Surrender: the last Germans to give up

MURDO MACLEOD

EUROPE awoke from its five-year nightmare on May 8, 1945, to begin the painful process of reconstruction, reconciliation and retribution.

What no one realised was that a tiny, forgotten outpost of the Third Reich was holding out in the eternal daylight of the Arctic summer, over 2,000 miles away from the ruins of Berlin.

The 11 German soldiers of top secret Operation Haudegen sat tight for four months on the Norwegian island of Spitzbergen, eating canned rations, fending off polar bears, and finally surrendering in September.

They handed over their weapons to a bemused Norwegian Navy captain who had to be talked through the formalities of taking prisoners of war by the Germans themselves.

And with that - on September 4, 1945 - it could be argued that the Second World War in Europe reached its ‘real’ end.

Now, almost 60 years later, the remarkable story of Operation Haudegen can be told for the first time and by the veterans themselves - two of whom were recently reunited for a trip to the island that became their prison.

The hand-picked winter warfare team was sent to Spitzbergen in 1944 on a mission to gather vital weather information for the Nazi war machine.

Heinz Schneider, now 81, was a corporal with the German Marines, an expert in mountain and winter operations, and trained in operating weather equipment.

When word went round in mid-1944 that the German Navy’s weather stations needed volunteers, Schneider, a keen skier, was quick to come forward.

He told Scotland on Sunday: "They asked us whether we wanted to step forward for a mission in the cold and ice, and I decided that was the mission for me. I love skiing - I still do in fact."

Siegfried Czapka, another of the volunteers for the mission, now 80, said: "All we knew was that we were going somewhere where there was ice and snow. That could only mean the Arctic. I was young and believed there were still such things as adventures to be found in the world."

The 11-strong team set out on Operation Haudegen in September 1944 in a U-boat which sailed from the port of Tromsø in German-occupied Norway - a dangerous journey in itself.

The mission was so secret that the unit was not even given a formal name or number, and only referred to by its code name.

Czapka said: "We managed to get through despite an Allied blockade of the Norwegian ports. They were trying to stop us getting through but we managed it."

They set up their camp on Spitzbergen’s east island and began sending weather data from their station to Tromsø.

The German historian and Second World War specialist Franz Selinger, explained: "Getting the weather from so far north was a priority during the war because the air over Iceland is critical in determining the weather patterns over the North Atlantic. If you have people in Spitzbergen, then you know what is on the way."

The information was so militarily sensitive that the weather reports were encoded before being transmitted. In addition to helping the U-boat campaign against Allied shipping, the data helped with the planning for the last attempt to defeat the Allies in the West: the Ardennes Offensive or Battle of the Bulge. The attack began on December 16, 1944, and the bad weather at the beginning of the Nazi push meant that the Allies could not use their stronger air power to stop the advance.

The bitter battle for weather information meant that the Allies sent destroyers to the area with the mission to hunt them down, without success.

Polar bears, however, were another matter, and attacks were common. The men had to carry rifles with them every time they went outside at night in case they were attacked by the bears. They shot four dead, and then looked after the orphaned cubs.

The long Arctic winter nights were spent in learning about science, geography, philosophy and mathematics from the leader of the expedition, Dr Wilhelm Dege.

Schneider said: "Dr Dege was a very educated man, and he felt that because of our situation, with the war and everything, that we hadn’t got a complete education. So he spent time making up for that and teaching us about all kinds of things."

Czapka said: "The worst of it was not knowing what was happening to our families, and they not knowing where we were. The whole operation was so secret. They knew nothing at all about our whereabouts. The Navy told them once a month that their son was in good health, but nothing more."

Then, on May 8 1945, the men received a message from their commanders in Tromsø that the war was over.

They were ordered to dispose of explosives, destroy secret documents and send weather reports unencoded: even the post-war world needed weather information.

Then there was silence. The Spitzbergen team was stranded with only a rowing boat. Although they had perhaps two years of food, the notion of being stuck near the North Pole held little appeal.

At first they waited for a signal from anywhere, hoping that someone might tune in to their weather reports. But they heard nothing.

Czapka said: "We were all worried what had happened to everyone at home. We feared that they had been killed in the air raids. We had been hearing about raids on home towns and cities night after night. We had no idea whether we would find them alive or dead."

Finally, they began sending out signals on Allied distress channels. The Norwegians eventually realised what was happening and chartered a seal-hunting ship to accept the unit’s belated surrender. The vessel got there on September 4, a year after the men’s arrival, and four months after the end of the war in Europe.

Czapka said: "They got us just in time. A few more weeks and the pack-ice would have made it impossible to get through. We would have had to prepare for another winter."

The surrender of Germany’s last known armed unit was, however, farcical.

Schneider said: "The Norwegians came ashore and we all had a big meal together. Then our commanding officer said at the end: ‘I suppose we should surrender now.’ We had this situation where no one seemed too sure what to do."

