handshake is everything.
It signifies honor, mutual respect.
By refusing to shake hands, Eisenhower was saying, “You are not an honorable man.
You are dirt.” Eisenhower spoke.
His voice was icy.
General Yodel, you understand the terms of this surrender? Yodel nodded.
Yovil, you understand that all German forces must cease fire immediately and that any violation will be punished.
Yavul.
Eisenhower stared at him for a long moment.
That is all.
It was a dismissal like you dismiss a servant.
Yodel stood there stunned.
He saluted again.
Eisenhower didn’t return the salute immediately.
He waited.
Then he gave a barely perceptible nod.
Get him out.
Eisenhower signaled to the guards.
Yodel walked out of the room.
He looked broken.
The arrogance was gone.
He realized that to the Americans he wasn’t a great general.
He was just a loser.
After Yodel left, the tension in the room broke.
Eisenhower’s staff crowded around him.
They were cheering, shaking hands, opening champagne.
Eisenhower picked up the two gold pens he had used to create the victory message.
He held them up.
He gave one to Bedell Smith.
He gave one to the British commander.
But he saved the V for victory sign made with the pens for the photographers.
He smiled.
The famous Ike smile finally returned.
He held up two pens in a Vshape.
Victory.
Then he sat down to send the official message to Washington and London.
His staff had drafted long poetic speeches.
The forces of freedom have triumphed over tyranny.
etc.
Eisenhower read them.
He shook his head.
Too many words, he said.
He took a piece of paper and he wrote the most famous message of the war.
Five words.
The mission of this Allied force is fulfilled.
May 7th, 1945.
Simple, true, powerful.
What happened to the men in that room? Admiral Fredberg, the man who cried.
Two weeks later, he couldn’t take the shame.
He went into a bathroom and swallowed poison.
General Alfred Yodel.
He thought he had negotiated a deal.
He thought he would retire.
Instead, the Allies arrested him.
They put him on trial at Nerburgg, the video we made earlier.
They charged him with war crimes.
He was hanged in 1946.
The man who signed the surrender died at the end of a rope.
And Eisenhower, he became the president of the United States.
The man who refused to shake hands with a Nazi became the leader of the free world.
The surrender at Reams was more than just a legal procedure.
It was a moral statement.
Eisenhower’s refusal to treat Yodel as an equal set the tone for the post-war world.
It established that the Nazis were not just enemies who lost a game.
They were criminals who had broken the laws of humanity.
By refusing that handshake, Eisenhower washed the hands of the Allied armies.
He kept them clean.
It was the ultimate insult and the ultimate justice.
Eisenhower refused to show respect to the Nazi general.
Some say he should have been more diplomatic.
Most say he was 100% right.
What would you have done in his place? Shake the hand or turn your back.
Let me know in the comments.
And if you enjoyed this story of victory, make sure to like and subscribe.
We have more incredible stories coming soon.
Thanks for watching.
