The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel

by Walter Gorlitz

  Dönitz immediately made it plain that as the Führer’s successor—the new Head of State—he had no intention of having a Cabinet or list of Ministers dictated to him by anybody; I underwrote that view wholeheartedly. I gave him as my opinion that this was an obvious attempt by Goebbels and Bormann to confront him with a fait accompli. The afternoon was spent on composing proclamations to the German people and the armed forces. In a situation like this, it was clearly impracticable to swear-in the whole of the armed forces afresh: I proposed as a formula that the oaths of allegiance sworn to the Führer automatically transferred their validity to Dönitz as the new Head of State the Führer had selected.

  During the course of the morning, Himmler also appeared, and had a number of private interviews with Dönitz. It had already struck me that he did not figure on Goebbels’ list of Ministers. I gained the impression that he regarded himself as a natural member of the new Dönitz Cabinet, because he asked me what the armed forces’ feelings towards him were. I rather gathered that he had his eye on the office of War Minister. I avoided replying, but advised him to discuss the matter with Dönitz; I could hardly go over the head of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. I added that I would be asking Dönitz to relieve me of my duties, as soon as he had ruled on the question of the command of the armed forces, as new commanders-in-chief would have to be chosen for both the Army and the Navy now.

  As soon as Dönitz learned that Himmler was there, he had me called in once more for a private interview, to tell me that Himmler had placed himself entirely at his disposal, having apparently entertained some hopes during the previous days of taking over as Hitler’s successor himself. He asked me what I would think of Himmler’s being in a new Cabinet; I could only reply that I considered Himmler insufferable. We both promised to keep this absolutely to ourselves. Dönitz planned to have Count Schwerin von Krosigk, the then Secretary to the Treasury, as his personal adviser and Foreign Secretary; he intended to discuss the composition of the new Cabinet with him.

  As soon as the proclamations were ready to be broadcast, I left Dönitz’s headquarters and drove back to Neustadt with the intention of reporting to Dönitz again early next day, 3rd May. On my arrival, I analysed the new position with Jodl; both of us had only one thought now—to bring the war rapidly to an end as soon as the evacuation of East Prussia and the operations designed to salvage our armies on the eastern front permitted. We decided to go over these points with Dönitz next day.

  We were strengthened in our resolve by a lengthy telegram Field-Marshal Kesselring sent us for Dönitz’s eyes on the evening of 2nd May: Kesselring reported the surrender of the Army Group in Italy, which was already ratified, and he added that while he had been taken by surprise by Colonel-General von Vietinghoff’s unauthorised surrender negotiations, he was accepting full responsibility for them and he underwrote the latter’s action. Now that the Italian front had collapsed, the position of Colonel-General Löhr’s Balkan Army Group had become dangerously exposed, and there was no hope of salvaging it.

  Armed with this Intelligence, I drove back to Dönitz in Plön early on 3rd May; his own radio office had already picked up Kesselring’s signal. Dönitz was equally determined to put an end to the war as quickly as possible, and he accordingly called me in as soon as I arrived. I proposed that the northern OKW group should be transferred to his headquarters immediately. As there was not enough room for that in Plön, and the Supreme Command’s overall control had to be established without delay, Dönitz ordered that the Supreme Command was to be moved to Flensburg, with immediate effect. I summoned Jodl to Plön with our immediate staffs, while the combined OKW/War Office organisation set out for Flensburg. After Jodl’s arrival, we both had a long conference with Dönitz, who completely underwrote our own views on the situation.

  That evening, Dönitz drove out to Rendsburg, where he had sent for Admiral von Friedeburg to disclose to him personally that he was to be named the new C.-in-C. of the German Navy. We stayed thenight in Dönitz’s old headquarters, and followed him to Flensburg on 3rd May, leaving at four-thirty that morning. In Flensburg-Mürwick, offices and sleeping quarters were made available to us in a naval barracks; Jodl, I and our immediate staffs moved into the same building as the Grand-Admiral, with offices next door to his own.

