- 5/9/2025
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00:01Sunday, 6th of May, 1945.
00:082.41 a.m.
00:1124 hours from now, one of the most important agreements
00:15in World War II history is going to be signed.
00:20Any delay to the signing of the surrender document
00:23means a continuation of the fighting.
00:25It means more loss of life.
00:27In effect, every minute counts.
00:32Nazi Germany is clinging on to the last of its power.
00:36There are Germans still fighting against the Eastern Front,
00:40but they are in a desperate situation
00:42and they are being pushed back right inside Germany,
00:45what was once the heart of the Nazi third life.
00:50The Nazi ideological determination to fight
00:53until the last bullet costs thousands and thousands of unnecessary lives.
01:00The most destructive war of all time is drawing to a close.
01:06The Allies want to see an end to hostilities, an end to the bloodshed.
01:10How can a war that has consumed an entire continent
01:14be finally brought to an end?
01:17May the 8th, 1945 will always be one of those dates that will be remembered.
01:23The iconic celebrations of VE Day are etched on our collective memory.
01:30But peace in Europe was not a foregone conclusion.
01:35Behind the scenes, negotiators are working frantically to stop the fighting.
01:40This 24 hours has helped to shape the course of history in Europe.
01:48This is the forgotten story of Victory in Europe Day.
01:53At the Allied headquarters in Iran's northern France,
02:08representatives from the US, Britain, the Soviet Union and France
02:13are coordinating Allied operations from this schoolhouse.
02:17Under the command of General Eisenhower, they're preparing for one of the most important days in world history.
02:26Dwight Eisenhower, Ike, is the commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces.
02:34So he has already led two very significant campaigns.
02:38Operation Torch in North Africa and the D-Day landings in Normandy.
02:44And now his mission is to secure the complete and final surrender,
02:50unconditional surrender, from the German forces.
02:52By early May 1945, the German military had found itself in a state of chaos.
03:02A week of cataclysmic events, the German military had found itself in a state of chaos.
03:05A week of cataclysmic events had forced its leaders to the negotiating table.
03:20The Nazi government is in complete disarray.
03:27Hitler has killed himself a week earlier in his bunker, encased in concrete and earth under the ground.
03:34Hitler, of course, is the pinnacle of everything in the Third Reich.
03:46With his death, everything starts to fall apart.
03:48The Wehrmacht is in disarray, the SS is in disarray, nobody knows what to do.
04:00And just before Hitler's died, Himmler is disgraced, Goering is disgraced.
04:04All of these sort of stalwarts who might have taken over the government have also collapsed.
04:10And so the only person left is Admiral Dönitz,
04:17who becomes the new president of Germany.
04:20They create this kind of bogus government in Flensburg,
04:23and they're flailing about trying to keep everything in order.
04:26And Dönitz doesn't really know how to govern or what to do.
04:30Even as the Allies prepared for the final negotiations,
04:35battles were still being fought across Europe.
04:39There are many, many fronts that are still active.
04:42You've got Western Europe, you've got the Khorland Pocket,
04:45you've got the area around Czechoslovakia.
04:47And every day that goes by, thousands, even tens of thousands of lives might be at stake.
04:53The Soviet forces were rapidly moving east.
04:56The last areas of German resistance were surrounded on all fronts by the Allied forces.
05:08Dönitz was fully aware that Germany's defeat was inevitable.
05:12The only question was how and when.
05:15Two attempts to secure terms for a partial surrender had already failed.
05:27Including sending Admiral von Friedeberg, a junior representative, to Reims.
05:33When Friedeberg arrives at Reims, he is to negotiate, those are his orders, with the Allies,
05:43who are represented by Bedel Smith and General Strong, who's translating.
05:47General Bedel Smith had been Eisenhower's Chief of Staff since 1942,
05:51a crucial cog in Eisenhower's command.
05:54He's really the buffer between Eisenhower and most of the outside world.
05:57He's got quite a fearsome temperament. He's almost the opposite of Eisenhower.
06:02He's somebody you don't want to get on the wrong side of.
06:05If Edel Smith is sort of the fearsome Chief of Staff,
06:08Strong is the intellectual general, suave, he speaks fluent German.
06:14He's crucially there to act as translator in the negotiations.
06:18Von Friedeberg had been tasked with attempting to negotiate a partial surrender on the American lines only.
06:29But Bedel Smith and Strong were quick to point out that Germany was in no position to negotiate.
