After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe (47 page)

German-occupied Denmark had been surrendered to Field Marshal Montgomery on 4 May, the capitulation to come into effect at 8.00 a.m. the following day. From this date and time onwards the Germans were bound to refrain from any further military activity in the country. But on the island of Bornholm this was ignored. The island had a German governor and a token contingent of troops. It was in radio contact with Copenhagen, but the British forces – overstretched as they were – did not have the strength to occupy it, even with a small supervisory group.

On 6 May General Dietrich von Saucken, whose German troops were stationed along the Hela Peninsula west of Danzig, breached the unconditional surrender agreement and sent substantial reinforcements to Bornholm. He dispatched General Rolf Wuthmann, with a Panzer grenadier regiment of 800 men, to take control there. Wuthmann was directed ‘to defend Bornholm, so the island can be used during the Army Group’s evacuation to the west’.

The Russians, aware that the Germans were evacuating their army, demanded that Bornholm surrender to Marshal Rokossovsky’s 2nd Belorussian Front. On 8 May Soviet planes flew over the island, dropping leaflets warning that if these military activities continued they would occupy the island by force. Wuthmann replied that he would surrender only to British troops – deliberate delaying tactics that were sanctioned by Admiral Dönitz and Field Marshal Keitel.

Early on the morning of 9 May, Dönitz had sent General von Saucken the award of Diamonds to his Knight’s Cross in recognition of his efforts in evacuating soldiers and civilians from the Russians. A handwritten note accompanying the award urged him to carry on doing this for as long as feasibly possible.

On the morning of 9 May Corporal Alfred Pröbstle and his men were waiting on a jetty on the Hela Peninsula for a ship to take them to Bornholm. He remembered:

From the evening of 8 May Russian artillery fire from the other side of the lagoon had come close and closer. Everyone around me was saying: ‘We have to get out of here now, we have to get to Bornholm.’ Our commanding officer told us that he had to wait for orders – but we continued to pressurize him. Shortly after midnight he told us: ‘Save yourselves – in any way that you can.’

At about 4.00am we marched down to the port. About 20,000 people – soldiers and civilians – were waiting there. We had just taken our places when a fresh artillery bombardment began – sending up spumes of water as shells landed in the harbour basin.

Pröbstle and his men managed to find room in a patrol boat. The evacuations continued. Twelve hours after the Karlshorst signing – with the Germans still disregarding its terms and moving their troops out from Hela – the Russians lost patience and sent a force by sea to take over the island.

At 2.30 p.m. Russian torpedo boats appeared outside Bornholm’s main port at Ronne. But aware of the political sensitivity of their action, and trusting Allied Supreme Command enough after the Karlshorst agreement and the honouring of the American pledge not to enter Prague, they sought the sanction of SHAEF rather than acting unilaterally. The British – still suspicious of Soviet intentions – had enquired of Eisenhower whether it might be possible to put a US force on the island. The Russians sought his permission to occupy Bornholm as it was within their military zone of influence. General Eisenhower approved the Red Army’s request.

At 3.00 p.m. the Supreme Allied Commander received an urgent telegram from the German Army High Command, still operating in Flensburg as part of the Dönitz government:

The commander of the Bornholm garrison has reported that five Russian torpedo boats have arrived outside Ronne harbour. According to their orders, the new Soviet commander of the island will arrive at 17.30 to accept the capitulation of the German garrison.

Russian occupation forces are on their way. But Bornholm is Danish territory – and the surrender of the island is clearly covered in the capitulation agreement signed with Field Marshal Montgomery. We request immediate clarification from Allied Supreme Command whether Russian claims to Bornholm are justified. We consider ourselves legally bound by the agreement with Montgomery.

This was a last delaying tactic from the Dönitz government – and a last attempt to sow discord within the Grand Alliance. General Eisenhower promptly scotched it, replying clearly and firmly: ‘In accordance with arrangements for military capitulation, German commanders are required to follow the orders of the Allied Expeditionary Force or the Red Army. You remain bound by the ceasefire agreement with Montgomery, but due to the aforementioned reason you must take orders from the local Russian commander.’

