Hitler’s Holdouts – Meet the Last German Troops to Surrender in WW2

Wehrmacht troops give themselves up to the Canadian army, August, 1944. Although, the German armed forces officially surrendered en masse in May of 1945. Not all soldiers and sailors got the message. (Image source: WikiCommons)

“Small pockets German troops refused to give up and in some cases fought on for days, even weeks, before finally calling it quits.”

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 before 11:01 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:

Fighting in East Prussian “Heiligenbeil Pocket” began in early 1945 and didn’t fully end until a day after the German surrender. (Image source: WikiMedia Commons)

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. Stragglers from the German 4th Army, which was all but obliterated during the fight for the East Prussian Heiligenbeil Pocket, also continued to resist for a full day, as did the garrisons on a number of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.

VE Plus Five

It wasn’t until May 13, five days after Germany’s defeat, that the last remnants of Wehrmacht and SS units in Czechoslovakia stopped fighting. Likewise, German forces occupying the narrow Hel Peninsula in Poland didn’t surrender to the Soviets for nearly a full week after the official end of hostilities. The last of them marched out of their trenches and bunkers on May 13 and 14.

Chetniks and their German allies. (Image courtesy WikiCommons)
Chetniks and their German allies. (Image courtesy WikiCommons)

VE Plus Six

May 14 also saw a force of 30,000 Chetniks, pro-Nazi Croats and German regulars fight a pitched battle against an army of communist partisans at Poljana near the Yugoslav/Austrian border. The two-day confrontation claimed more than 400 lives. Over the following days, British troops in the region forcibly repatriated thousands of Yugoslavian Axis collaborators. Many of these fugitives were slaughtered wholesale by the new national army upon their return.

U-234 shortly after surrendering to the USS Sutton. (Image source: WikiCommons)
U-234 shortly after surrendering to the USS Sutton. (Image source: WikiCommons)

German submarine U-234, didn’t strike her colours until May 14. The Type XB vessel was in the middle of the North Atlantic when the war officially ended. Travelling on board were Nazi military envoys and technical advisors bound for Berlin’s embassy in Tokyo, as well as two Japanese naval attaches who had been in Germany since 1943. U-234 was also carrying more than a half-ton of uranium that Hitler hoped to deliver to his allies in the Far East. The sub’s skipper, Johann-Heinrich Fehler, didn’t get the surrender order until May 10, at which point the 34-year-old Kapitänleutnant decided to make for the U.S. coast at flank speed. Fehler feared a lengthier detention if he and his crew were taken by British or Canadian forces. U-234 was overhauled by the American destroyer USS Sutton off Newfoundland and captured without incident six days after Germany’s official capitulation. Fehler’s two Japanese passengers committed suicide rather than face the shame of a POW camp. The Sutton’s crew sailed their prize to Portsmouth Navy Yard in Maine where the U.S. government confiscated the cargo of uranium, possibly adding it to the reserves of material used in the Hiroshima bomb — at least that’s what one author has suggested. The sub itself was eventually scuttled off Cape Cod and all aboard were repatriated.

"The war's over, mate. Go home." A bobby on the Channel Island of Alderney confers with one of the island's German occupiers.
“The war’s over, mate. Go home.” A bobby on the Channel Island of Alderney confers with one of the island’s German occupiers.

VE Plus Eight

It took more than a week before German garrisons on the British Channel Islands finally surrendered to Allied forces after a five-year occupation. Axis troops on Alderney remained in control of the territory until May 16 – eight days after the official surrender.

Members of Germany's Georgia Battalion mutinied on the Dutch island of Texel.
Members of Germany’s Georgia Battalion mutinied on the Dutch island of Texel.

