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May 1st, 1945 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The prototype Auster A.O.P. 6 (TJ 707) makes its maiden flight. It is a light-cabin monoplane designed to equip the Air Observation Post squadrons. (22)

Minesweeper HMS Niger launched.

GERMANY: German General Krebs visits Zhukov to attempt to negotiate the surrender of Berlin. He is informed that surrender must be unconditional.

Berlin: General Weidling’s diary (90) courtesy of Russ Folsom:
The situation was extremely acute by late afternoon. The defenders of Berlin were crowded into an extremely small space. There could no longer be any hope of a successful breakout. Any attempt at a breakout would have cost more valuable blood, and would have had not the least success. It was perfectly clear to me what the decision must be. Regardless of that, however, I was not going to take this responsible decision on my own, and I asked my closest collaborators to state their views frankly. They all agreed with me: there was only one solution
- Surrender.

We quickly succeeded in making radio contact with the local Russian commanders. At midnight Colonel von Dufving once again crossed our lines as a peace envoy. During the night we did our utmost to inform as many formations as possible of our intentions but our attempts failed almost completely, owing to poor signals communications.

At 0500 hours I crossed a sort of suspension bridge that had been rigged up from undamaged cables of the destroyed bridge over the Landwehrkanal. From Russian Divisional HQ we drove to Army HQ. From there I addressed for the last time those German soldiers still fighting in some parts of Berlin, with orders to lay down their arms. The orders were also passed on by some officers of my staff, accompanied by Russian interpreters.

When we reached Army HQ a delegation from the German Ministry of Propaganda appeared. The Permanent Under-Secretary of the Ministry, Dr.Fritzsche, also addressed an appeal to all German soldiers, urging them to stop fighting at once in the interests of the Berlin population. The Russian command did everything they could to help us put as quick an end as possible to this senseless and lunatic struggle.

Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt is captured by US troops.

From the deck of the Aviso (sloop) GRILLE Dönitz announces the death of Hitler. (Russ Folsom)

Hamburg Radio announces that Hitler is dead. Dönitz is announced as the second Fuhrer of the Reich. He then makes a radio address which seems to listeners as very weak.

Grand Admiral Dönitz, Hitler’s appointed successor, orders the German troops to fight to the end while Himmler, who has no authority, is attempting to negotiate favourable surrender terms with the Allies. British troops advance on Lubeck and Hamburg, and US forces are dug in on the west bank of the Elbe.

The Fuhrerbunker, in Berlin, empties as Martin Bormann leaves with others. Josef Goebbels and his wife die after killing their six children. First the children had to be poisoned, all six of them: Helga, 12; Hilda, 11; Helmut, nine; Holde, seven; Hedda, five; and Heide, three. Having given them lethal injections. Josef Goebbels and his wife Magda left the bunker and asked an SS orderly to shoot them in the back of the head.
U-4710 commissioned.

U-3006 scuttled at 0700 at Wilhelmshaven. Wreck broken up.

U-3009 scuttled near Wesermünde. Wreck broken up.

AUSTRIA: The US 7th Army continues advancing into Austria.

ITALY: German General Vietinghoff agrees to the terms signed at Caserta.
Partisans under Tito capture Trieste a few hours before Britain’s Eighth Army.

BURMA: British forces in the Sittang Valley approach Pegu. There are also paratrooper landings on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River with the intention of taking Rangoon.

BORNEO: General Whitehead and 18,000 troops of the 26th Australian Brigade land on
Borneo.

The assault landing by Australian troops on Tarakan, off the coast of east Borneo, is the first move to free the Dutch East Indies from Japanese occupation. The naval assault is under the command of VAdm Barbey. The 26th Infantry Brigade of the 9th Division stormed ashore today, thrusting aside a Japanese garrison of 2,100. The Australian government does not like to see its troops used in the Borneo campaign, which it regards as a mopping-up operation. It wants them to take part in the main offensive against Japan.

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Manila: The Mexican Expeditionary Air Force arrives to fight alongside the USAAF in the Philippines.

