War after Victory. Where and how did the Nazis continue to fight after 9 in May
9 May, our country celebrated the 74 anniversary of the Great Victory. With colossal exertion of forces, multimillion-dollar sacrifices, military talent of Soviet commanders and immense courage of ordinary warriors, the Soviet Union managed to win the war against the most dangerous and cruel enemy. Hitler's Germany capitulated.
But despite the fact that 8 on Central European Time in May 22: 43 General Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, endowed with the appropriate authority from the successor of the Fuhrer Admiral Karl Dönitz, signed an act of surrender, which entered into force on 9 in May in 00: o: x, xXXX: x, xXXX: x, xXXX: x, XXXX: xNXX: o some units and formations of the Wehrmacht and the SS troops continued to provide armed resistance to the Soviet troops, not wanting to recognize the surrender and fold weapon.
In 1945, Germany used the island of Bornholm, Denmark, in 169 km east of Copenhagen to evacuate the retreating units of the Nazi army. More 25 January 1945, Adolf Hitler decided to strengthen the defense of Denmark, first of all, Bornholm Island as a transshipment base. The garrison of the island by this time was more than 12 thousands of soldiers and officers. The island housed a military airfield, near 10 direction finding and radar stations, 3 anti-submarine anti-submarine stations, coastal and anti-aircraft artillery batteries. The military commander of Bornholm from March 5 of 1945 was 1 rank captain Gerhard von Kampz.
On May 4, 1945, German troops stationed in northwestern Germany, in the Netherlands and Denmark surrendered to the 21st Army Group of Canada and Great Britain. But ships and aviation Germany did not stop fighting, and the evacuation of German troops along the Baltic Sea only gained momentum. German planes and ships continued to bombard Soviet ships and planes, as the commandant of Bornholm, 1st-rank captain Gerhard von Kampz gave the order to surrender only to the British troops and not surrender to the Red Army.
In this connection, on May 4, 1945, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of the USSR accepted the proposal of the People's Commissar of the Navy Admiral fleet Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov, who advocated disrupting the evacuation of Nazi troops from Courland. It was decided to attack the island of Bornholm. For this operation, units of the 18th Rifle Division of the 132nd Rifle Corps, commanded by Major General Fedor Fedorovich Korotkov, were allocated. The corps was part of the 19th Army of the 2nd Belorussian Front under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky.
The Soviet command expected that the Nazis, entrenched on Bornholm, would no longer offer serious resistance in the current situation. Therefore, it was supposed to carry out the adoption of surrender by the forces of one company of marines, in the extreme case - a rifle regiment. By this time on the island of Bornholm there were remains of Hitler's troops retreating from East Prussia under the command of artillery general Rolf Wootmann, who commanded the Wehrmacht’s 9 Army Corps.
In 6: 15 am 9 May 1945, from the port of Kohlberg, a detachment left 6 of Soviet torpedo boats, followed by a rifle company of 108 people. The detachment was commanded by the chief of staff of the Kolberg naval base, captain of the 2 rank D. S. Shavtsov. After a short time, the torpedo boats intercepted a German self-propelled barge and four motor-boats, with officers and soldiers of the Wehrmacht on board. These ships were escorted to the port of Kolberg by one of the torpedo boats.
The other five boats in 15: 30 arrived at the port of Ronne on the island of Bornholm, without meeting opposition from the Germans, and landed a rifle company. However, a German officer arrived at the Soviet commander, who transmitted the order of the artillery general Vutman to immediately leave the island of Bornholm. Wootman emphasized that the German troops capitulate only to the allies.
Such arrogance Soviet soldiers could not stand. Shavtsov, who commanded the detachment, warned that in 2 hours Soviet aircraft would strike at Bornholm military sites. The rifle company managed to capture the telegraph, cut the communication cables. A few hours later General Vutman, his chief of staff and commandant of the base surrendered to the Soviet command and were taken to Kolberg. The disarmament of the German units was held on 10-11 in May; all 11 138 German prisoners were taken to the USSR in prison camps.