VE Plus 12

Ironically, the last Axis troops to see battle in Europe weren’t die-hard Nazis at all. In fact, they weren’t even German. On April 5, 1945, 800 Georgian conscripts in the German 882nd Queen Tamara Infantry Battalion stationed on the Noord-Holland island of Texel rose against their former comrades of the Wehrmacht. The fighting lasted several weeks, raging on until well after VE Day. The disgruntled soldiers, all former members of the Red Army, had been pressed into the service of the Third Reich after being captured on the Eastern Front in 1943. Part of the larger Nazi Georgian Legion, the unit was ordered to Texel as part of the “Atlantic Wall” defenses. As the Allied forces began their drive into Germany in early 1945, Berlin ordered the 882nd to be transferred to the mainland to help stem the British and American advance. Days before shipping out to what seemed like certain death, the men of the unit mutinied and massacred more than 400 German soldiers on the island. Many of the victims were butchered while they slept. Regular troops manning fortifications elsewhere on the island fought off the turncoats and radioed for assistance. In the days that followed, two thousand German reinforcements were dispatched to Texel to suppress the uprising, which was now being openly supported by elements of the Dutch underground as well as ordinary civilians. The once peaceful 15-kilometer-long island, which had remained largely untouched by the war, was became a battlefield. The German crackdown was swift and ruthless – more than 500 Georgians were captured and summarily executed, their bodies dumped into mass graves. But the Wehrmacht relief force, now cut off on Texel by advancing Allied troops surging through the Netherlands, became stranded. Hostilities didn’t finally cease until May 20. That’s when Canadian troops landed and disarmed both factions. By the time the fighting petered out, nearly 800 Germans were dead. Soviet military police arrived shortly thereafter to take custody of the Georgians. Amazingly, rather than punish the turncoats for treason many were made Heroes of the Soviet Union. In 2005, Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili even visited the island to honour his fallen countrymen. Monuments to the struggle adorn Texel to this day. The uprising is considered the final battle of the war in Europe.

The U-977 moored in Argentina more than 100 days after the end of the war in Europe. (Image source: WikiCommons)
The U-977 moored in Argentina more than 100 days after the end of the war in Europe. (Image source: WikiCommons)

V-Plus 101

Germany had all but collapsed when the Type VII sub U-977 put to sea from Kristiansand, Norway on her very first war patrol. It was May 2, 1945 – less than a week before VE Day. The sub’s rookie captain, Heinz Schäffer, had orders to sail for the southern coast of England, slip undetected into Portsmouth harbour and sink as many British warships as possible before hostilities ceased. Recognizing the futility of the mission, the 24-year-old skipper instead made for Argentina to request political asylum. After a 107-day voyage, 66 consecutive days of which were spent submerged, the U-977 arrived in Mar del Plata, Argentina on Aug. 17. The sub and her crew formally requested amnesty. Instead they were turned over to the United States Navy. Schäffer eventually returned home and wrote a book about his astounding voyage: U-977 – 66 Tage unter Wasser or “U-977 – 66 Days Under Water”.

VE Plus 119

The very last German troops of the Second World War to call it quits turned themselves in to a band of Norwegian seal hunters on the remote Bear Island in the Barents Sea on Sept. 4, 1945 – nearly four months after VE Day! The small detachment had been sent to the distant Arctic outpost to establish a weather station sometime late in the war. Having lost radio contact with headquarters in May, they gave up without a fight.

30 thoughts on “Hitler’s Holdouts – Meet the Last German Troops to Surrender in WW2

  1. How sad it is there are a lot of civilian people affected by Hitler’s reign during that time. I hope our military people would not considered nor tolerate those reigning people with power to manipulate people’s lives.

    1. C’mon now, let’s not forget that the National Socialists were heavily funded by the Western Democracies as the buffer against the spread of Bolshevism, the enemy of corrupt capitalist banking cartels. If Germany had not re-militarized, the Soviet Union would have been the dominant power in the region, and Cold War era misery would have come much sooner, at the very least.

