May 1945.

Hollywood director George Stevens and a few of his camera team are making fun of the Nazis.

Adolf Hitler is dead and the Veyart has finally been defeated.

A bit of tom foolery perhaps to blot out memories of the horrors of Dau.

Stevens is in no hurry to return to Hollywood.

He is determined to document the end of the Nazi regime as accurately as possible.

Consequently, he and his team have also come to Bash Garden.

Stevens has been given permission to film on the Uba, Hitler’s private refuge high above the town.

The Bhoff is a ruin, a symbol of the demise of a murderous ideology.

[Music] [Music] From the Oberazburg, Stevens traveled to nearby Austria, first to Saltsburg and then on to Insbrook, sightseeing in a country which had willingly thrown itself into the arms of the Nazis.

The small camera team also drove to the Brena Pass on the border with Italy and South Tiroll.

The Vermacht had laid down its arms in Italy and southern Germany, but not in Austria as a whole, and the Reich government in Flynn in northern Germany was still refusing to capitulate to the Soviet Union.

May the 6th, 1945, on behalf of Admiral Dernitz, Colonel General Alfred Yodel had flown to Rance in France to sign the declaration of the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany.

Kirk B.

Lorton, Eisenhower’s man for photojournalism in World War II, documented this major event in world history with his amateur camera.

Yodel still had hopes of securing a separate armistice with the Western Allies.

Negotiations in the Allied headquarters were debtlocked for hours.

Headed by General Eisenhower, the Allied delegation resolutely demanded the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces on all fronts.

Yodel hesitated because this was a step he had no authority to take.

The British and Americans responded by threatening to start bombing German cities again.

To avoid annoying Stalin, a high-ranking Soviet liaison officer had been invited to attend the ceremony.

It was only after midnight that the German delegation received a telegram from Dunitz saying that Yordel was allowed to sign.

At 2:39 a.

m.

on May the 7th, 1945, US General Walter Bedel Smith, Soviet General Ivan Suslarov, and as a witness, French Major General Francois Se all signed the capitulation document.

Then it was Alfred Yodel’s turn to add his signature.

[Music] Then the commanderin-chief of the Allied Expeditionary Force, Dwight D.

Eisenhower, announced that as of 2301 hours, Central European time on May the 8th, 1945, the war would be over.

We the undersigned acting by authority of the German high command hereby surrender unconditionally to the supreme commander Allied expeditionary force and simultaneously to the Soviet high command all forces on land, sea, and in the air who are at this date under German control.

[Music] When Joseph Stalin heard of the capitulation in France, he was beside himself with rage and demanded that the ceremony be repeated in his own sphere of influence.

But the news from Rans had already been made public.

As a result, most German soldiers surrendered voluntarily, if possible, to the Americans.

On May the 7th, a cameraman with Special Film Project 186 took these pictures somewhere in Southeast Germany.

[Music] In Troll on the evening of May the 7th, author Erish Kessner wrote in his diary, “Fence radio station has announced that Yordel has signed the capitulation document and that it will come into force tomorrow.

But the radio station in Bohemia has caught the report of fabrication concocted by the enemy.

” In Berlin, the Russians claim to have found the corpses of Gerbles, his wife, and their children.

Now the radio stations have ceased broadcasting.

It is quiet here.

The only sound is that of cockchafers.

Those little armored insects flying head first into the illuminated window.

[Music] Meanwhile, Czech resistance fighters had restored the old borders which the Munich agreement of 1938 had shifted in favor of the Sudatan German minority.

Over the past 2 weeks, US General George S.

pattern had advanced 30 to 40 km a day, an almost incredible rate of progress.

In early May 1945, his troops had crossed the border into Bohemia.

On May the 6th, American units liberated the city of Pilson.

The next day, the GI’s arrival turned into a rousing victory parade.

Thousands of Pilson citizens welcomed the Americans with boundless joy.

[Music] It was the first time cameramen with Special Film Project 186 had been able to film scenes of jubilation.

[Music] [Applause] [Music] Gone were people’s fears that their hometown could still be turned into a battlefield.