  Jodl’s chief of staff for the OKW theatres was now Colonel Meyer-Detring, while as chief of the operational division, General Dethleffsen handled the War Office affairs. I would thus prefer not to go into the military situation: these two officers were in a better position than I to judge the situation at the time, and will no doubt both write their own memoirs in due course.

  It will be enough to say that measures were immediately put in hand to finish the war in accordance with clear instructions issued by the Grand-Admiral, while at the same time ensuring that as many refugees and troops from the eastern front as possible were saved by funnelling them back into central Germany. It was obvious to us that when the time came we would be asked to capitulate on the spot and without further ado: so it was a matter of expediting the transfer of what was still over three million troops from the eastern front to the American occupation zone, to prevent them falling into Russian hands. This was also the object of the negotiations begun as early as 3rd or 4th May on the Grand-Admiral’s initiative between Admiral von Friedeburg and the British Commander-in-Chief, Field-Marshal Montgomery.

  When the latter refused to make special agreements with us, the negotiations were followed by the instrument of surrender proposed by von Friedeburg and signed by Colonel-General Jodl at General Eisenhower’s headquarters early on the morning of 7th May; its only concession lay in the extension of the term to midnight of the 8th.

  From Eisenhower’s headquarters Jodl sent me a signal which, although in guarded language, left me in no doubt about the possibilities accorded by this two days’ grace, and I was able to signal the units on the eastern front—and especially General Schörner’s Army Group, still fighting in eastern Czechoslovakia—authorising their withdrawal westwards within the desperately limited time of not more than 48 hours. This directive went out before midnight on the 7th. Colonel Meyer-Detring had already taken an appreciation of the situation and a copy of the directives we were drawing up out to the Army Command in Czechoslovakia by means of a gallant flight straight out to the front.

  General Hilpert’s Army Group in the Baltic provinces (Courland) had been put in the picture by Major de Maizière; he was authorised to send all his sick and injured troops home with the last transport ship leaving Libau. De Maizière brought me the last greetings from my son, Ernst-Wilhelm, to whom he had spoken just before his return flight to Flensburg. Field-Marshal Busch (north-western front) and General Böhme (Norway) had already attended personally on the Grand-Admiral to receive instructions. We were still in uninterrupted radio contact with Field-Marshal Kesselring, commanding in the south in conjunction with the southern OKW group commanded by Lieutenant-General Winter of the OKW operations staff.

  A number of members of the government had reported at Flensburg-Mürwick, including the new Foreign Secretary, Count Schwerin von Krosigk; Reichsminister Speer had also arrived, and General von Trotha, the Chief of Staff I had sacked from Student’s Army Group (ex-Heinrici’s), had somewhat remarkably attached himself to him.

  Himmler was also trying to maintain his position vis-à-vis Grand-Admiral Dönitz. After a conference with Dönitz, I undertook to ask Himmler to resign and refrain from making further visits to the Grand-Admiral’s headquarters. He had initially been entrusted with certain police duties, but he was relieved of these as well. For a Dönitz government Himmler was quite untenable, and on Dönitz’s behalf I made that quite clear to him.

  The following instance shows how little insight Himmler had into the political situation, and the burden that he was to us: from an unspecified headquarters he sent to us an Army officer who had previously been on his staff—and whom he simultaneously discharged—with a letter to be forward
ed to General Eisenhower. The officer had been authorised to apprise me of the letter’s contents: it contained in a few words an offer to surrender voluntarily to General Eisenhower, if he was assured that in no circumstance would he be turned over to the Russians. Himmler had already voiced this intention once to me in Jodl’s presence, during our last interview with him. As the officer who brought the letter never returned to Himmler, the latter never learned that his offer was not forwarded to Eisenhower as we destroyed the letter on the spot. Besides, Himmler had directed his courier to inform me (for Dönitz) that he was planning to go to ground in Northern Germany; he would remain ‘submerged’ for the next six months or so. The rest of the story—with his arrest a few weeks later, and his suicide by taking poison while in custody—is well known.