The British continued to view developments with concern. Sir Orme Sargent warned Churchill later that day: ‘The Russians have reached Bornholm first.’ But in fact the Red Army’s behaviour was scrupulously correct.

Colonel Ivan Yusman, chief of staff of the Soviet 18th Rifle Division, reported on the Russian occupation of the island later that day. The division had set up is headquarters at Ronne and began disarming the German garrison and also those units scattered around the island who had come from the Hela Peninsula. Yusman drew attention to the fact that the divisional commander, Colonel Strebkov, had received enquiries from representatives of the governments of Britain and Denmark, who wanted clarification concerning the Red Army’s longer-term intentions for the island. This was immediately passed on to Marshal Rokossovsky, who in turn requested that a clear statement be delivered by the Soviet High Command. One was made later that evening.

The Soviets informed the Danish government that Bornholm was clearly recognised as part of Denmark and was being garrisoned only as it lay behind the Russian occupation zone. The Red Army would not interfere in Danish administrative matters but would refer them back to Copenhagen. The Danes found this a satisfactory resolution of the issue. The Grand Alliance had dealt with the matter in a proper fashion. The Red Army made a complete withdrawal from Bornholm the following year.

The British were right not to drop their guard. Real problems remained. On the evening of 9 May Field Marshal Montgomery wrote to Eisenhower: ‘I motored today for about twenty miles into the Russian zone, and it is a dead zone – with not one single German civilian about. There are some awkward issues ahead – and I consider it essential to keep a very firm front facing east.’

But enough goodwill and trust had been restored to celebrate both VE-Days with a genuine sense of pride in the Alliance’s joint achievement. And that was how the end of the war in Europe deserved to be commemorated.

On 9 May President Truman had cabled his congratulations to Winston Churchill. Churchill had responded with a generous appreciation of the American contribution to the war. And in response to the British prime minister’s praise of the Soviet leader and the heroism of his country, Stalin had replied:

I send my personal greetings to you, the stout-hearted British Armed Forces and the whole British people – and I congratulate you with all my heart on the great victory over our common enemy. This historic victory has been achieved by the joint struggle of the Soviet, British and American Armies for the liberation of Europe.

I express my confidence in the further successful and happy development in the post-war period of the friendly relations which have developed between our countries during the war.

This hope would not be realised. The ‘awkward issues’ would come to dominate the post-war international landscape. Yet it would be a mistake to assume that these sentiments were insincere. Whatever the problems, goodwill was there also.

Although for some Red Army soldiers the war would carry on, the end was now in sight, if not yet fully realised. The official celebrations in Moscow on the night of 9 May were on a far greater scale than in any other capital. For the American correspondent of the
New York Herald
it was a magnificent spectacle. Red Air Force planes swooped over the city letting off multicoloured flares. A thousand guns, lined wheel to wheel along the river embankment, fired off thirty salvoes. The sky blazed with searchlight rays. A thousand feet above the crowd these searchlights played upon a gigantic Red Banner, held aloft by cords from balloons, invisible in the night sky. And then the victory fireworks were let off. Moscow was
en fête
.

Grigory Klimov said:

That night we made our way slowly to Red Square. Soon the guns would be firing their salutes – and the Square gave the best view. No official demonstration had ever drawn such an enormous crowd outside the Kremlin walls. It was impossible to do anything other than let the torrent of people take charge and move you as it wished.

Amidst this human ferment the Kremlin stood silent and lifeless, like a legendary castle fallen into an enchanted sleep. More and more people poured into that vast open space. What was drawing them there?

The silvery firs stood on guard along the ancient walls. The pointed pinnacles of the towers pierced the darkened sky. Their ruby-red stars gleamed.

From the mist of the past, another Red Square emerged in my memory. The morning of 7 November 1941 was leaden and dull. A flurry of falling snow blurred the face of Moscow. The troops marched past the Lenin Mausoleum and straight to the front. The enemy was at the gates!

