The holocaust wasn’t the prettiest thing that had happened in the world. The Unconditional German Surrender and signed by Gen. Jodl at Reims. It had happened on May 7th 1945. It involved the Germans, Alfred Jodl. It had happened were the papers had been signed.
On April 30th 1945 Russian troops fought to within yards of his subterranean banker, Adolph Hitler put a pistol to his head, pulled the trigger and closed the curtain on the third Reich. Before his death, Hitler anointed Admiral Karl Donitz as his successor with orders to continue the fight. Hitler was unaware that the German surrender had already begun.
On the day before his death all the German troops in Italy laid down their arms. On may 4th German forces in Holland, Denmark and northwest Germany surrender to British field Marshall Montgomery. On May 6th, Donitz authorized General Alfred Jodl to “conclude an armistice agreement” with General Eisenhower. The Germans wanted a separate peace with the allied troops in the west in order to continue their battle with the Russians in the west. Eisenhower would have none of it. He ordered the Germans to surrender unconditionally the next day. The Germans acquiesced, signing the surrender document on May 7, in the French city of Reims. The cessation of fighting took effect at 11:01 PM on May 8. The Russians insisted that a separate signing take place in Berlin on May 9. After six catastrophic years, the war in Europe was over.
The unconditional surrender of the German armed forces was signed by Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, on be half of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (German Language: High Command of armed forces) and as the representative for the new Reich President, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz.
This Instrument of Surrender applied to all military forces on land, at sea, and in the air that was at the point of time under the control of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). Although the military commanders of most German forces obeyed the order to surrender issued by the German Armed Forces High Commanders did so. The largest contingent not to do so were Army Group Centre under the command of Fields Marshal Ferdinand Schorner who had been promoted to Commander-in Chief of the army on April 30th in Hitler's last will and testament. Like many institutions in Nazi Germany the control of the Army was split between the OKW and the German Army High Command (OKW). By 1945, the OKW commanded all German forces in every theatre apart from those on the Eastern Front which were under OKW control and which, before his suicide, had reported directly to Hitler.