Yet that nearly happened because in Pilzen and the surrounding area, the Germans still had around 15,000 troops who were determined to crush any attempts by the checks to revolt.

However, the two US divisions which liberated Pilzen outnumbered the Germans.

So the German commander, General Fonmayski, decided to surrender.

At 2:15 on the afternoon of May the 6th, 1945, he signed the capitulation document and ordered his troops to cease all hostilities.

Then, in front of his staff and his wife, Mfski committed suicide.

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] The American liberators remained in Pilzen for 7 months.

[Music] The occupying Germans left Pilzen forever.

6 years of brutal suppression had left their mark.

In March 1939, Hitler’s Vermacht had broken the Munich agreement and marched into Czechoslovakia.

As part of the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, for years the people of Pilzen too were at the mercy of German despotism and terror.

Around 3,000 Jewish citizens were deported to concentration camps.

Right up until Germany’s capitulation, Fiat Marshall Ferdinan Sha and his troops were entrenched in Bohemia.

Cha was a fanatical Nazi whom Hitler in his last will and testament had appointed commanderin-chief of the army.

In line with the maxim strength through fear, Sherna used brutal methods to put his troops under pressure.

Deserters were hanged from the nearest tree with a sign around their neck saying, “I refuse to protect German women and children.

” Propaganda Minister Joseph Gerbles commented on this attitude as late as March 1945.

Such methods have an impact, of course.

At any rate, every soldier in Sherna’s combat area knows that he can die at the front and will die at the rear.

The German prisoners of war were escorted out of town by Czech resistance fighters.

Things weren’t always as amicable as these pictures taken by a US Air Force cameraman suggest.

In places where prior to the arrival of the allies a vacuum had formed, excessive violence was common.

The aggressive mood was fueled by the Czech president in exile, Edvard Benes, who even before the war was over, had said, “The Germans will be paid back many times over and without mercy for all the crimes they have committed in our land since 1938.

The Americans came across the victims of acts of vengeance time and again.

It is May the 8th, 1945, the last day of the Second World War in Europe.

The checks celebrated their American liberators, but they had nothing but contempt for their former tormentors.

The bodies were carted away and buried somewhere.

No one in Bohemia shed a single tear for a dead German.

The cameraman with Special Film Project 186 took these pictures right on the Soviet American demarcation line.

Before this Vermont officer is allowed to pass the checkpoint, he has to hand over his pistol.

A German general surrenders in comfort in a convertible.

A US military policeman then drives him to a special prisoner of war camp for highranking officers.

[Music] Anyone who was fortunate enough grabbed a ride on a Vermach truck heading for the safety of the west.

Among the endless convoy of German soldiers, there were also some trucks carrying jubilant checks.

At 12:30 on May the 8th, 1945, Raj President Carl Dernitz spoke to the nation on the radio.

Men and women of Germany, in my address on May the 1st, in which I informed you of the death of the Fura and my appointment as his successor, I stated that my first task was to save German lives.

In order to attain this goal, in the night of the 6th to the 7th of May, I ordered the armed forces high command to declare the unconditional surrender of all fighting troops in all theaters of war.

At 2300 hours on May the 8th, the guns will fall silent.

Most of the defeated German soldiers had to make their way into captivity on foot.

This is how one soldier remembered May the 8th, 1945.

We were really frightened.

All we could think about was what awaited us over the next few days.

What would happen to us in Czechoslovakia, surrounded as we were with no way out.

Then suddenly the war was over.

The new fura of what was left of the rish, Grand Admiral Carl Dunits announced the unconditional surrender of the Rash and the Vermart.

At long last, the war was over.

Years of destroying human lives and property were over.

But what would become of us Germans now? My life had been preserved.

But how would I be able to shape it? Would there be any real possibilities open to me? [Music] [Music] On May the 8th, US President Harry S.

Truman addressed his nation on the radio.

This is a solemn but a glorious hour.

Our rejoicing is sobered and subdued by a supreme consciousness of the terrible price we have paid to rid the world of Hitler and his evil band.

The rats were leaving the sinking ship on May the 8th, 1945 in Kitingham near Vertsborg.

A German war hero allowed himself to be filmed by a cameraman with special film project 186.