On 7 November 1941 Stalin had resolved to hold the traditional parade on Red Square with German troops less than 30 miles from the capital. It was gesture of defiance – and belief that Moscow would not fall to Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Now the war had been won.

The earth began to thunder. Above the black silhouette of the Kremlin, the sky turned crimson with gunfire. The fire streamed higher and higher, hung motionless for a moment at its zenith, then burst downward in sparkling, multi-coloured little stars. Then the air was shattered by a gun salvo. It was the first salute to a glorious victory.

For a moment it seemed possible to open your eyes, open your heart and imprint these few seconds for ever. The earth shuddered again, the crimson fire lit up the Kremlin walls, the night sky and the soul of the people. Once more the little stars burst forth like messengers of hope, then faded. This was victory captured in a point of light. And in those precious seconds you saw it – and felt its breath on your face.

11

The War That Did Not End

A
T MIDNIGHT ON
8 May Major Jan Tabortowski and 200 men from the Polish Resistance Army moved into position in front of the jailhouse at Grajewo, 124 miles north-east of Warsaw. The operation had been carefully planned and the ground reconnoitred with the assistance of informers within the town. The men had assembled over a two-day period, gathering at a farm a short distance away. Their objective was to seize Grajewo’s prison and release members of the Polish underground movement held there. Other units drew up in front of the town’s militia headquarters and NKVD building. Before the attack, Tabortowski spoke briefly to his soldiers: ‘For us, the fight continues,’ he said. ‘The Soviet Union wants to annexe Poland and to turn our country into its next Socialist Republic. We must show the world that we will never accept this.’

The attack was deliberately timed to span both VE-Days – and it intended to make a simple, symbolic statement. For the Polish Resistance Movement, the war continued.

On 27 February 1945 the Polish Underground Government had formally responded to the Yalta agreement. It stated: ‘We wish to express our opposition to the provisions set out at the Yalta Conference, which were resolved without our participation or agreement but rather imposed upon us. Poland was the first country to begin armed resistance against the Nazis. It is now the victim of fresh burdens and injustices.’

A month later, the Soviet Union decided upon an apparently conciliatory gesture, offering to hold talks with sixteen members of the Underground Government. When these talks actually took place, they promptly arrested the delegates. Stefan Korbonski – who had avoided the meeting, fearing a trap – reported back to the Polish government-in-exile in London at the end of March: ‘Not one of our sixteen delegates has returned from the NKVD building where these “talks” were held. Draw your own conclusions.’

A new Polish Underground Government was formed a month later. One of its first acts was to appeal to the San Francisco Conference, on 3 May, over ‘Russia’s capture of sixteen members of our Polish Underground State with malicious intent’. This appeal forced the Soviet Union to formally acknowledge that these men had indeed been arrested – a belated admission that plunged relations between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union into a crisis. It had been temporarily resolved, but on 8 May Stefan Korbonski cabled the Polish government-in-exile: ‘The end of the war has been met with indifference in Warsaw. It does not change anything for us.’

The Polish Underground Government did not advocate violent resistance against the Soviet Union and its puppet Lublin regime – and instead continued to work for a diplomatic solution. Others now chose to fight the Red Army, the NKVD and the Lublin government’s militia. They formed a loose coalition, the National Military Alliance – also known as the Polish Resistance Army. On the night of 6/7 May, while the first unconditional surrender was being signed at Rheims, the Polish Resistance Army demonstrated its defiance of the settlement by fighting a pitched battle with the Soviet 2nd Border Regiment of the NKVD at Kurylowka in south-east Poland. At midnight on 8 May, as the Grand Alliance prepared for its second surrender agreement at Karlshorst, Major Tabortowski’s soldiers readied themselves for the assault on Grajewo.

The attack was sudden and took its opponents completely by surprise. Tabortowski and his followers opened fire on surprised members of the Red Army garrison and Polish militia, killing a number of them and forcing the rest to take cover. The resistance fighters then stormed the prison building, freeing members of the Polish underground movement held there, seizing police documents and the radio transmitter. At 4.00 a.m. a green flare signalled the operation’s complete success and all resistance units pulled out of the town.