06:37The generals have maps set out on the table on which they've drawn the lines of the front lines and where the fighting pockets are.
06:44And to that they add large arrows. Basically they're trying to show the absolute desperate situation of the German forces.
06:54It really is hopeless.
06:56After hours of fruitless discussions, and with the Allies holding firm on only accepting an unconditional surrender,
07:03Von Friedeberg realised his mission had failed.
07:06Unconditional surrender simply means that the enemy has to surrender militarily without any conditions whatsoever.
07:17There were going to be no terms attached. There's going to be no scope for any sort of negotiation with anyone attached to the Nazi regime.
07:23It is recorded that he had tears in his eyes where he realised that he was in an impossible position.
07:32Reluctantly, he handed over a message.
07:36And requested for it to be transmitted to his superiors at Nazi high command.
07:41This is the start of a crucial 24 hours. The countdown to surrender has begun.
07:57Eisenhower had woken up that morning and seen that the war room where the surrender ceremony will take place is full of cameras.
08:05And he says, what's all this goddamn Hollywood stuff? Get it out.
08:09Whilst the Allies are preparing for a global spectacle,
08:14Von Friedeberg's messenger arrives at the new Nazi high command.
08:22Bringing the news that they have failed to secure a partial surrender.
08:26This is bad news for Dönitz's ongoing operation to extract Germans from the Eastern Front.
08:43Operation Hannibal is a German clan to evacuate as many civilians, between 800 and 900 thousand, some estimates suggest,
08:53and around 300,000 troops from Eastern Germany across the Baltic Sea to Western Germany.
09:04A message is received at the Allied headquarters from Flensburg that says a more senior representative is going to arrive.
09:15This is part of Dönitz's tactic to delay the unconditional surrender.
09:21If Operation Hannibal is to continue, the Germans must keep fighting on the Eastern Front.
09:30In Ranz, the Allies are growing increasingly impatient.
09:47Every minute the Germans delay is costing lives on both sides.
09:57At this moment in time, the German-occupied city of Breslau is surrounded on all fronts by the Soviets.
10:06The siege of Breslau is a terrible event in World War II history.
10:14For more than 80 days, this Nazi-controlled city has been holding out against a vicious Soviet siege.
10:21Thousands of civilians have already perished in the fighting.
10:24Breslau is extremely significant to the Third Reich because Hitler has declared Breslau a fortress which must be defended at any cost.
10:35Hitler dies on the 30th of April, but the fighting carries on in Breslau. The first, the second, the third, the fourth.
10:44So on the 6th of May 1945, the people of Breslau and what's left the remnants of the Wehrmacht and the Volkssturm and these few Hitler-youth are fighting away against the Red Army.
10:57It's an extremely bloody and violent conflict because the German authorities refuse to surrender.
11:06They believe that they cannot possibly surrender to their ideological nemesis, the Red Army.
11:14The Nazi leaders are still determined not to surrender to the Soviets here in Breslau or at the Allied headquarters.
11:25At Eisenhower's Allied headquarters in Ranz, everyone is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the more senior Nazi negotiator.
11:51News arrives that General Alfred Jodl has landed near Arns. Finally, negotiations can resume.
11:57General Alfred Jodl is the Chief of the Operations Staff of the Wehrmacht Height.
12:01And he, like Dönitz, is an ardent National Socialist.
12:02General Alfred Jodl is the Chief of the Operations Staff of the Wehrmacht Height Command.
12:07And he, like Dönitz, is an ardent National Socialist.
12:13He's appointed to try to do the same thing that Friedenburg has just failed in achieving, namely, bring about a separate peace with the Western Allies.
12:23He'd played a key role in the Blitzkrieg and then had been pretty much in the Wolf's Lair from then on, Hitler's Advanced Front and the Prussian Front.
12:29And he's just been promoted by Dönitz, and he's been sent in to negotiate. He is in rank for the United States.
12:39He is in rank between Friedenburg and Dönitz himself. This is the Germans stepping up. They're providing someone of a greater rank, but they're still hoping they can
12:44negotiate a conditional surrender. Dönitz himself, notably, isn't going to the meeting.
13:08hoping they can negotiate a conditional surrender.
13:11Donitz himself, notably, isn't going to the meeting.
13:20At around 5.20 p.m.,
13:23Yordl strides into the Allied headquarters at France.
13:28He behaves extremely arrogantly.
13:31One small detail is noteworthy.