But the last fight at Bornholm occurred 9 May 1945 of the year. Three Soviet torpedo boats attacked a German convoy from a transport vessel, a tugboat and 11 patrol boats. In response to the order to return to the island, the German boats opened fire. Two Soviet sailors were injured, one of whom soon died from his wounds. The German convoy managed to escape to Denmark.
In addition, air battles continued on Bornholm on May 9, during which 16 German aircraft were shot down. 10 German ships were sunk. Soviet troops remained on Bornholm until 5 on April 1946, when the island was handed over to representatives of the Danish government. During the operation on Bornholm, about 30 Soviet servicemen were killed.
The island Texel in the north-western part of the Netherlands during the war was turned into a serious defensive point by the Germans. 6 February 1945 of the 822 th Georgian infantry battalion of the Wehrmacht “Queen Tamara”, which was part of the Georgian Legion collaborationist formation, was transferred to Texel Island to perform various auxiliary tasks.
The decision to transfer the battalion to the island was made by the German command for a reason - the Nazis received information about the appearance of an underground organization in the battalion. And it really was. The Georgians who served in the battalion, mostly former Soviet prisoners of war, who had joined the Georgian Legion for the sake of liberation from the camps, hoping for a quick surrender of Germany, were about to revolt.
On the night of 5 on 6 on April 1945, while already on the island of Texel, the personnel of the battalion rebelled. The uprising was led by 29-year-old Shalva Loladze, a former captain of the Soviet Air Force, squadron commander who was captured and served in the Georgian Legion as a lieutenant. The Georgians destroyed about 400 German non-commissioned officers and officers, almost all of them cutting the throat with knives. In the shortest possible time, almost the whole island was taken under control by rebel soldiers of the Queen Tamara battalion.
To pacify the rebels, the German command landed 2000-Infantry Regiment soldiers on the island 163. For two weeks, fierce battles were fought on the island, but the Germans, who regained control over the main objects of the island, did not manage to completely neutralize the rebels. 25 April in one of the battles killed and the leader of the uprising Shalva Loladze. Having broken up into groups, the Georgian rebels continued to fight against the German infantry. In response, the Nazis burned out any buildings where insurgents could hide, destroyed the island’s vegetation. However, resistance continued.
8 May 1945, Germany capitulated, but the battles on Texel lasted almost two more weeks. 15 May 1945, a week after the surrender of Germany, Hitler's troops held a military parade on Texel. It was probably the last in stories Third Reich military parade, which, moreover, was held after the formal end of the war. Only 20 in May 1945, Canadian troops landed on Texel, who accepted the capitulation of the Nazis and stopped the bloodshed.
During the fighting on the island of Texel, Wehrmacht soldiers died from 800 to 2000, more than 560 Georgian rebels from the Queen Tamara battalion and around 120 civilians. The economic infrastructure of the island was subjected to enormous damage, since the Nazis burned down any buildings, trying to deprive the Georgians of the opportunity to wage a partisan war.
In the 1945 year, when most of the territory of the Soviet Union, and even the countries of Eastern Europe, was liberated from the Nazi invaders, units and formations of the Wehrmacht continued to retain control over Courland - the western regions of Latvia.
A half-boiler formed in Courland - although the Germans were surrounded by Soviet troops, they controlled access to the sea and had the opportunity to communicate with the main forces of the Wehrmacht. There were fierce battles in Courland right up to the very surrender of Germany. Many settlements of Courland several times passed under the control of the Wehrmacht, then under the control of the Red Army. Powerful enemy forces opposed the Soviet troops here - Army Group Kurland, 3rd tank army, as well as collaborationist formations of the Latvian Legion.
