On 13 January 1943, at a conference in Casablanca, United States president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided that the war with Germany should end with the unconditional surrender of the 3rd Reich. Joseph Stalin, besides the leader of the USSR, agreed later.
On May 7, 1945, at 2.41, in General Dwight Eisenhower's quarters in Reims, France, the commander of the Allied expeditionary forces in Europe, a typical of General Walter-Bedel Smith, in the presence of russian General Ivan Susłoparov, accepted the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht, which, under the authority of the fresh Reich president, the large admiral (the equivalent of the Field Marshal) Karl Donitz, anointed for this function by Hitler himself, was signed by General Alfred Jodl, Chief of Staff of the OKW (the chief authority of the Wehrmacht). He was besides accompanied by Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. The present general of the French army acted only as a witness, and the French flag was besides forgotten. It was a kind of rematch, for agreeing to ceasefire with Germany in 1940 and later collaborations of the Vichy government.
Stalin, however, did not like it, the dictator in the Kremlin felt that this act should be given a higher rank. emphasizing the most crucial function of the USSR in defeating the 3rd Reich.
On May 8, 1945, at 20 a.m., in the office of Marshal Gieorgija Żukov, in the Berlin territory of Karlshorts, this “ceremony” was repeated in the presence of American general Carl-Andrew Spaatza and British Air Marshal Arthur Tedder as well as French General Jean de Luttere de Tassigny, who was graciously allowed to delegate to the Russian side's intervention, came the act of signing the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces.
The German delegation was chaired by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the OKW, who had to wait a long time before he was allowed to enter the hall. He entered in unbelievably, with the marshal's bush and attached with a gold, honorary badge of NSDAP. The officers of the winning organization did not respond to his military salute with a bull. Keitl was accompanied by Gen Hans Jurgen Stumpff of Luftwaffe. Feldmarszałek Keitel had to sign the submitted paper of unconditional surrender of the German troops without discussion, but he did not refrain from taking any announcement of the French general, referring to the unprecedented defeat of France in 1940. From the russian side, Marshal Zukov played the leading role, as Stalin expected. The area was full of Russian photojournalists.
The paper was signed late on the night of May 8, 1945, but Moscow was already on May 9, hence the difference in the date of the end of the war in Europe. Thus ended the bloodiest war, which began on September 1, 1939, with the German assault on Poland. But planet War II ended only after the unconditional surrender of the nipponese Empire – 2 September 1945.
It is worth noting that both high-ranking German soldiers Keitel and Jodl were sentenced by the global Military Court in Nuremberg to death punishment by hanging. The Court refused to accept their request to replace the execution of the conviction by shooting and were hanged as war criminals due to the fact that they had signed Hitler's order to shoot captured Red Army commissioners, which was contrary to the German ratified conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. In this context, it is appropriate to ask why the russian Union did not endure any consequences for the execution of about 15,000 Polish officers in 1940, taken prisoner after the Russian assault on Poland in 1939. But winners are not judged.