13:33Instead of displaying the Heil Hitler greeting,
13:38he does a traditional military salute.
13:42I think for a moment he imagines perhaps
13:45that he will be able to sit down as equal, if you like,
13:49and discuss issues of the German surrender.
13:56Back in the Nazi-controlled fortress city of Breslau,
14:00the streets have fallen eerily quiet.
14:08At 6.00 p.m., in the early evening of 6th of May 1945,
14:12German officers walked through the streets of Breslau
14:16carrying a white flag.
14:19These officers realize this siege, this battle, cannot be won.
14:25That is the signal to the Red Army, the Germans have surrendered.
14:30Breslau has fallen.
14:32Admiral Donitz had put a lot at stake into keeping Breslau going.
14:38This idea was, if Breslau still stands, if they're still fighting,
14:43that somehow maybe we can still win this thing
14:46or come up with some negotiation with the Western Allies.
14:49But with the fall of the siege of Breslau,
14:52Dönitz even realizes the game is up.
14:54Because once Breslau has fallen, there's no other big city left.
14:58This is it.
15:00The moment of the capitulation,
15:02if you look around Breslau now,
15:05you see absolute devastation, destruction.
15:09Injured civilians, injured soldiers, smoldering ruins,
15:14huge swathes of the city have been destroyed.
15:17It's a cityscape from Dante's Inferno.
15:21It's hell on earth.
15:24The Nazi reckless determination to continue fighting
15:29until the last bullet costs thousands of lives.
15:33Just over 30 miles from Breslau,
15:41the Peterswalda slave labor camp is still operating,
15:45despite its proximity to the front line.
15:48Now, it's difficult to put an exact figure on it,
15:52but there are more than 42,000 camps
15:57dotted across German-occupied Europe.
16:00Right into the final days of the war,
16:02many of these camps, sub-camps, satellite camps,
16:05they're still being operated.
16:10Shindy Ehrenwald was a 14-year-old Jewish girl from Hungary,
16:15and she, along with hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews,
16:20were rounded up in 1944.
16:23Shindy and her family were deported to Auschwitz
16:28in German-occupied Poland.
16:31And there she was taken from her family, who were immediately gassed.
16:37And she was found suitable for labor, for work.
16:42Whilst the Allies are negotiating with Yodel,
16:46Shindy is under the guard of the SS,
16:48imprisoned in a slave labor camp for Jewish women, called Peterswalda.
16:53She's actually making detonators for bombs, and she is working hugely long shifts,
17:00locked into this factory with a number of other women.
17:02The term slave labor would be appropriate.
17:08There was high mortality amongst the inmates of these camps.
17:13It was back-breaking work that they were doing under terrible conditions.
17:17Somehow, despite her starvation and her exhaustion, she manages to still keep writing her diary on scraps of paper and cards stolen from the factory,
17:26which she keeps hidden inside her clothes.
17:29Shindy is risking her life by keeping the precious diary hidden.
17:33By the 6th of May, the front line is now only about 50 kilometres away.
17:42The prisoners in Peterswalda will almost certainly have noticed at this point that things are more chaotic in the camp than usual.
17:55In many camps near the front line, the guards murdered their prisoners before the approaching armies could free them.
18:03Shindy's testimony tells of her sensing a worrying change in the SS guards' behavior.
18:09They have to gauge everything by the behavior of the Germans, and the Germans seem to be getting quite nervous.
18:15They're, of course, still completely at the mercy of the SS personnel in the camp.
18:20While they might have had a sense of hope that they'll soon be liberated,
18:25this will have been mixed with fear that perhaps they'd be killed or that they might be taken to another camp,
18:32or, as we know, did happen in many cases, sent on a so-called death march.
18:396.15pm.
18:44General Strong escorts Jodl and von Friedeberg to General Bedell Smith's office.
18:50The negotiations resume.
18:54Jodl declares that he doesn't have the authority to negotiate over a total unconditional surrender of Germany.
19:03He tells the Allies, I only have the authority to negotiate a partial surrender on the Western Front.
19:11He is pretending not to have the authority.
19:16In reality, he's carrying a signed letter from Dönitz authorizing him, Jodl, to sign a document of unconditional surrender.
19:29The Allies are quickly losing their patience.
19:36They are having none of it.
19:39They're getting extremely angry.
19:42Their servicemen are still dying as the war is unnecessarily being delayed by the rather pathetic maneuvering of Hans Georg von Friedeberg and Alfred Jodl.