The 9 of May 1945, part of the Wehrmacht, who fought against the Soviet troops of the 1 and the 2 of the Baltic Fronts, learned about the surrender of Germany. Only 9 May 1945, the Soviet troops managed to take Liepaja. 10 May 1945, a group of 70 thousand people under the command of Colonel-General Carl von Hilpert, capitulated. But before 20, thousands of people managed to be evacuated by sea to Sweden. Only on May 10 did Soviet troops enter Ventspils, Piltene, Valdemarps. However, only 12 May in the Soviet press, there are articles about the liberation of Courland.
It is interesting that not all German formations ceased to resist the Soviet troops. Some units tried to break through to the west, to the allies, in order not to surrender to the Russians, but to capitulate to the British or the Americans. Two weeks have passed since the formal end of the war, when the 22 of May 1945 of the year 300 of the SS fighters and with the banner of the 6 of the SS Army Corps tried to enter East Prussia. The commander of the 6 SS Army Corps Obergruppenführer SS Walter Krueger commanded the detachment.
The SS were overtaken by Soviet troops and destroyed. Obergruppenhührer Kruger himself shot himself, just not to fall into Soviet captivity. But some detachments of the Nazis continued to fight against the Soviet troops in June 1945. The last German soldiers were evacuated to the island Gotland 30 October 1945.
At one time, the Nazis equipped a meteorological station on Bear Island near Svalbard. For its protection was allocated a small unit of the Wehrmacht. But at the end of 1944, when the Germans were no longer up to the Arctic, the unit lost contact with the command. German soldiers threw bottles with notes into the water, hoping that they would fall into the hands of German representatives. The weather station guards did not die of hunger only because they were fishing and were hunting for seals.
Only at the end of August 1945, a group of German soldiers on Bear Island was discovered by sealers. They reported the incident to representatives of the Allied military command. 4 September 1945, the Allies accepted the surrender of a small garrison, the soldiers of which handed over a 1 machine gun, a 1 pistol and 8 rifles. It is believed that the surrender of the guards of the meteorological station on Bear Island is the last surrender of the Third Reich troops in Europe.
Of course, battles against the Soviet troops and against the allies also took place in other places. Moreover, speaking of the allies, on Crete the British troops even acted together with the Nazis against the communist partisans: war was war, and hatred of the USSR and the communists united even fierce opponents.
But despite the fact that 8 on Central European Time in May 22: 43 General Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, endowed with the appropriate authority from the successor of the Fuhrer Admiral Karl Dönitz, signed an act of surrender, which entered into force on 9 in May in 00: o: x, xXXX: x, xXXX: x, xXXX: x, XXXX: xNXX: o some units and formations of the Wehrmacht and the SS troops continued to provide armed resistance to the Soviet troops, not wanting to recognize the surrender and fold weapon.
Battle of Bornholm
In 1945, Germany used the island of Bornholm, Denmark, in 169 km east of Copenhagen to evacuate the retreating units of the Nazi army. More 25 January 1945, Adolf Hitler decided to strengthen the defense of Denmark, first of all, Bornholm Island as a transshipment base. The garrison of the island by this time was more than 12 thousands of soldiers and officers. The island housed a military airfield, near 10 direction finding and radar stations, 3 anti-submarine anti-submarine stations, coastal and anti-aircraft artillery batteries. The military commander of Bornholm from March 5 of 1945 was 1 rank captain Gerhard von Kampz.
On May 4, 1945, German troops stationed in northwestern Germany, in the Netherlands and Denmark surrendered to the 21st Army Group of Canada and Great Britain. But ships and aviation Germany did not stop fighting, and the evacuation of German troops along the Baltic Sea only gained momentum. German planes and ships continued to bombard Soviet ships and planes, as the commandant of Bornholm, 1st-rank captain Gerhard von Kampz gave the order to surrender only to the British troops and not surrender to the Red Army.
In this connection, on May 4, 1945, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of the USSR accepted the proposal of the People's Commissar of the Navy Admiral fleet Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov, who advocated disrupting the evacuation of Nazi troops from Courland. It was decided to attack the island of Bornholm. For this operation, units of the 18th Rifle Division of the 132nd Rifle Corps, commanded by Major General Fedor Fedorovich Korotkov, were allocated. The corps was part of the 19th Army of the 2nd Belorussian Front under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky.