Together with his squadron, fighter and bomber pilot Hans Olish Rudel had flown out of Bohemia to surrender to the Americans.

Rudel was the only member of the German armed forces to be awarded the Knight’s Cross with golden oak leaves, swords, and diamonds.

He was also a fanatical Nazi.

In March 1945, while still in a military hospital after being seriously wounded by Soviet anti-aircraft fire, Rudel appeared on Joseph Gerbal’s weekly propaganda news reel, exhorting the Germans to stand firm.

This time it is not about personal sacrifices.

We all need to grit our teeth and willingly accept these sacrifices.

And in the end, this nation of ours, which up to now has fought so courageously and has indeed gritted its teeth, will achieve final victory.

Rudell presented himself to his American hosts as a cultivated individual who, as a soldier, had merely been doing his duty.

Rudel spent nearly a year in American captivity.

After he was released, he first set up a holage company.

But in 1948, he fled via the rat line to South America.

In Argentina, Rudolph set up a relief organization for Nazi war criminals and maintained close contact with fascists from Italy and Croatia who were being searched for worldwide.

Rudell ended the war as an amputee, but still firmly convinced that national socialism had been a good idea.

[Music] In this respect, he was totally in agreement with left tenant general Adolf Galant who like Rudel was a highly decorated fighter pilot.

After his release from American captivity, Galant also went to Argentina where he acted as adviser to President Juan Peron’s air force.

[Music] When Peron was ousted from power, Adolf Galant returned to Germany while Hans Olri served the dictators of Paraguay and Chile.

In Chile, he occasionally resided in the notorious Colonia Dignidat torture commune.

For the rest of his life, Rudel maintained close contact with the neo-Nazi scene in Germany.

The funeral of the Nazi war hero in 1982 turned into a Macabra showpiece.

Old comrades b farewell with the Hitler salute.

German air force jets made a low-level pass over the cemetery and the mourner sang all three verses of the German national anthem.

[Music] In London on May the 8th, people gathered in the streets to celebrate the end of the Second World War in Europe.

In his memoirs, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote, “The unconditional surrender of our enemies was the signal for the greatest outburst of joy in the history of mankind.

The Second World War had indeed been fought to the bitter end in Europe.

The vanquished as well as the victors felt inexpressable relief.

Weary and worn, impoverished but undaunted and now triumphant, we had a moment that was sublime.

We thanked God for the greatest of his blessings, the feeling that we had done our duty.

On May the 8th, Churchill insisted on giving the Victory in Europe broadcast himself.

It was almost 5 years to the day.

On May the 10th, 1940, he had assumed leadership of a national coalition government in Britain’s darkest hour.

Following defeat in France and the retreat from Dunkirk, Churchill predicted that the war against Nazi Germany would cost his people blood, sweat, and tears.

His contempt for Hitler knew no bounds.

Consequently, VE Day was the biggest triumph of his life.

[Applause] [Music] As Churchill drove through London, the crowds cheered him.

But barely 2 months later, he suffered a bitter defeat at the hands of the British electorate.

It cost Churchill the office of prime minister.

Walking behind the sergeant at arms who is bearing the ceremonial mace of the house of commons.

Speaker Douglas Clifton heads for Westminster Abbey followed by the prime minister and his majesty’s government.

In the abbey, the congregation sang the hymn of thanksgiving written by Isaac Watts in 1708.

Oh God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home.

The first to leave the abbey after the service was the royal family, King George V 6th and Queen Elizabeth and their daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.

Plans had been put forward for the royal family to be evacuated to Canada.

But first and foremost, it was the queen who totally rejected the idea.

The children won’t go without me.

I won’t leave the king and the king will never leave.

The king and queen remained in London throughout the war, actively giving comfort and encouragement to people, especially during the Blitz.

May the 9th, 1945, at a barracks in Vbardan, liberated Soviet slave workers celebrate victory over Germany.

Most of them had been deported to the Third Reich after the Nazis occupied the Ukraine and Bo Russia.

The women were put to work mainly in armaments factories.

[Music] For all Soviet citizens, the 9th of May was the day of liberation from Nazi fascism.

That is because the declaration of surrender was signed after midnight Moscow time.