19:56The Allies have two key reasons that they want a complete and total surrender.
20:02Firstly, they don't want a repeat of any problems like with the surrender in 1918.
20:07They don't want any regional holdouts.
20:08They want this to be a final end to the war in Europe.
20:11Secondly, Eisenhower is determined to honor his agreement with his ally, Stalin.
20:17The Soviets have held out for a complete and unconditional surrender and the Allies need Soviet help to continue the war in the Pacific.
20:26The continuing delays threaten to stretch the fragile bond between the Western Allies and the Communist Soviets to breaking point.
20:37But Jodl is still maintaining his pretense that he needs authority from President Dönitz.
20:45He is permitted to send another message to the Nazi high command.
20:51Essentially, Dönitz has told Jodl to slow things down and, if possible, to succeed where Friedeberg has failed.
21:01Dönitz wants to either agree a separate surrender with the British and Americans or to hold off for as long as possible to allow German people in the East to escape the approaching Soviet forces.
21:14Nazi leaders like Dönitz think that World War III is imminent because the mortal enemy not only of the Nazis but also of the British and of the Americans are the Soviets.
21:27The British, the Americans absolutely do not want to have anything to do with Dönitz or with what remains of the German army.
21:36They want them to surrender unconditionally.
21:44Heisenhower's office is enormously tense.
21:52For the past week, no one had left.
21:54They'd been just waiting for the latest developments.
21:57People had only slept when they were so exhausted they could no longer stay awake.
22:01Heisenhower himself is whipped up and beaten down almost by the tension and the stress.
22:06All of this, particularly coming on top of months and months of battlefield strain, underlines the desperation to bring the fighting to an end as soon as possible.
22:17At 9pm, General Strong phones Eisenhower.
22:23The Germans are trying to delay again.
22:26Udall requests a 48 hour delay in order to enable as many German soldiers and civilians as possible to escape the clutches of the advancing Soviet forces and move towards the Allies in the West.
22:44For just over three months, Dönitz has been overseeing his mission to extract people from Germany's eastern fronts.
22:57It's a race against time now for the Allies to secure an unconditional surrender from the Nazi Germans.
23:03They want to save as many lives as possible by drawing the war to a close.
23:09And the Germans have a slightly different agenda.
23:12Operation Hannibal is about saving as many German troops as possible for what Dönitz thinks will be a showdown between Britain, the United States, Germany on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other.
23:26Dönitz is delaying because of a deluded belief he can rebuild his armies and join forces with the Allies against the Soviets.
23:37With negotiations stretching into a second day, can Eisenhower really consider accepting yet another delay?
23:46Eisenhower's temperament, I think, is crucial to his success as a general.
23:50Yes, he's under a lot of pressure, he deals with that pressure by pacing around, by reading Westerns, he's been known to chain smoke, and he's got to remain calm and rested so that when he has to make those decisions that no one else can make, only the Supreme Commander can make, he's relatively fresh and he can come up with a correct call when those moments come along.
24:11The Germans have strung things out for long enough.
24:18Eisenhower's lost patience with the fact that the Germans keep trying to play for time.
24:22He says, enough of this, you have 48 hours, I'm closing the American lines, no German troops will be able to come across and capitulate or surrender to the Americans.
24:32The Germans are still holding off Soviet forces in the east, but any retreat would require passing through Eisenhower's lines.
24:43Eisenhower, for all his calmness, is also someone who realises that at certain moments in war you have to just be decisive, you have to act.
24:50And enough is enough, it's time for this new German government to recognise the realities of its situation.
24:56If Eisenhower is true to his word, Operation Hannibal will be in jeopardy.
25:03And Dönitz's hopes of bringing back his forces to unite with the Allies against the Soviets are over.
25:12The whole German project is now on the rocks.
25:17Eisenhower's threat to close Allied lines to any retreating German forces is a huge blow.
25:36Jodl must relay this devastating news to Dönitz.
25:40He drafts a message for the Allies to broadcast on his behalf.
25:45Dönitz hears of the ultimatum through a radio message from Jodl, who explains in no uncertain terms what the likely consequences are,
25:56that the Germans won't be able to pull any more of their people back south.
26:01And Jodl says, I see no alternative, it is chaos or signature.
26:08Could Jodl's message be enough to secure the surrender?
26:16This, I think, is when the tension is really starting to build.
