Setting the Record Straight: Politically, National Socialist Germany Did Not Surrender at the End of World War II

BY BRADFORD HANSON (EDITOR)

Colonel General Alfred Jodl, as head of the German Armed Forces High Command, signs an “Act of Military Surrender” in Reims, France, on May 7, 1945.

by Martin Kerr

GERMANY AND ITS ALLIES suffered a total, crushing military defeat at the end of World War II, and its armed forces surrendered unconditionally to the Western powers and the Soviet Union. But although its armed forces capitulated, its government never did so: National Socialist Germany, as a legally-constituted political entity, did not surrender.