The Forgotten Wehrmacht Unit | Last Germans to Surrender after WW2
16,755The Last Japanese Soldier to surrender (in 1974!): https://youtu.be/l1-svU-5fFc
On the 7th of May 1945, the German General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany at the Allied headquarters in Reims, France. It meant the Second World War had come to an end, at least, in the European theatre of war.
But… the war didn’t end for a small Wehrmacht unit consisting of 11 men that were housed at Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. The Wehrmacht unit was tasked with a secret mission named Operation Haudegen. They had to establish meteorological stations on Svalbard. In the chaos following the German capitulation, this Wehrmacht unit was forgotten… And these men would eventually, stuck on an island in the freezing cold, far from civilization, months after Germany’s capitulation. They would become the last German soldiers to surrender after the Second World War.
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Time Codes:
1:02 Wilhelm Dege
3:16 Operation Haudegen
6:38 Life on Svalbard
8:28 The Forgotten Wehrmacht Unit
10:34 Aftermath
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Sources:
Photos, paintings and imagery: Public Domain, Wikicommons
Photographs of Operation Haudegen: Dr. Eckhardt Dege.
Der Spiegel Article: https://www.spiegel.de/einestages/kriegsende-in-der-arktis-a-946659.html
WHO Article: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/lieutenant-wilhelm-dege-the-last.html
NOS Article: https://nos.nl/artikel/2055843-de-vergeten-wehrmacht-eenheid-van-spitsbergen.html
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