26:19Eisenhower tries to relax by going to a party at Women's Auxiliary Corps House, and he hates every minute of it.
26:26There were Soviets there, they're getting drunk, drinking American rye like it's vodka.
26:32The champagne is also being down, but of course Eisenhower can't drink, he can't relax, and so he leaves.
26:37Eisenhower makes a swift exit, telling his assistant Kay Summersbee to keep in touch with the office.
26:44Eisenhower's ultimatum is hugely important for Dönitz.
26:51At this point his primary objective is to get as many German forces out towards the West.
26:58And also his secondary objective is still to use those forces that he brings out to join the Allies to fight off the Communist threat.
27:07If the lines are closed, he won't be able to do that, so this is really significant.
27:13While Dönitz would ideally like to sign a separate peace with the Western Allies,
27:18he's very aware that this window of opportunity for signing a surrender could close.
27:26Dönitz is facing a dilemma. Should he give in to pressure from the Allies and sign, or continue to delay in hope of saving more troops?
27:41By signing the surrender, he seals the fate of those fleeing in Operation Hannibal.
27:47His main consideration is not to save as many lives as possible.
27:53His main consideration is to save his neck.
28:00So many leading Nazis, so many Nazi senior officers pretend to fight heroically for Germany.
28:10In the end, once the masks are down, their main priority is to save their own necks.
28:28So that night Eisenhower goes a bit early.
28:30But the one problem Eisenhower has is he has company, he's got Winston Churchill.
28:34Churchill has a sleep pattern which tires and exhausts most of his aids.
28:40Churchill is constantly phoning up Eisenhower, asking for the latest development.
28:44So Eisenhower not only is struggling with the tension and the stress of what's going to happen,
28:48he's also having to constantly field off these requests from the British Prime Minister, desperate for information.
28:56After a long day, Dönitz receives a message from the Allied headquarters in Reims from Jodl.
29:03Just after 12 midnight, a call comes through to the WAC house.
29:10Dönitz has conceded.
29:18What drives Dönitz's fast decision remains unclear.
29:23He is probably realising that the time for delusion, the time for pipe dreams is finally over.
29:38And that the unconditional surrender must be signed as quickly as possible.
29:43Once Dönitz has finally given Jodl permission to sign, it doesn't really seem any point in waiting.
29:52And they decide to hold the ceremony there in the middle of the night.
29:56The sooner it's done, the better. Few people will be killed.
29:59Whilst plans are being made for the surrender, the prisoners at the Pieterswald our slave labour camp have been woken in the middle of the night and marched back to their factory.
30:22They are ordered to dismantle the equipment.
30:26They drag out what they can from the machinery and are told to throw it into the river.
30:31Then the Germans disappear and the women are just not sure what to do.
30:37Should they leave? Should they try and find food or water? Should they run away?
30:41They didn't know whether other German personnel were going to turn out to kill them.
30:48Across German-held territories, people are fleeing, not just from the camps, but from their homes.
30:56It's clear to the German population that the war is lost.
31:02Germany has been devastated by Allied aerial bombardment.
31:07Many in Germany are fearful of what the Soviets will do once they reach German soil.
31:15When the Red Army comes through, they behave with the utmost sort of fervent brutality.
31:20The rape of women, pillaging, looting, killing.
31:24And of course the soldiers who are captured, those who aren't killed outright, end up going into Soviet captivity.
31:31And tens of thousands of them die.
31:34The exodus from the east is by foot, by car, basically any way people can make that journey.
31:45At Allied headquarters, the surrender documents are still being transcribed.
31:51Eisenhower's headquarters staff are busy typing up a version of the surrender document.
31:56The surrender document had in fact been drafted in July 1944.
32:01They had anticipated that Germany would probably be defeated by the autumn, so they were getting ready for that.
32:07That document was sent to Eisenhower's headquarters.
32:10They then modified the document when the French became involved,
32:13because the French said they wanted to be included in the surrender document too.
32:17The actual surrender, the Schaffer officials were very confused.
32:20They didn't know which one they had to use.
32:22Bedell Smith thinks that something just shorter and sharper will be more appropriate.
32:27And so he quickly gets a new version, both written up, translated.
32:34Then the typing pool is put to work.
32:37At 1.30, Ruth Briggs provides Butcher with the information that the big party is on.
32:42And so Butcher's first instinct is to hunt for pens, gold pens, that the surrender document will be signed with.
32:50The Allies are determined not to wait until morning.
