Editing German Instrument of Surrender (section)

== Background ==
On 30 April 1945, the head of state{{Efn|with the official title "[[Führer]]"}} of Germany [[Adolf Hitler]] [[Death of Adolf Hitler|committed suicide]] inside his ''[[Führerbunker]]'' under the [[Reich Chancellery]],<ref>{{cite web |author=MI5 staff |year=2011 |title=Hitler's last days |url=https://www.mi5.gov.uk/home/about-us/who-we-are/mi5-history/world-war-ii/hitlers-last-days.html |access-date=7 March 2020 |publisher=Her Majesty's Security Service website}}</ref> after drawing up a [[Last will and testament of Adolf Hitler|testament]] in which Admiral [[Karl Dönitz]] succeeded him as next head of state of Germany, with the title of [[President of Germany (1919–1945)|Reichspräsident]],<ref>{{citation |last=Hitler |first=Adolph |title=My Political Testament |year=1945 |title-link=wikisource:My Political Testament}}</ref> a vacant position dating back to the Weimar Republic. With the fall of Berlin two days later, and American and Soviet forces having [[Elbe Day|linked up]] at [[Torgau]] on the Elbe, the area of Germany still under German military control was split in two. Moreover, the speed of the final Allied advances of March 1945, together with Hitler's insistent orders to stand and fight to the last, left the bulk of surviving German forces in isolated pockets and occupied territories mostly outside the boundaries of pre-Nazi Germany. Dönitz attempted to form [[Flensburg Government|a government]] at [[Flensburg]] on the Danish border.  He was joined there on 2 May 1945 by the ''[[Oberkommando der Wehrmacht]]'' (OKW) (English: "High Command of the Armed Forces") under [[Wilhelm Keitel]], which had previously relocated to [[Krampnitz]] near [[Potsdam]], and then to [[Rheinsberg]] during the [[Battle of Berlin]]. Dönitz sought to present his [[Government of Nazi Germany|government]] as 'unpolitical.’ However, there was no repudiation of Nazism, the [[Nazi Party]] was not banned, leading Nazis were not detained, and the symbols of [[Nazism]] remained in place. Because of these shortcomings, neither the Soviets nor the Americans recognized Dönitz or the Flensburg Government as capable of representing the German state.

At Hitler's death, German armies remained in the [[Atlantic pockets]] of [[La Rochelle]], [[Saint-Nazaire|St Nazaire]], [[Lorient]], [[Dunkirk]] and the [[Channel Islands]]; the Greek islands of [[Crete]], [[Rhodes]] and the [[Dodecanese]]; most of Norway; Denmark; the northwestern Netherlands; northern Croatia; northern Italy; Austria; [[Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia|Bohemia and Moravia]]; the [[Courland]] peninsula in Latvia; the [[Hel Peninsula]] in Poland and in Germany towards [[Hamburg]], facing British and Canadian forces; in [[Mecklenburg]], [[Pomerania]] and the besieged city of [[Wrocław|Breslau]], facing Soviet forces; and in southern Bavaria towards [[Berchtesgaden]], facing American and French forces.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kershaw |first=Ian |title=The End; Germany 1944–45 |date=2012 |publisher=Penguin |pages=298}}</ref>