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Germans sign unconditional surrender

Broadcast Date: May 7, 1945

After nearly six years of war in Europe it comes to this: two empty chairs. The chairs, which sit at a long wooden table in a map-lined war room, are for two German commanders, who will sign three documents spelling out the unconditional surrender of Germany's land, sea and air forces. In the wee hours of May 7, 1945, at the Allied headquarters in Reims, France, the war in Europe is finally over.

The CBC's Gerald Clark is among the war correspondents who have been assembled to capture the historic moment. Allied officers enter the room, followed minutes later by General Alfred Jodl, German chief of staff, and Admiral Hans von Friedeburg of the German navy. In 20 minutes it's all over. Then, says Clark, "General Jodl walked away, and I saw on his face the look of a beaten Germany."

Germans sign unconditional surrender

• Negotiations leading up to the final surrender lasted over eight hours. On instructions from Hitler's successor, President Karl Doenitz, the German envoy General Alfred Jodl agreed to surrender his forces to the western Allies. However, Jodl refused to give up to the Soviets on the eastern front.
• The Allies then threatened not to accept any more surrenders on the western side, and to leave the Germans to the mercy of the Soviets. Backed into a corner, Jodl consented.

• "With this signature," Jodl said after signing, "the German people and armed forces are, for better or for worse, delivered into the victors' hands…In this hour I can only express my hope that the victors will treat them with generosity."
• After the surrender Jodl was arrested, charged with war crimes and put on trial at Nuremberg. "Before God, before history and before my people," he pled not guilty. The court found him guilty and he was executed by hanging.

• At 11:59 p.m. on May 8, 1945, another German surrender took place in Berlin. Soviet General Georgy Zhukov of the Red Army accepted the surrender of German forces on the eastern front from German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. The western Allies also signed the surrender agreement alongside the Soviets.


• Listen to an additional clip in which CBC correspondent Matthew Halton describes the surrender in Berlin.
• The Berlin surrender brought all fighting in Europe to an end.


• Reims, in northeastern France, was where SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) was located.
• Headed by U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, SHAEF was formed in late 1943 to coordinate the movements of all western Allied land forces in northwest Europe.
• SHAEF's first coordinated attack, shaped from an earlier Allied plan, was the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944. See the CBC Archives topic D-Day: Canadians Target Juno Beach.

Germans sign unconditional surrender

Medium: Radio

Program: War Dispatches

Broadcast Date: May 7, 1945

Guest(s):

Reporter: Gerald Clark

Duration: 6:03

Last updated:
May 5, 2005