      While History has assumed the casualties of WWII to the Fuhrer, General Secretary Stalin is second only to Chairman Mao in accredited deaths. Even the leader of the Russian Revolution, Lenin, despised Stalin, warning his fellow comrades of Stalin’s merciless ambition and lack of scruples.

      Adolf Hitler restored pride and might to a Germany on the brink of collapse, pillaged and plundered by the Allies terms at Versailles. While the US and allies enjoyed the decadence of the 1920’s, Germany was deep in depression. Justice is Balance, and it was restored in the 1930’s, as the vices of capitalism brought down the West, while Germany’s people prospered.

      We must look closely, not at what history, written by the victors, asserts, but at the real evidence, photos, movies, etc. and see the difference between a man who lead by fear and force, and a leader beloved by his people.

      1. Hitler made some major social changes to Germany. The reason Germans fought hard was they had pride in their Fuhrer.

        1. Germany LOST the war the day it invaded Russia. Do you think that Stalin would have STOPPED advancing after Hitler & his Germans laid ruin to Russia & roamed thru many countries cowardly murdering men, woman & children. Germany LOST the war in the WEST on D-DAY because COWARDLY SS guards refused to wake Hitler during the invasion instead of the Generals in Normandy TAKING CHARGE AND LEAD. Germans themselves allowed a raging, lunatic to destroy Europe in a cause they KNEW was lost. ALL German Generals & Field Marshals was COWARDS and could have surrendered their whole force anytime and SAVED MILLIONS of Germans & German cities instead of OBEYING a lunatic’s orders to keep fighting, destroying & dying for one mans LOST CAUSE.

  2. The Germans had the best troops of WW2, with the Waffen SS the elite. No wonder they wanted to keep on fighting!

    1. They were good but not good enough. They also had the best equipment on the ground. They bit off more than they could chew band got their butts kicked. They were butchers and got what they deserved.

    2. Some Waffen SS were elite, however mostly the somewhat better combat performance can be acounted to better eaquipment.

      Also ther were Heer units on par with the top of the cream of SS.

    3. Myth, they didn’t. What they had was an almost religious zeal, propped up by psychological brainwashing, amphetamines, and fear of the righteous retribution by the Allied forces, and people of occupied nations. German equipment tended to be heavily over engineered, needed specialist care and attention. Their air forces overwhelmed by superior weapons and tactics. The last desperate gasps of vengeance weapons. Germany was beaten by superior forces, better led, with better equipment, better supplied, and more motivated. There was no Nazi superman, no invincible Nazi forces, there was mythos, rumour, and early successes. By 1942 they had run themselves too thin. Once the United States entered the war, it was only going to end one way. From El Alamein in North Africa, Stalingrad in Russia, the failure to capture the oil fields of the Caucasus, lack of heavy bombers, inability to innovate new tactics, and effectively blockaded from obtaining urgently needed resources, forced to create ersatz versions at huge cost of money, time, other available resources, manpower, and keeping it hidden from British and American bomber forces.

    4. The SS wasn’t that elite unless you mean Aryan bloodlines. A lot of pr***s that couldn’t make it in other units moved to the SS where their bloodlines could gain them favor and promotions. That was the main requirement: not military but geneology.

      Go look at the SS results in battles. They were no better than the Wermacht in most cases and not nearly as able in many. If they had anything going for them it was that they figured they’d be killed if captured. especially by the Russians but even by Brits and Americans.

      As for Germans being the best troops, period, another myth. The Weremacht had very capable officers but Russians were probably better soldiers unless you mean parade-ground soldiers. Russians might not have been to nice or bright but they’d figure out ways to kill you. Don’t go by battle casualties either: as I said, the Germans were far more efficiently led and the Russian leadership wasted soldiers.

