Five Brothers and a War

Hitler Commits Suicide

So when Seyß-Inquart arrived for his meeting, he was informed about his function within the new government. Dönitz discussed the capitulation with Seyß-Inquart and other civil administrators and military commanders of territories, which were still occupied. Dönitz wanted to avoid useless bloodshed and actually wanted to agree upon a capitulation on the western front only. On the eastern front, he wanted, together with the Western Allies, to continue the battle against the Soviet Union. General Eisenhower was not interested in forming an alliance with Germany, nor with fighting a new war against the Soviets. He wanted, and got, a very few days later, an unconditional surrender on all fronts. On May 2nd, 1945, Seyß-Inquart's reaction to the death of Hitler was published in the Algemeen Handelsblad . "We are now in a desperate struggle" the Reichskommissar stated. "Our first soldier and defender in this struggle has perished. Let our enemies triumph and think to have overwhelmed us. Now, after the heroic death of our Führer, we will never stop fighting. We believe in Germany. Only when we have won our freedom, we will stop fighting. Veil the image of the Führer with mourning. Bring him flowers, the one who made our lives proud and worth living". He was a Nazi to the end, and in spite of his statements at his Nürnberg trial, was fully briefed, fully aware and fully supportive of the Nazi tactics and outcomes. That same day, Martin Bormann is generally believed to have committed suicide. So the note to Dönitz was sent on May 1, the day after Hitler killed himself. That note was authorized by Goebbels and Bormann. Goebbels killed himself within hours of getting the note to Dönitz, and Bormann killed himself the following day. By May 2, everything had fallen apart. The following day, Seyß-Inquart tried to return to the Holland by the same boat in which he arrived, in order to take care of his employees and to ensure accountability for his policies, according to his testimony at Nürnberg. Because of a severe storm any trip on the sea was impossible. At the same time this was occurring, General Foulkes was meeting with Generalleutnant Paul Reichelt, Blaskowitz's chief-of-staff. General Foulkes went to the extent of showing the German his map laying out the Allied positions and the impossible German ones. General Reichert was impressed, and General Foulkes gave him the document, imploring him to surrender. But then the German made an impassioned, if criminally-oriented statement. He said that he was prepared to destroy Holland’s dykes, to destroy the country, and to die. But then what he said next was astonishing, and went a long way toward explaining some of the Germans' behavior. He said that he was willing to do all of this because he understood that captured Germans would be sent as slaves to Siberia as guests of the Soviets. General Foulkes would later say, “This annoyed me. I told him there was no intention of putting the German Army into Russia, but if they flooded Holland they would be war criminals and punished accordingly. This rather shook the Germans, and they agreed to surrender, provided that I would give them an undertaking that they would not be sent to Russia. I pointed out that my instructions were unconditional surrender.”

nazi germany

Five Brothers and a War

Page 601