Audio feature on the signing of capitulation

First hand – May 8 as remembered by the participants

The historical events can be listened to in an audio feature produced by the museum. People who were present at the signing of the capitulation have their say.

You can hear verbatim excerpts from the memoirs of:

Marshal Georgy Zhukov: Supreme commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, which had taken Berlin (together with the 1st Ukrainian Front). Appointed Supreme Commander of the Red Army at short notice, he accepted the surrender on behalf of the entire Red Army.

Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder: Deputy to Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Western Allied Forces (Allied Expeditionary Corps).

General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny: Commander-in-chief of the French army, sent by his government, the government in exile under de Gaulle, which had returned from Great Britain.

Captain Harry C. Butcher: Actually a radio journalist, but as Eisenhower’s adjutant he was one of his closest associates. He travelled to Berlin as Eisenhower’s confidant.

Major Fritz Oppenheimer: US Army officer and advisor in the legal department of Eisenhower’s staff. He was a Jewish lawyer who had fled from Berlin to the USA to escape the Holocaust. Because of his knowledge of German, he was deployed as a constant companion (“overseer”) of the German delegation.