U.S.A.: Escort carrier USS Lingayen laid down.

http://www.anesi.com/east/bormann.htm

The Escape Route of Martin Bormann
May 1-2, 1945

Telegram sent from The Fuehrerbunker at 15:15 on May 1, 1945:GRAND ADMIRAL DOENITZ —

Most secret — urgent — officer only

The Fuehrer died yesterday at 15:30 hours. Testament of April 29th appoints you as Reich President, Reich Minister Dr. Goebbels as Reich Chancellor, Reichsleiter Bormann as Party Minister, Reich Minister Seyss-Inquart as Foreign Minister. By order of the Fuehrer, the Testament has been sent out of Berlin to you, to Field-Marshal Schoerner, and for preservation and publication. Reichsleiter Bormann intends to go to you today and to inform you of the situation. Time and form of announcement to the Press and to the troops is left to you. Confirm receipt.

— GOEBBELS.

Goebbels’ tenure as Reich Chancellor was brief. A few hours after sending this telegram, he poisoned his six children with cyanide capsules. At 20:30 he and his wife emerged from the Fuehrerbunker into the chancellery garden where they were shot, at their own request, by an SS orderly.

At the same time, in the bunker of the New Chancellery, a miscellaneous group of women, soldiers, party officials, and hangers-on gathered in preparation for a mass escape. Nominally under the command of Martin Bormann, they planned to follow tunnels from the chancellery to the subway line, and then follow the subway line north, under the Friedrichstrasse, to the Friedrichstrasse station a few hundred yards south of the river Spree. At that point they would surface, link up with what was left of Brigadefuehrer Mohnke’s battle group, and attempt to force their way across the Weidendammer Bridge. Then they would proceed north-west, through the Russian lines, and save themselves as best they could.

At 23:00 hours the mass escape began. Moving in small groups, they proceeded underground, as planned, to the Friedrichstrasse station. Here they emerged to find the ruins of Berlin in flames, and Russian shells bursting everywhere around them. The first group managed to cross the river Spree by an iron footbridge that ran parallel to the Weidendammer Bridge. The remaining groups likewise emerged at the Friedrichstrasse Station, but there became confused and disoriented. They made their way north along the Friedrichstrasse to the Weidendammer Bridge, where they found their way blocked, at the bridge’s north end, by an anti-tank barrier and heavy Russian fire.

They next withdrew to the south end of the bridge, where they were soon joined by a few German tanks. Gathering about the tanks, they again pressed forward. Bormann, Artur Axmann (head of the Hitler Youth), Ludwig Stumpfegger (Hitler’s surgeon), and others followed the lead tanks as far as the Ziegelstrasse. There a panzerfaust struck the lead tank. The violent explosion stunned Bormann and Stumpfegger, and wounded Axmann. All retreated to the Weidendammer Bridge.

Now it was every man for himself. Bormann, Stumpfegger, Axmann, and others followed the tracks of the surface railway to the Lehrter station. There Bormann and Stumpfegger decided to follow the Invalidienstrasse east. Axmann elected to go west, but encountered a Russian patrol and returned on the path Bormann and Stumpfegger had taken. He soon found them. Behind the bridge, where the Invalidienstrasse crosses the railroad tracks, they lay on their backs, the moonlight on their faces. Both were dead. Axmann could see no signs of an explosion, and assumed that they had been shot in the back. He continued on his way, escaping from Berlin and spending the next six months hiding out with the Hitler Youth in the Bavarian Alps, where he was eventually captured.

For a full, fascinating, lucid, and authoritative account of the fate of Messrs. Bormann, Goebbels, Hitler, and other denizens of The Bunker, consult The Last Days of Hitler by Hugh Trevor-Roper (University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-81224-3). Late in 1945, British Intelligence appointed Mr. Roper to investigate the evidence surrounding the death of Hitler. His book followed in 1946 as a result of this investigation, and was updated by him over the years as new evidence emerged.

Roper left the issue of Bormann’s death open in early editions of the work, because evidence of Bormann’s death rested solely on the testimony of Artur Axmann. Although Axmann’s testimony regarding other events was truthful so far as it could be independently verified, Roper realized that Axmann might be giving false evidence to protect Bormann from further search.

