The 10 Days Between Hitler's Suicide and Germany's Surrender

WW2, from the records. https://warshelf.com/ April 30, 1945, about half past three in the afternoon. A shot in the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery, and Hitler is dead. That evening a radio signal reaches Grand Admiral Dönitz at Plön, naming him successor. It does not say Hitler is dead. The Soviets are told before he is. Hamburg radio tells the nation the Führer fell fighting at his post; twelve hours later his own general tells Berlin's defenders he killed himself. Dönitz surrenders army by army to buy time for the men still fleeing west. Montgomery takes everything facing him on Lüneburg Heath. Eisenhower refuses anything less than total. Jodl signs at Reims at 2:41 in the morning, Stalin will not accept it, and Keitel signs again at Karlshorst with his baton in his hand. Friedeburg is at all three signings. Two weeks later he takes poison.