Karlshorst
The first Russian soldiers arrive at Karlshorst in the Köpenick district of Berlin on April 23rd. The sapper school which has come through the fights without a scratch is immediately confiscated by the Soviet Army as its provisional headquarters. This sapper school gets famous by the -- after Rheims - second official surrender ceremony of the German armed forces. Already on May 4th Great Admiral and present Reichs President Karl Dönitz sends Admiral von Friedeburg to the camp of Field Marshal Montogomery in the Lüneburg Heath, to sign a partial surrender of the west front. Simultaneously Montgomery suspends all air raids and Dönitz stops the submarine war on all oceans.
In the evening of May 4th Dönitz issues an order to the army groups middle, south and the southeast. In this order he declares: „If you hear now that single armies have laid down the weapons after an honourable fight in the north, the west and the south, then this has happened because the fight against the western powers has lost its meaning. Because the only aim we still must fight for is the rescue of as many people as possible in front of the bolchevism and enslavement ". But Eisenhower sees through Dönitz intention of an American partial surrender and presses the German chief negotiators von Friedeburg and Jodl for the immediate general surrender. NDönitz has no choice and in the night from 6. to May 7th he authorizes Jodl in Reims to sign the documents. It remains now 48 hours, to either fetch the remaining units back from the eastern front to the Reich or break off from the Russians and surrender be the the Americans.
At this time the following troops of 1.5 million men still face the enemy. Among them: 200,000 men of the Army Group Kurland under the order of General Volckamer von Kirchsittenbach, 100,000 men on Hela and in the Vistula lowlands under the order of general von Saucken, 600,000 men of Army Group Mitte (middle)under the order of the new Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Schörner, 450,000 men of the Army Group Südost (southeast) under Colonel General Löhr. Only a fraction of them makes the way westwards on time. On May 7th, at 02,42, Colonel General Jodl signs in the presence of Admiral von Friedeburg and Major Wilhelm Oxenius. Jodl: „
"With this signature the German people and the German armed forces are for better or worse delivered into the victor's hands. In this war, which has lasted more than five years, they both have achieved and suffered more than perhaps any other people in the world. In this hour I can only express the hope that the victor will treat them with generosity."
On the winner side sit Chief of Staff Bedell Smith representing General Eisenhowers, the French General Sevez and as a representative of the Soviet Stavka, General Susloparow.
Stalin rages. He has not authorized anybody to sign a surrender document. Let alone in a French town. He summons Shukov to the telephone and explains: „ It was the Russian people which had to carry the heaviest load of the war, not the English or Americans. The Germans shall therefore repeat the ceremony of the unconditional surrender in Berlin, the centre of the Nazism.". Stalin appoints Shukov as his official representative. On May 9th, Shukov orders the German delegation to usher in at 0.10. General Field Marshal Keitel, appointed by Dönitz to the head of the delegation, enters the hall first. His greeting with the marshal baton is returned by nobody. Next to him Colonel General Stumpff, replacing the wounded Luftwaffe (air force) Supreme Commander Ritter von Greim, as well as the deadly pale Admiral von Friedeburg take a seat. The document is read out and Keitel makes the last attempt to gain more time. The request for a 24-hour period for the announcement to the armies is rejected by Shukov. The signatures are executed, the losers leave the hall, the winners stay behind.
According to the agreement of Reims the armistice becomes effective on May 9th at 00.01. Admiral von Friedeburh poisons himself a day later. In the last hours of May 8th every buoyant ship and boat leaves the ports of Libau and Windau in Kurland to steer around Schleswig Holstein or Denmark.By this 28. 000 men still make it home. Altogether 2.2 million people are fetched back by the navy out of the cauldons of the east. 220.000 march into captivity. Army Group Südost (south east) with 300.000 men surrender to the partisans of Tito. Löhr is shot according to martial law and many of his soldiers also fall victim to the cruel revenge of the partisans. In Austria general Rendulic can deliver his 600.000 men to the Americans. Army Group Mitte with 1.2 million men is deserted by General Field Marshal Schörner. He raises civilian clothes, hides his awards and escapes to Tyrol with the help of a Fieseler Storch light aircraft. There he has set up a hiding-place with stocks for a year. Mountain smallholders show him and he disappears behind bars until 1955. The mass of hs soldiers are taken prisoner and come home never again.
After the signing of the unconditional surrender Karlshorst becomes headquarters of the Soviet Armed Forces Administration. Between 1949 and 1953 he building is seat is the Soviet Control Commission and in the following two years seat of the High Comission of the Soviet Union in the German Democratic Republic (DDR). Today, a superbly equipped museum of the Red Army is based in the former German sapper school.