  3. You would think that God would have stopped this before six million of His own people were killed?

    1. If you study the scriptures you will see that God uses others to punish His people. He then gives a warning woe unto those that I use to discipline My children Israel. God punished Germany after they were used to discipline the Jews. Then the tribe of Juda went back to their homeland Israel. Also the Balfore declaration in England. After England violated their own agreement with the tribe of Juda, the Empire of Britain was taken away. The quote was ” the sun never sets on the British Empire” After stabbing Israel in the back, now the sun sets every day on the British Empire. Moral of the story, Bless Israel.

    1. While there is an almost unlimited supply of bad things to say about Hitler he accomplished something that many had tried and failed: he killed Hitler.

  4. Funny but how is Stalin 2nd to Chairman Mao, Stalin reportedly killed 20- 25 million of his own people, We all like to think that Hitler was the greatest mass murderer and butcher of his time, Damn Germans and there high intelligence and meticulous record keeping. But Stalin a fake, meaning man of steel, was by all accounts the greatest butcher of world war two. Fact as well, American history rarely teaches this because the Russians with great aid from both Britain and America had finally industrialized enough to make a difference in pumping out equipment to push back Hitler after being Betrayed by there one time ally. Thus becoming an a member of the allied powers only because there one time ally had betrayed and attacked them.

    1. Yeah the only time the US gov and business interests owned and controlled by (((the 6 million eternal victims))) is during the Weimar period. During which the Germans had nothing and were pillaged and raped by the international community via international finance and moral decay. The people of the US on the other hand full of German ancestry from near past sympathized with Germany or didn’t think anything about it. Then again that was when people only knew what they were told. Anyways I could on forever but the entire history is made up, gone forever but the truth always prevails and good trumps evil. So those in power, amassing a fortune of bad karma, end up ants in the next life.

  5. A nit picky point but the last troops to surrender, described in your ‘VE Plus 119’ above, were NOT on Bear Island but rather the northern shoreline of Svalbard. In fact their ‘weather station’ is still there and was just reroofed a couple of years ago to protect it. Check out the book ‘War North of 80’.

  6. Just a minor note from a Dutch guy: Texel is not a ‘Frisian’ island, it belongs to Noord-Holland (and they make quite good beer there!)

    1. Hey there: Thanks for your note. Far be it from a Canadian to quibble with a Dutch person about geography of the Netherlands, but is Texel not part of the West Frisian Islands? As for the beer, now I have ANOTHER reason to visit. 🙂 In the interim, I have corrected the story.

  7. Re the U-234 story, two nit-picky points: Portsmouth Navy Yard is in New Hampshire, not Maine, and if any of the U-234’s uranium cargo was used in an atomic bomb, that would have been the one dropped on Hiroshima; the Nagasaki bomb had plutonium in it, not uranium.

  8. Hitler never mind the Volkswagen and the autobahn gave us the cure for cancer and his childhood taught us that we must save children from violent fathers but the feeding ground for hitler was the the preplanned Wall Street crash

  9. “The German Army Was Better Than Allies” After the US Army War College completed an exhaustive analysis of WWII archival records, Britain’s pre-eminent WWII historian, Max Hastings, writes in an article for the Washington Post, “On a man for man basis, German ground soldiers consistently inflicted casualties at about a 50 percent higher rate than they incurred from the opposing British and American troops under all circumstances (emphasis in original). This was true when they were attacking and when they were defending, when they had a local numerical superiority and when, as was usually the case, they were outnumbered, when they had air superiority and when they did not, when they won and when they lost.”

    “Against the Russians, German and allied Finnish forces inflicted a mortality rate of an almost unimaginable 1.950%. In other words, the Russians incurred on average 19.50 battlefield deaths for every one (1) German/Finnish KIA.”

    “The inescapable truth is that Hitler’s Wehrmacht was the outstanding fighting force of World War II, one of the greatest in history. For many years after 1945, this seemed painful to concede publicly.” It still is for most.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1985/05/05/their-wehrmacht-was-better-than-our-army/0b2cfe73-68f4-4bc3-a62d-7626f6382dbd/?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.05201f535f9d

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