Editing German Instrument of Surrender (section)

==Instruments of partial surrender==
=== German forces in Italy and Western Austria ===
{{main|Surrender of Caserta}}
German military commanders in Italy had been conducting secret negotiations for a partial surrender; which was signed at [[Caserta]] on 29 April 1945, to come into effect on 2 May. Field Marshal [[Albert Kesselring]], with overall military command for OKW-South, initially denounced the capitulation; but once Hitler's death had been confirmed, acceded to it.

=== German forces in Northwest Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, and Schleswig-Holstein ===
[[File:Teilkapitulation – 040545.jpg|right|thumb|[[Field marshal (United Kingdom)|Field Marshal]] [[Bernard Montgomery|Sir Bernard L. Montgomery]] (seated second from the right) signs the terms of the surrender watched by Rear Admiral Wagner and Admiral von Friedeburg on 4 May 1945.]]
On 4 May 1945, German forces acting under instruction from the Dönitz Government and facing the British and Canadian [[21st Army Group]], signed [[German surrender at Lüneburg Heath|an act of surrender at Lüneburg Heath]] to come into effect on 5 May.

=== German forces in Southern Germany ===
On 5 May 1945, all German forces in Bavaria and Southwest Germany signed an act of surrender to the Americans at [[Army Group G|Haar]], outside Munich; coming into effect on 6 May.<ref name="Hansen 1995"/>

The impetus for the Caserta capitulation had arisen from within the local German military command; but from 2 May 1945, the Dönitz government assumed control of the process, pursuing a deliberate policy of successive partial capitulations in the west to play for time in order to bring as many as possible of the eastern military formations westwards so as to save them from Soviet or Yugoslav captivity, and surrender them intact to the British and Americans.<ref>Kershaw, 2012 p. 362</ref> In addition, Dönitz hoped to continue to evacuate soldiers and civilians by sea from the Hela peninsula and the surrounding Baltic coastal areas.<ref name="Kershaw 2012 368">Kershaw, 2012 p. 368</ref> Dönitz and Keitel were resolved against issuing any orders to surrender to Soviet forces, not only from undiminished anti-Bolshevism, but also because they could not be confident they would be obeyed, and might consequently place troops continuing to fight in the position of refusing a direct order, thereby stripping them of any legal protection as [[prisoners of war]].<ref name="Kershaw 2012 371">Kershaw, 2012 p. 371</ref>

These surrenders in the west had succeeded in ceasing hostilities between the Western allies and German forces on almost all fronts. At the same time however, the broadcast orders of the Dönitz government continued to oppose any acts of German surrender to Soviet forces in Courland, Bohemia and Mecklenburg; indeed attempting to countermand ongoing surrender negotiations both in Berlin and Breslau.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jones|first=Michael|title=After Hitler: The Last Days of the Second World War in Europe|year=2015|publisher=John Murray|pages=101}}</ref> German forces in the east were ordered instead to fight their way westwards. Conscious that, if this were to continue, the Soviet Command would suspect that the Western allies were intending a separate peace (as indeed was exactly Dönitz's intention),<ref name="Kershaw 2012 368"/> Eisenhower determined that no further partial surrenders would be agreed in the West; but instead instructed the Dönitz government to send representatives to [[Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force]] (SHAEF) headquarters in [[Reims]], to agree terms for a general surrender of all German forces simultaneously to all the Allied powers, including the Soviets.<ref name="Kershaw 2012 370">Kershaw, 2012 p. 370</ref>

Following these surrenders, the major remaining German forces in the field consisted of [[Army Group E]] facing [[Yugoslav Partisans|Yugoslav forces]] in Croatia, the remains of [[Army Group Vistula]] facing Soviet forces in Mecklenburg, and [[Army Group Centre]] facing Soviet forces in eastern Bohemia and Moravia, engaging in the brutal suppression of the [[Prague uprising]].<ref>Kershaw, 2012 p. 365</ref> An [[20th Mountain Army (Wehrmacht)|occupying army]] of around 400,000 well-equipped German troops remained in Norway, under the command of General [[Franz Böhme]], who was contacted by the German Minister in Sweden early on 6 May, to determine whether a further partial capitulation might be arranged for his forces with neutral Sweden acting as an intermediary, but was unwilling to comply with anything other than a general surrender order from the German High Command i.e. OKW.<ref name="Doerries 2009">{{cite book|last=Doerries|first=Reinhard. R.|title= Hitler's Intelligence Chief|publisher= Enigma| date=2009|page = 223}}</ref>

After these partial surrenders (and the signing in Reims) Germany signed its final document to surrender to the Allied side in Berlin.