The Soviet command expected that the Nazis, entrenched on Bornholm, would no longer offer serious resistance in the current situation. Therefore, it was supposed to carry out the adoption of surrender by the forces of one company of marines, in the extreme case - a rifle regiment. By this time on the island of Bornholm there were remains of Hitler's troops retreating from East Prussia under the command of artillery general Rolf Wootmann, who commanded the Wehrmacht’s 9 Army Corps.
In 6: 15 am 9 May 1945, from the port of Kohlberg, a detachment left 6 of Soviet torpedo boats, followed by a rifle company of 108 people. The detachment was commanded by the chief of staff of the Kolberg naval base, captain of the 2 rank D. S. Shavtsov. After a short time, the torpedo boats intercepted a German self-propelled barge and four motor-boats, with officers and soldiers of the Wehrmacht on board. These ships were escorted to the port of Kolberg by one of the torpedo boats.
The other five boats in 15: 30 arrived at the port of Ronne on the island of Bornholm, without meeting opposition from the Germans, and landed a rifle company. However, a German officer arrived at the Soviet commander, who transmitted the order of the artillery general Vutman to immediately leave the island of Bornholm. Wootman emphasized that the German troops capitulate only to the allies. Such arrogance Soviet soldiers could not stand. Shavtsov, who commanded the detachment, warned that in 2 hours Soviet aircraft would strike at Bornholm military sites. The rifle company managed to capture the telegraph, cut the communication cables. A few hours later General Vutman, his chief of staff and commandant of the base surrendered to the Soviet command and were taken to Kolberg. The disarmament of the German units was held on 10-11 in May; all 11 138 German prisoners were taken to the USSR in prison camps.
But the last fight at Bornholm occurred 9 May 1945 of the year. Three Soviet torpedo boats attacked a German convoy from a transport vessel, a tugboat and 11 patrol boats. In response to the order to return to the island, the German boats opened fire. Two Soviet sailors were injured, one of whom soon died from his wounds. The German convoy managed to escape to Denmark.
In addition, air battles continued on Bornholm on May 9, during which 16 German aircraft were shot down. 10 German ships were sunk. Soviet troops remained on Bornholm until 5 on April 1946, when the island was handed over to representatives of the Danish government. During the operation on Bornholm, about 30 Soviet servicemen were killed.
"Queen Tamara" against Hitler's punishers
The island Texel in the north-western part of the Netherlands during the war was turned into a serious defensive point by the Germans. 6 February 1945 of the 822 th Georgian infantry battalion of the Wehrmacht “Queen Tamara”, which was part of the Georgian Legion collaborationist formation, was transferred to Texel Island to perform various auxiliary tasks.
The decision to transfer the battalion to the island was made by the German command for a reason - the Nazis received information about the appearance of an underground organization in the battalion. And it really was. The Georgians who served in the battalion, mostly former Soviet prisoners of war, who had joined the Georgian Legion for the sake of liberation from the camps, hoping for a quick surrender of Germany, were about to revolt.
On the night of 5 on 6 on April 1945, while already on the island of Texel, the personnel of the battalion rebelled. The uprising was led by 29-year-old Shalva Loladze, a former captain of the Soviet Air Force, squadron commander who was captured and served in the Georgian Legion as a lieutenant. The Georgians destroyed about 400 German non-commissioned officers and officers, almost all of them cutting the throat with knives. In the shortest possible time, almost the whole island was taken under control by rebel soldiers of the Queen Tamara battalion. To pacify the rebels, the German command landed 2000-Infantry Regiment soldiers on the island 163. For two weeks, fierce battles were fought on the island, but the Germans, who regained control over the main objects of the island, did not manage to completely neutralize the rebels. 25 April in one of the battles killed and the leader of the uprising Shalva Loladze. Having broken up into groups, the Georgian rebels continued to fight against the German infantry. In response, the Nazis burned out any buildings where insurgents could hide, destroyed the island’s vegetation. However, resistance continued.