Joseph Stalin had demanded that the capitulation ceremony be repeated in Berlin Carl’shost.

In his view, the pictures from Rance, in which the Soviet general seemed like a mere observer, could not symbolize the end of a war that had cost the lives of 27 million of his subjects.

On May the 9th, a camera team with Special Film Projects 186 took this footage of the victory celebrations in Vbardon at which a statement by the Soviet dictator was read out.

3 years ago, Hitler declared for all to hear that his aims included the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the resting from it of the Caucuses, the Ukraine, yellow Russia, the Baltic Islands, and other areas.

He declared bluntly, “We will destroy Russia so that she will never be able to rise again.

” This was 3 years ago.

However, Hitler’s crazy ideas were not fated to come true.

The progress of the war scattered them to the winds.

In actual fact, the direct opposite of the Hitler’s ravings has taken place.

Germany’s utterly defeated.

The German troops are surrendering.

The Soviet Union is celebrating victory.

Although it does not intend either to dismember or to destroy Germany.

[Music] On May the 9th, 1945, two US Air Force cameramen took this footage on a road somewhere on Germany’s border with Czecha Slovakia.

to escape the Red Army.

Vermacht remnants were fleeing to that part of Germany occupied by the Americans.

Their supreme commander, Field Marshal Friedri Shernner, had long since left his troops in the lurch and absconded.

On May the 9th, dressed in civilian clothes and with several thousand marks from government coffers in his possession, he had flown in a feasel to Austria where a short time later he was arrested by the Americans.

Members of the SS who in the last weeks of the war had stood out through particularly fanatical resistance had intermingled with ordinary German soldiers.

Hinri Himla’s henchmen obviously felt safe in the midst of a stream of soldiers, nurses, and civilian employees flooding back to Germany.

These child soldiers have also survived.

Some Germans were immaculately dressed when they surrendered to the Americans.

Exuding self-confidence, this left tenant colonel with the Vaffan SS presented himself to the Americans as an adversary on an equal footing.

But the GIS were not impressed.

They knew all about the atrocities the SS had committed against captured US troops in the Arden.

In the eyes of the two cameramen with special film project 186, this officer was obviously a perfect example of the German master race.

On the other side of the border in the small village of Tannenburg’s Tal in the Fortland region, convoys of German troops who had surrendered to the Americans were gridlocked.

Just as the supreme command of the Viamat demanded, the soldiers laid down their arms in a sorted and orderly fashion.

On May the 9th, 1945, around 10 million Germans laid down their arms.

The relics of a war which their Supreme Commander, Adolf Hitler, had long planned and which worldwide had claimed around 60 million lives.

Not a single highranking Vermachar officer felt the need to ignore Hitler’s insane orders and prevent the slaughter of the last few weeks of the war.

Even after the Fura had committed suicide, the fighting still continued.

Thus, in the final week of the Second World War, 95,000 German soldiers met a senseless end.

[Music] In the chaos of unconditional surrender, many an ordinary soldier tried to abscond unrecognized in Tiroll.

On May the 10th, 1945, Eish Kessner described scenes in his diary that occurred in so many places.

The procession of limping soldiers is endless.

They sell cigarettes to get their hands on a bit of money.

There is a permanent demand for civilian clothes.

But there is nothing to be had.

Wardrobes are empty.

A neighbor was given 450 cigarettes for an old pair of trousers.

I’d love to make that kind of deal.

But the only trousers I’ve got are the ones I’m wearing.

Some Lance corporal offered the Steiners £3 of smoked sausage, 20 cigarettes, and 100 marks and cash for a civilian suit, but the deal didn’t go through.

H Steiner thought the price didn’t reflect the tense market situation.

The Steiners had lost two sons in the war.

When a bystander pointed out that their suits could be sold, the mood turned ugly.

But the old man swallowed his anger and slammed the door.

May the 14th, 1945, a week after Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender, a camera team with Special Film Project 186 was filming in Auxburg.

By now, people here too had resigned themselves to the fact that the Nazi rush was gone and were coming to terms with their new masters.

The city had surrendered peacefully to the Americans on April the 28th, 1945.

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