  On 8th May, after Jodl’s return from Eisenhower’s headquarters at Reims, I was commanded by the Grand-Admiral, acting as Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces—to fly by British transport aircraft to Berlin, with the preliminary instrument as signed by Jodl and Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff. Admiral von Friedeburg accompanied me as the Navy’s representative, and Colonel-General Stumpff, the last C.-in-C. for Home Defence, on behalf of the Air Force. In addition to these, I took with me Vice-Admiral Bürkner, Chief of the OKW’s Military Intelligence department, and Lieutenant-Colonel Böhm-Tettelbach, because not only did he speak fluent English, but he had also passed the Russian-interpreter examinations.

  We flew by British transport plane to Stendal first. There a squadron of civil aircraft had been mustered by the British Air Chief-Marshal who was General Eisenhower’s representative. After a sort of victory flight round Berlin, we all landed, with my plane last, at Tempelhof airport. A Russian guard of honour had been drawn up for the British and American parties, with a military band; from our landing area we were able to watch the ceremony from afar. A Russian officer had been detailed to accompany me—I was told he was General Zhukov’s chief quartermaster—and he drove me in one car while the rest of my party followed in other cars.

  We drove across Belle-Alliance-Platz through the outskirts of the city to Karlshorst, where we were put down at a small empty villa not far from the Pioneer and Engineer School’s barracks. It was about one o’clock in the afternoon. We were left absolutely to ourselves. Presently a reporter came and took some photographs, and after a while a Russian interpreter came: he was unable to tell me at what time the signing of the Instrument of Surrender was to take place; I had in any case been given a German copy of it at the airport.

  I was, therefore, able to compare the version signed by Jodl with the wording of this new one; but I observed only minor divergences from the original. The only basic modification was the interpolation of a clause threatening to punish troops who failed to cease fire and surrender at the time provided. I told the interpreter officer that I demanded to speak to a representative from General Zhukov, as I would not sign such an interpolation unconditionally. Several hours later, a Russian general arrived with the interpreter to hear my objection; I believe he was Zhukov’s Chief of Staff.

  I explained that I was objecting because I could not guarantee that our cease-fire orders would be received in time, with the result that the troops’ commanders might feel justified in failing to comply with any demands to that effect. I demanded that a clause should be written in that the Surrender would come into force only twenty-four hours after the orders had been received by our troops; only then would the penalty clause take effect. About an hour later, the general was back with the news that General Zhukov had agreed to twelve hours’ grace being given, instead of twenty-four. He ended by asking for my credentials as the representatives of the victorious powers wished to inspect them; I would receive them back shortly. The signing was to take place ‘towards evening’, he added.

  At about three o’clock that afternoon we were served a magnificent meal by Russian girls. Our patience was being sorely tried. At five o’clock we were taken into another building and served afternoon tea, but nothing happened. They brought back my credentials and told me everything was in order, but apparently they still did not know at what time the Surrender was going to be signed. At ten o’clock my patience was exhausted, and I officially demanded to know when the signing was going to take place; I was told it would be in about an hour. During the evening I had our modest baggage fetched from the plane, as the return flight which we had taken for granted was now impossible.

  Shortly before midnight—that is, the time the surrender was due to come into force—I was conducted with my lieutenants into the mess hall of the barracks. As the clock began to strike the hour, we entered the big hall through a side door, and were led across to the long table directly facing us, where three seats had been kept free for my two companions and myself; the rest of our entourage were obliged to stand behind us. Every corner of the hall was packed, and brilliantly lit by spotlights. Three rows of chairs running the length of the hall and one across it were crowded with officers; General Zhukov took the chair with the plenipotentiaries of Britain and America on either side of him.