8 May 1945, Germany capitulated, but the battles on Texel lasted almost two more weeks. 15 May 1945, a week after the surrender of Germany, Hitler's troops held a military parade on Texel. It was probably the last in stories Third Reich military parade, which, moreover, was held after the formal end of the war. Only 20 in May 1945, Canadian troops landed on Texel, who accepted the capitulation of the Nazis and stopped the bloodshed.
During the fighting on the island of Texel, Wehrmacht soldiers died from 800 to 2000, more than 560 Georgian rebels from the Queen Tamara battalion and around 120 civilians. The economic infrastructure of the island was subjected to enormous damage, since the Nazis burned down any buildings, trying to deprive the Georgians of the opportunity to wage a partisan war.
In Kurland, the Germans fought to the last
In the 1945 year, when most of the territory of the Soviet Union, and even the countries of Eastern Europe, was liberated from the Nazi invaders, units and formations of the Wehrmacht continued to retain control over Courland - the western regions of Latvia.
A half-boiler formed in Courland - although the Germans were surrounded by Soviet troops, they controlled access to the sea and had the opportunity to communicate with the main forces of the Wehrmacht. There were fierce battles in Courland right up to the very surrender of Germany. Many settlements of Courland several times passed under the control of the Wehrmacht, then under the control of the Red Army. Powerful enemy forces opposed the Soviet troops here - Army Group Kurland, 3rd tank army, as well as collaborationist formations of the Latvian Legion.
The 9 of May 1945, part of the Wehrmacht, who fought against the Soviet troops of the 1 and the 2 of the Baltic Fronts, learned about the surrender of Germany. Only 9 May 1945, the Soviet troops managed to take Liepaja. 10 May 1945, a group of 70 thousand people under the command of Colonel-General Carl von Hilpert, capitulated. But before 20, thousands of people managed to be evacuated by sea to Sweden. Only on May 10 did Soviet troops enter Ventspils, Piltene, Valdemarps. However, only 12 May in the Soviet press, there are articles about the liberation of Courland.
It is interesting that not all German formations ceased to resist the Soviet troops. Some units tried to break through to the west, to the allies, in order not to surrender to the Russians, but to capitulate to the British or the Americans. Two weeks have passed since the formal end of the war, when the 22 of May 1945 of the year 300 of the SS fighters and with the banner of the 6 of the SS Army Corps tried to enter East Prussia. The commander of the 6 SS Army Corps Obergruppenführer SS Walter Krueger commanded the detachment.
The SS were overtaken by Soviet troops and destroyed. Obergruppenhührer Kruger himself shot himself, just not to fall into Soviet captivity. But some detachments of the Nazis continued to fight against the Soviet troops in June 1945. The last German soldiers were evacuated to the island Gotland 30 October 1945.
Svalbard: the last capitulation of the Third Reich
At one time, the Nazis equipped a meteorological station on Bear Island near Svalbard. For its protection was allocated a small unit of the Wehrmacht. But at the end of 1944, when the Germans were no longer up to the Arctic, the unit lost contact with the command. German soldiers threw bottles with notes into the water, hoping that they would fall into the hands of German representatives. The weather station guards did not die of hunger only because they were fishing and were hunting for seals.
Only at the end of August 1945, a group of German soldiers on Bear Island was discovered by sealers. They reported the incident to representatives of the Allied military command. 4 September 1945, the Allies accepted the surrender of a small garrison, the soldiers of which handed over a 1 machine gun, a 1 pistol and 8 rifles. It is believed that the surrender of the guards of the meteorological station on Bear Island is the last surrender of the Third Reich troops in Europe.
Of course, battles against the Soviet troops and against the allies also took place in other places. Moreover, speaking of the allies, on Crete the British troops even acted together with the Nazis against the communist partisans: war was war, and hatred of the USSR and the communists united even fierce opponents.
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