32:53Because every hour, every minute, Allied forces are still being killed.
32:58This document has to go back to the German headquarters.
33:02It's got to be then distributed to German soldiers.
33:06And there is a desperation for the Germans to lay down their arms.
33:11Every hour that the Germans don't surrender is every hour that an Allied soldier might be killed.
33:18And so there is a real desperation for this to happen sooner rather than later.
33:22The people in the room when the ceremony begins include not just the senior Allied generals.
33:32The press are jostling for position.
33:34Everyone else is still, apart from these reporters, trying to get to the front to try and get their best observation point for the big moment.
33:42Everyone is ready. The documents are prepared. The press are waiting.
34:07The signing of the unconditional surrender is organised ad hoc.
34:16The ceremony takes place in a very stuffy, badly lit room.
34:21The stage is set for an international media spectacle.
34:27Behind the smiles for the camera, there is uncertainty.
34:33It's not just the Germans who may refuse to sign.
34:40When the ceremony finally begins, there are representatives from Britain, the United States, and France.
34:47And there is a representative from the Soviet Union, such as Barov.
34:52The Germans have to sign the document and then the Allies are going to sign.
34:57There's a real problem for the Soviet representative. What's he going to do?
35:02He hasn't had permission from Stalin to sign.
35:04But if he doesn't sign, then it clearly is a surrender only to the Americans and the British.
35:09He is in a real bind.
35:11Tsuzipirov actually realises that the situation is very dangerous for him.
35:16He's making a decision to sign.
35:18And what happens if the permission to sign doesn't come through from Stalin?
35:23And so he demands from the Western Allies that if Stalin does not recognise the signature at Reims as being the definitive capitulation of the Germans,
35:34that there has to be a second signing ceremony.
35:37With no word from Stalin, Susloparov must make his decision.
35:43Finally, the moment has arrived. The Allies are assembled. The documents are ready.
36:00Lieutenant General Bedell Smith asks if the German delegation are ready to sign.
36:07Major General Strong translates.
36:12The Chief of the Operations Staff of the Wehrmacht High Command, Alfred Jodl, nods.
36:23At 2.41am, Jodl signs. Then General Bedell Smith. Then the Soviet representative, Susloparov.
36:35At the end of the surrender ceremony, Jodl stands and he has the audacity to request leniency from the Allied forces.
36:44Claiming the German people have suffered more than any others during the course of the war, Jodl requests that the victors treat them with generosity.
36:54The Allies are shocked, really. It comes from a German commander who is a senior part of the Nazi regime.
37:01They have murdered millions of their own citizens. And they have enforced a protracted end to this war.
37:11Their surviving civilians have been through absolute hell with bombardment.
37:15And then he has the audacity to request leniency from the Allies coming in. It's extraordinary.
37:22The Allies do not respond. This is an unconditional surrender. And this tone-deaf statement sounds like a condition.
37:32Jodl does not acknowledge that the Nazis have murdered six million European Jews.
37:41That Germany has started the Second World War in Europe.
37:45At 2.41 a.m. on the 7th of May, this document is signed, which really effectively means the end of World War II in Europe.
37:57This is a huge, huge moment.
37:59The importance of the signing of the peace cannot be overestimated.
38:04It brings to an end a war that's gone on for almost six years and caused untill destruction.
38:12So this is a crucial moment for ending this chapter of devastation.
38:19While the ceremony is underway in the war room, Eisenhower is pacing, as is his want, between his office and Kay Summersby's office,
38:26trying to adopt a pose of detachment, but actually showing his stress by chain-smoking cigarettes.
38:333 a.m. Kay Summersby has been waiting alone at her desk in Eisenhower's office.
38:46Von Friedeberg, Jodl and his aide, Oxenius, are escorted past her to meet with General Eisenhower.
38:55Up until now, Eisenhower has controlled proceedings from a distance.
39:00He is far too senior to be negotiating with admirals and generals.
39:05It would have been insulting for Eisenhower to be involved in the signing of the surrender.
39:11But once the document has been signed, he demands, really, to know whether the Germans have understood all of those terms.
39:19They reply, ja, and then it is done. They're escorted out.
39:26This is really a matter of life and death for both sides.
39:32The actual signing the document is one thing.
39:35Making sure the document is actually obeyed at all levels of the command is vitally important.
39:41One small win for Dönitz is the almost 48-hour postponement of the official ceasing of hostilities.
