At 3:30 p.m. on April 30, 1945, Nazi German Fuehrer Hitler shot himself in the basement of the German Chancellor's Office. At 21:50 that night, Soviet heroes Sergeant Mikhail Yegorov and Corporal Myridon Cantaria planted soviet red flags on the dome of the main building of the Reichstag. On 2 May the Berlin garrison commander H. Weidling surrendered, but the end of the Battle of Berlin did not mean that the war would end. From 6 to 11 May 1945, the Soviet 1st, 4th, and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts launched the Battle of Prague against German groups in Czechoslovakia.
Nearly a week after the Battle of Prague, Hitler had committed suicide and the Berlin garrison had surrendered for four days. In fact, the Battle of Prague was the last offensive battle in the European theater of World War II. Why did the Soviets and Germany fight the Battle of Prague when Hitler had committed suicide and the capital of Nazi Germany had been captured? The first thing to say here is that when Hitler committed suicide, not all of Nazi Germany's army was wiped out or surrendered, and the areas under the occupation and control of Nazi Germany were not all liberated.
When the Berlin defenders surrendered to the Soviets, Germany still had 300,000 troops unused in Norway; 900,000 German troops in the Czech Republic; 450,000 German troops in Yugoslavia; and Katherine B's Army Group in Italy was almost completely destroyed after the siege of the Ruhr. If you add up the German army that existed at this time, there are about 1.65 million troops. At that time, the Netherlands, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, Norway and other places still had a large number of German occupation forces stationed, and the German garrisons in these areas were basically fully combatable troops that had not been destroyed by war.
It was not until 10 June 1945 that the 250,000 Norwegian German troops trapped on one side of the Strait finally surrendered. Some of the cannons in this well-equipped unit did not even tear open the protective film. So many people here may wonder: Why didn't Hitler transfer these troops back to the defense of Berlin? Bearing in mind that the total strength of the German army in the Battle of Moscow was only more than 1.8 million people, then why not use this million troops to let go and make a final attempt? Why rush to commit suicide when you still have the hole card in your hand?
However, these so-called "millions of troops" were scattered in Norway, the Czech Republic, Yugoslavia and other places and almost all of them were under siege from the Red Army and the American and British allies. These forces are in effect pinned to the ground and unable to move: neither maneuverable nor synergistic. At this time, Germany's important industrial bases and raw material production sites had been occupied, so there were no factories that could provide weapons, medicines and other logistical supplies for the German army. The scattered Germans could hardly form a synergy with the loss of air superiority and the lack of logistical supplies.
The scattered Germans could no longer form a powerful fist, but could only hit people in the form of scattered slaps. These armies are really just numbers stuck in the middle of nowhere. At this time, most of the German generals had also recognized the fate of Germany's doomed defeat, so they began to plan a way out for themselves after the war. Hitler's suicide and the fall of Berlin had in fact cut off the back roads for these Germans: it was impossible to expect these so-called "millions" to fight a turnaround, and surrender had become the only way out for these scattered German troops.
However, speaking of this may lead to another kind of confusion: since surrender is the only way out for these German troops, will it not be the end of surrendering directly when the Soviet army comes? Why did the Germans in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, fight the Soviets in the last battle when Hitler had committed suicide and Berlin had fallen? This doesn't seem to play any role except to let yourself die a few more people. It was not that these desperate Germans did not want to surrender, but they did not want to surrender to the Soviets.
The largest of Germany's scattered overseas legions at the fall of Berlin was the 900,000 German Army Group Center in Czechoslovakia in Eastern Europe. One of the outstanding features of this force was that it had a large number of foreign mercenaries in addition to the Germans. The Foreign Legion in this German army consisted mainly of Eastern European nationalities such as Russians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Tatars. These were either White Russians who opposed the Red Soviet regime after the Soviet Revolution, or nationalists in Ukraine, Lithuania and other places who advocated independence.
These people were all out-and-out traitors in the eyes of the Soviets. When the German army broke into the Soviet Union, these foreign soldiers also set foot on Soviet territory. There was a sharp contradiction between these people and the Red Soviet regime, so these people did not fail to commit murder and arson on The soil of the Soviet Union. These people also knew that if they surrendered to the Soviets, there would be no good end. Is there a second way not to surrender to the Soviets? In fact, these people were pinning their hopes on the American and British Allies on the Western Front.
In fact, it was only a matter of time before germany was defeated before the Battle of Berlin began. By this time, the relations between the United States, Britain and other Western countries and the Soviet Union had become quite delicate: on the surface, the Soviet Red Army and the United States and Britain were still allies in the joint fight against German fascism, but in fact both sides were secretly competing for the expansion of their post-war sphere of influence as much as possible. After the Normandy landings, the American and British Allies opened up the western front battlefield of the European continent. From then on, the Red Army of the Soviet Union fought from east to west and the actions of the American and British Allies from west to east actually formed a competitive relationship.
Czechoslovakia was geographically closer to the Soviets, but among all the Eastern European countries Czechoslovakia was the closest to the Allies on the Western Front. Although we as people know that Czechoslovakia became the Soviet Union's sphere of influence after the war, there was a certain competitive game between the Soviet army on the eastern front and the Allied forces on the western front around Czechoslovakia. At this time, the German Army Group Center, stationed in Czechoslovakia, had no choice but to surrender, and the only choice they could choose was to surrender to the Soviets on the eastern front or to the Allies on the western front.
As we have mentioned above, the German Army Group Center in Czechoslovakia had a bloody feud with the Soviets, so they naturally hoped to surrender to the American and British Allies on the Western Front out of their survival instinct. It was best for them to delay the Soviet advance into Czechoslovakia as much as possible, and thus to drag as far as possible the Arrival of the American and British Allies on the Western Front. The commander-in-chief of the German army in the Czech Republic, Ferdinand Schörna, met with the senior military leaders and decided to surrender to the Allies in every possible way. The Germans tried to use the hundreds of thousands of Czechs in the city as a blackmail to bargain with the Soviets who had come to "receive" them to delay time.
The Soviets, who were at the peak of victory, did not have the patience to toss with Schellner at the negotiating table. On 6 May 1945, the Soviets launched a campaign aimed at encircling and crushing German groups in Czechoslovakia and liberating Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia. On 8 May 1945, the German High Command sent representatives led by Marshal Wilhelm Keitel to attend the official ceremony of The Unconditional German Surrender in Karlsholt, on the outskirts of Berlin, but the German army under Schörner's command was still fighting the Soviets and Czech partisans with more than 900,000 troops and relatively sophisticated equipment.
Although on 9 May Schörner had received an order from his successor, Führer Dönitz, to "stop all resistance", his forces fought against the Soviets and Czech partisans until 11 May. Hitler committed suicide, Berlin fell, and even the German government formally signed the instrument of surrender, but the force was still doing its final recalcitrant resistance. In the end, the German army groups in Czechoslovakia were almost completely encircled and fell into a situation of running out of ammunition. On 11 May, after completely losing hope of breaking through and fleeing westward, the German Army Group Center in the Czech Republic surrendered to the Soviets.