  As soon as Zhukov’s Chief of Staff laid the Instrument in front of me, in three languages, I asked him to explain why the qualification I had demanded to the penalty clauses had not been inserted in the text. He went across to Zhukov, and after conferring briefly with him, under my close scrutiny, he came back and told me Zhukov had expressly agreed to my demand for the penalty measures not to take effect for a further twelve hours.

  The ceremony began with a few introductory words; then Zhukov asked me whether I had read the Instrument of Surrender. I replied, ‘Yes.’ His second question was whether I was ready to recognise it with my signature. Again, I answered with a loud ‘Yes!’ The signing ceremony began at once, and, after I had been the first to sign it, the attestation. Finally, I and my party left the hall by the door close behind me.

  Now we were returned to our small villa again; during the afternoon a table had been set up, groaning under the weight of a cold buffet, with various wines, while in the remaining rooms clean beds had been prepared for every one of us, one bed each. The official interpreter said that a Russian general was coming, and that dinner would be served upon his arrival. A quarter of an hour later Zhukov’s chief quartermaster appeared and asked us to begin; he asked us to excuse him as he could not stay. The meal was probably more modest than we had been accustomed to, he apologised, but we should have to put up with it. I was unable to refrain from answering that we were not at all accustomed to such luxury and such lavish feasts. He obviously thought he was only being flattered by this remark.

  We all thought that the kind of Sakuska with which we were served was all there was to this hangman’s breakfast; we were all feeling very replete when we learned that there was a hot roast meat course to follow, and finally they gave us all plates of fresh frozen strawberries, something I had never eaten before in my life. It was obvious that some Berlin gourmets’ restaurant had provided this dinner, as even the wines were German brands. After the meal, the interpreter officer left us; apparently he had stood in for the host. I laid on our aircraft for six o’clock next morning to take us back, and we all turned in.

  Next morning, at five o’clock, we were given a simple breakfast. As I was about to leave at about half-past five, I was asked to wait for Zhukov’s Chief of Staff who wanted to have a talk with me about our return flight. We all stood around our cars, waiting to drive off. The general requested me to remain in Berlin; they would endeavour to provide me with the opportunity to issue from Berlin our cease-fire orders to the troops on the eastern front, just as I had demanded when we discussed the terms of the penalty clauses the day before. I replied that if they would guarantee radio communication, I would at once issue the further signals; they would have to hand over the German cyphers to me. The general disappeared again to ask Zhukov for a decision. He returned with the news that it would not be possible after all for me to despatch these signals; but General Zhuko
v still invited me to remain in Berlin nevertheless.

  Now I saw what they were up to. I insisted on flying to Flensburg at once, as I would have to transmit the amended surrender conditions to the troops as quickly as possible from there; otherwise I would not accept the consequences for what happened. He was to inform his general that I had signed in good faith and had been relying on General Zhukov’s word as an officer.

  Ten minutes later the Chief of Staff was back again with the news that my aircraft would be ready to take off in an hour. I climbed quickly into my car with Bürkner and Böhm-Tettelbach and the interpreter; these gentlemen had all detected that an attempt was being made to detain me much more clearly than I had myself—at first, at least.

  They told me that the Russians had obviously had too much to drink and that the victory feast was still in full sway at the mess as we drove safely off.

  The interpreter asked what route I wanted to take to the airport. We drove past the City Hall, the castle and along Unter den Linden, and Friedrichstrasse. There were horrifying traces of the battle to be seen between Unter den Linden and Belle-Alliance-Platz. Large numbers of German and Russian tanks blocked Friedrichstrasse at several places, and the street was strewn with the rubble of collapsed buildings. We flew straight back to Flensburg, relieved to be in a British aircraft and in the air. We landed at Flensburg at about ten o’clock.

  We had arranged to exchange official delegations with Montgomery and Eisenhower, to ease the business between us. On Saturday 12th May, the American delegation arrived at Flensburg and were accommodated aboard the Patria, a luxury steamship; the first conference was arranged for eleven o’clock on Sunday morning. Dönitz was required to go aboard the Patria first to be received by the Americans, while I was to make my appearance half an hour later.