Dr Eckhard Dege, the son of the German commanding officer, recalls: "My father said he was surrendering. He took out his pistol and placed it on the table in front of the Norwegian captain.

"The Norwegian stared at it and asked ‘Can I keep this then?’ My father explained that he could because they were surrendering - and so they were the last German soldiers in Europe to surrender."

The 11 were taken to Norway and held as prisoners of war for months until being returned to Germany, where they were shocked by the situation.

Schneider, from Dresden, could not believe what he saw: "I had heard that Dresden had been bombed and assumed it was no worse than the bombing anywhere else," he said. "Only when I got there did I realise how much it had been destroyed. It was a terrible sight."

Now the still-intact weather station serves as an emergency refuge for anyone stranded in Spitzbergen.

But the team was split by the Cold War as the Iron Curtain divided their country and Operation Haudegen’s 11 were never united again.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

Why did they not surrended earlier? didn't they know about the end of the war?

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They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them. Lest We Forget

I saw a documentary about them on a franco-German Tv Channel. They wanted to surrender and knew the war was over. But they were simply forgotten. There were no more supplies for them from germany, so they had to live on tins and hunt, but also the allies did not know they were there. The Norwegians were simply the first ones they met. They were scientists of a weather forecast station that provided info for the Atlantic front area.

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Hi JCF

A very good story and I've no doubt there are other similar ones around somewhere if we could only persuade others to post them here

I am reminded of my own little piece about the last Germans to "give up" in Austria.

Notes from my Diaries:

Wednesday 2nd. May 1945
Jerry threw his hand in Italy and Austria. Fired all our 2" mortars, phosphorous bombs and verey lights and had bonfires all over the shop.
Cease fire about 11 pm.

( At noon today the Germans signed an unconditional surrender at Caserta).

Within days the whole regiment was summoned on parade by the CO who addressed us as follows:
"As you know the war in Europe is now over, and I suppose most of you are looking forward to seeing your loved ones again after years spent overseas. I must tell you, however, that there is an SS Cavalry Division in Austria at the moment who refuse to cease fighting and our regiment has been given the honour of going up there and persuading them that it would be a good idea on their part to surrender to us."

My diary continues:
Wednesday 9th. May 1945
All packed ready for move to Austria of all places but cancelled when S.S. Division packed in. Parcel from home with Kummel.

Thursday 10th. May 1945
Playing cards all day. Latest griff is we are getting armoured cars and then going to Austria as occupational troops. Still no mail.

You can see the original item here:
BBC - WW2 People's War - The War Ends in Italy, 2nd May 1945

Attached Images

1945-026 Guard Room, Ferndorf, Austria (BBC).jpg (47.4 KB, 8 views)

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During the period October 1942 to January 1947 my wartime "Cook's Tour" took me to the following places:
North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Austria, Egypt & Germany.
My units were the: 49th Light Ack Ack Rgt.RA and
The 4th Queen's Own Hussars.

Very interesting thread. My thanks to all concerned

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There is an ass in my avatar.

Nice thread and thanks you Mr. Goldstein, for sharing some of your memories.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Well at least they weren't holdouts like some of the Japanese. It would be bad enough waiting to surrender for months I think then not for decades.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

Stories circulate about German submarines reaching nuetral ports here & there. I wonder if any of the crews actually did avoid actual capture that way, eventually making their way back home?

There are also rumors about the Geman military attaches at the embassys in nuetral countrys sometimes failing to report for custody at the Allied embassys and disappearing into the local city.

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I forgot my password, can I use yours?

There you go:

Last Japanese soldier:

There you go:

Quote:
LAST SURRENDER
The last Wehrmacht soldiers to surrender were a small company on the tiny Channel Island of Minquiers and a group of eleven soldiers on the island of Spitzbergen. A French fishing boat, skippered by Lucian Marie, approached the island of Minquiers and anchored nearby. A fully armed German soldier approached and asked for help saying 'We've been forgotten by the British, perhaps no one on Jersey told them we were here, I want you to take us over to England, we want to surrender'. This was on the 23rd of May, 1945, three weeks after the war ended!


"The 11 German soldiers of top secret Operation Haudegen sat tight for four months on the Norwegian island of Spitzbergen, eating canned rations, fending off polar bears, and finally surrendering in September. "

The 11 at Spitzbergen surrendered almost 4 months later. We discussed the Channel Islands in another thread a few months back in the WWII general forum,

The Channel Islands

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

At least two German submarines showed up in South America, I think it was Argentina, after the war. The crews didn't avoid capture because they turned themselves in.
The arrival of these subs gave rise to numerous stories that top Nazi leaders had fled to South America. Since Hitler's body wasn't immediately found after the war, one conspiracy theory held that Hitler fled on one those submarines and hid himself in the large German community of Argentina.

This brings to mind a joke we used to make when training at Ft Carson in the 1990s. We would look at the antenna covering Chyenne Mountain, glance at each other, and remark "Do you suspose anyone has told those guys in there the Cold War is over?"

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I forgot my password, can I use yours?