IT WAS JUST after 2:30 a.m. on May 7, 1945 when Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, commander of what was left of the once mighty Wehrmacht, marched into Supreme Allied Headquarters in Reims, France and signed the “German Instrument of Surrender” officially ending the war in Europe.
Under the terms of the document, all of the Third Reich's remaining land, sea and air forces were to cease hostilities on or before11:01 p.m. on May 8. As expected, the vast majority of war weary Axis personnel in Europe obeyed the orders. Yet in a number of locations, small pockets German troops refused to give up and in some cases fought on for days, even weeks, before finally calling it quits. Consider these last Nazi holdouts:
VE Plus One
It took an extra 24 hours for thousands of German troops trapped behind the lines in Soviet-occupied Poland to lay down their weapons. Infantrymen isolated in coastal fortifications near the port city of Danzig manned their guns for a full day before giving up to the Red Army on May 9.