39:51Although there are ceasefires in place, this allows the movement of German troops to continue right up until the 11.01 deadline on the 8th of May.
40:02At 3.20am on the morning of May the 7th, Eisenhower sends a message to all General Staff saying, simply, mission fulfilled.
40:17Once the signing has been completed, the Germans are escorted out of the building. It is done.
40:23Then it's a press moment. Some of the press have actually been waiting there overnight for a couple of days to make sure they didn't miss the moment.
40:30So it's brief celebration, and Eisenhower picks up the two pens, one from either side who have signed,
40:35and he puts them into a V for victory formation, and then the shutters run.
40:40Then they're pretty much all exhausted. There's a quick toast, and they're off to bed.
40:453.57am. A message is intercepted by British intelligence and decoded at Bletchley Park.
40:58Jodl has sent a message to Dönitz, communicating the contents of the instrument of surrender.
41:04News of the ceasefire can now be relayed to German forces.
41:11The 7th of May, 1945, 8.20am.
41:19A panzer division in Czechoslovakia is unaware that the fighting has officially ceased.
41:25They encounter an American unit. They start to fire.
41:31They used a machine gun fire against the Americans, and Private Charlie Haflat was actually ducked,
41:37but then raised his head to see what was going on, and unfortunately took one of the last bullets of the war.
41:45Just ten minutes later, the radio message came through of the surrender, and both sides laid down their arms.
41:56Private Charlie Haflat is the last American soldier killed in the European Theatre of Operations in World War II.
42:02Charlie is one of approximately 15 million people who lost their lives fighting in Europe.
42:11Over 30 million civilians, men, women, and children have died in the course of this war.
42:20And 65 million are displaced, their homes in ruins.
42:27The following day, at Stalin's request, a second surrender ceremony takes place in Soviet-occupied Berlin.
42:41Dönitz, Jodl and von Friedeberg were arrested for war crimes.
42:51Von Friedeberg committed suicide.
42:55Dönitz was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, and Jodl was executed.
43:01Yesterday morning, at 2.41am, at General Eisenhower's headquarters, General Jodl, the representative of the German High Command,
43:17signed the act of unconditional surrender of all German land, sea, and air forces in Europe to the Allied Expeditionary Force.
43:31General Beedle Smith signed the document on behalf of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force.
43:45Hostility will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight, Tuesday the 8th of May.
43:54But in the interest of saving lives, the ceasefire began yesterday.
44:06The Allied victory brought an official end to the war in Europe.
44:11On the 8th of May, Shindy and her fellow women, prisoners, are liberated by the Red Army.
44:17The inmates welcomed liberation. However, many of them were in dreadful physical condition, on the verge of starvation, emaciated.
44:28And sadly, many prisoners died. For these people, the nightmare didn't end with liberation.
44:36Shindy is actually reunited with her sister, another survivor of the camps.
44:40And she still has 54 pages of her diary still hidden in her clothes.
44:45It is in fact the only known diary to survive from Auschwitz.
44:50Operation Hannibal ends with the final evacuations taking place even after a capitulation by the Germans.
44:59Dönitz claims that Operation Hannibal was one of the largest humanitarian missions in history.
45:05I do not believe for a minute that Dönitz ever wanted to save people's lives.
45:11This is the end of the Second World War in Europe.
45:15But it's also a beginning. It's the start of the Cold War.
45:19This sets the scene for the division of Europe going right through Germany itself.
45:258th of May 1945 is now seen in today's Germany as a day of liberation, not of defeat.
45:32After five and a half years of war, the soldiers at the front will no longer have the prospect of death.
45:38And their families back home will no longer have the prospect of a dreaded telegram.
45:42There will be one big party to celebrate the end of the war, the end of the blackout,
45:48the end of the death and destruction of the past five and a half years.
45:50Finally, almost the whole world was combined against the evil doers who are now prostrate before us.
46:02Our gratitude to all our splendid allies.
46:08The war in Europe was won thanks to the cooperation of 51 countries.
46:21United in the pursuit of peace.
46:24Puttin' you in the cockpit of the planes that wrought history,
46:37plus the story of a group of Scottish pensioners that spent 25 years building a replica first World War biplane.
46:43New Warplane Workshop stream or watch Monday at 9 on Morpho.
46:47Up next, what fate awaits Gilead? June is not going to bow out easily.
46:52It's episode one of the final ever series of The Handmaid's Tale.
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