Happy Yuletide, and next year will be better

“8 o’clock and 3 minutes. Reichssender [Reich Radio Station] Flensburg and the affiliated broadcasters. Today we bring the last Wehrmacht report of this war.

JdN: Germany on May 1, 1945; only in the white areas are there no enemy troops. The dark red areas were lost to Germany in the previous 14 days.

In East Prussia, German divisions yesterday defended the Vistula estuary and the western part of the Frische Nehrung  [=”Fresh Spit of land”] bravely until the end, with the 7th Infantry Division being particularly prominent. Their supreme commander, general of the armored troops von Saucken, was awarded, in recognition of the exemplary attitude of his soldiers, the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with diamonds, oak leaves and swords.

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This was (and is…) the highest military decoration of the Reich

Von Saucken could have flown out and handed himself over to the Americans, but he remained with his brave men in East Prussia. Horribly beaten by the Soviets, in 1955 he was released in a wheelchair.(He then became an artist-painter in Munich, dying in 1980.) One of his sons fell as a lieutenant in Romania in 1944. 

As an advanced bulwark..

for months, under the command of Colonel-General [Carl] Hilpert, our armies in Kurland tied up superior Soviet rifle and armored formations and acquired fame in six great battles.

Died in 1947 in Moscow in Soviet captivity

They rejected any early surrender. In full order, only the injured, and the fathers of large families, were taken out by aircraft bound for the West. The staff and officers remained with their troops. At midnight the German side stopped fighting and every military movement in accordance with the signed terms [of the capitulation of May 8-9, 10945 at Reims, France and Berlin, Germany].

The defenders of Breslau, who resisted the attacks of the Soviets for more than two months, at the last hour succumbed in a heroic struggle to enemy quantitative superiority.

University of Breslau [now Wroclaw,Poland] before 1945

Also on the southeast and east fronts, from Fiume to Brno on the Elbe [River] near Dresden, all higher command authorities have been ordered to stop fighting. A Czech insurrection movement in almost all of Bohemia and Moravia may jeopardize the implementing of conduct of surrender terms and communications links in the area. Reports on the situation with the army groups Löhr, Rendulic and Schörner are not yet available to the High Command of the Wehrmacht.

Far from home, the defenders of the Atlantic bases, our troops in Norway, and the crews of the Aegean islands have shown obedience and discipline, upholding the honor of the German soldier.

Silence has fallen since midnight

now on all fronts from our weapons. On the orders of the Grand Admiral, [Karl Doenitz], the Wehrmacht has stopped the hopeless fight.

This ends the almost six-year heroic struggle. It has brought us great victories but also heavy defeats.

The German Wehrmacht has succumbed in honorable struggle to the end against enemies with a vast superiority in quantity.

True to his oath, the German soldier, in the highest spirit dedication to his people, has done unforgettable feats. The home front has supported him to the last with all its strength and while suffering the heaviest toll of victims.

The unique achievement of the combat front and the home front will find their final appreciation in a later just ruling by history.

For the achievements and sacrifices of German soldiers on water, on land and in the air, the opponent will not fail to show respect. Each soldier can therefore lay his arms down with upright pride, and bravely and confidently go on to work for the eternal life of our people in the gravest hours of our history.

In this difficult hour the Wehrmacht commemorates its comrades who have fallen before the enemy .

The dead consecrate us now to unconditional loyalty, obedience and discipline toward our Fatherland, which is  bleeding from innumerable wounds.”

[The End]