In December, 1972, during construction near the Lehrter Station (near to where Bormann’s diary had been found in a discarded leather jacket in 1945, and close to the spot where Axmann said he had seen Bormann’s body in the moonlight of that fatal night) two skeletons were unearthed. After extensive forensic examination, using the dental records of Bormann’s dentist (Prof. Hugo Blaschke, who was also Hitler’s dentist) the shorter of the two skeletons was identified as that of Martin Bormann, and West German authorities officially declared him dead. The forensic identification was validated by Dr. Reidar F. Sognnaes, a celebrated U.S. expert in such matters. (Reidar F. Sognnaes, “Dental Evidence in the Postmortem Identification of Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun and Martin Bormann”, in Legal Medicine Annual, 1976.) This new evidence caused Roper to write in the 1978 edition of The Last Days of Hitler that “...in view of new evidence which has recently been found, I believe that it [the question of Bormann’s death] can now be closed.”

As stated in the Final Report of the Frankfurt State Prosecution office under File Index No. Js 11/61 (GStA Ffm.) in “Criminal Action against Martin Bormann on Charge of Murder”, dated April 4, 1973:

XI. Result

Although nature has placed limits on human powers of recognition (BGHZ Vol. 36, pp. 379-393-NJW 1962, 1505), it is proved with certainty that the two skeletons found on the Ulap fairgrounds in Berlin on December 7 and 8, 1972, are identical with the accused Martin Bormann and Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger.

The accused and Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger died in Berlin in the early hours of the morning of May 2, 1945 — sometime between 1:30 and 2:30 A.M.

XII. Further Measures

1. The search for Martin Bormann is officially terminated....

http://marshallfoundation.org/library/digital-archive/to-general-of-the-army-douglas-macarthur-8/

General George C. Marshall To General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, May 1, 1945

Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Date: May 1, 1945
Subject: World War II
Collection: Papers of George Catlett Marshall, Volume 5: The Finest Soldier

Summary

To General of the Army Douglas MacArthur

May 1, 1945 Radio No. WAR-75548. Washington, D.C.

Secret

General Marshall to General MacArthur EYES ONLY.

The President has just talked to me regarding Civil Affairs in the Philippines.1 He is to see Osmena on Friday [May 4] and will probably see Mr. Stimson Wednesday or Thursday.2

Mr. Truman is being pressed by Mr. Ickes to appoint a High Commissioner but is opposed to such action.3 Osmena proposes that Mr. Truman designate some civilian to be his special representative in the Philippines but without the title of High Commissioner. He doubts whether this should be done.

He proposed to me the following procedure: The immediate appointment of a special commission headed by Senator Tydings and to be composed of one representative each of the War Production Board, the Shipping Board, the Veterans Bureau, and the Foreign Economic Administration, to proceed to the Philippines and prepare a report for his guidance. He felt that Senator Tydings and this board would make unnecessary the appointment of any special representative as suggested by Osmena, though their stay in the islands would only be temporary.4 Radio me EYES ONLY your reaction to this procedure.5

Document Copy Text Source: Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs (RG 165), Records of the Office of the Chief of Staff (OCS), 093, Philippines, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.

Document Format: Typed radio message.

1. On May 1 General Marshall met with President Truman at the White House at 3:00 P.M. They discussed issues regarding the Philippines such as providing relief supplies, whether there should be an American resident representative there, postwar bases, and reconstruction. (Marshall took to the White House meeting a map and three double-spaced pages of notes drafted by O.P.D. titled “Philippine Islands,” May 1, 1945, GCMRL/G. C. Marshall Papers [Pentagon Office, Selected].)

2. President of the Philippines Sergio Osmeña had first met with President Truman on April 19, and they were scheduled to meet again at the White House on May 4. (Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1, Year of Decisions [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1955], pp. 65–66, 275–76.) Secretary of War Stimson met with President Truman on May 2, and among the topics discussed was the Philippines. (May 2, 1945, Yale/H. L. Stimson Papers [Diary, 51: 91–92].)

3. Harold L. Ickes had served as secretary of the interior since 1933. When the Japanese forces occupied the Philippines, President Roosevelt transferred to Secretary Ickes the duties of the U.S. high commissioner there. (T. H. Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874–1952 [New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1990], pp. 781–83.)

4. Senator Millard E. Tydings (Democrat from Maryland) served as chairman of the Filipino Rehabilitation Commission and had supported Philippine independence.

5. See the following document (Papers of George Catlett Marshall, #5-111 [5: 164].

Recommended Citation: The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, ed.Larry I. Bland and Sharon Ritenour Stevens (Lexington, Va.: The George C. Marshall Foundation, 1981– ). Electronic version based on The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 5, “The Finest Soldier,” January 1, 1945–January 7, 1947 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. 163–164.