The surrender by German forces to the Allies happened twice. Once in Reims by General Jodl and once in Berlin by General Keitel.
On May 7, 1945, General Alfred Jodl signed Germany’s unconditional surrender at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in Reims, France. This act was intended to end hostilities on all fronts. However, the Soviet Union objected to the surrender being signed in the Western theatre of war without their prominent involvement. The only Russian signatory at Reims was General Ivan Susloparov, who acted as the soviet representative for the signing ceremony.
Further, the text of the surrender in Reims did not conform to the wording which was previously agreed by the Americans, British and Soviets. This was an error by General Smith who forgot that the approved document of surrender was filed away in his personal top-secret cabinet.
Therefore, he sent three officers to prepare a new surrender document from miscellaneous reference material.
When the error came to light after the signing, the Western Allies had no choice but to agree that the act of surrender signed in Reims should be considered “a preliminary protocol of surrender” and another surrender ceremony should take place in Berlin.
Consequently, a second surrender ceremony was held in Berlin on May 8, where Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed the definitive surrender document in the presence of Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov and representatives from the Western Allies.
What Happened to Jodl and Keitel
Each of the four Allied powers – United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France – were represented at an International Military Tribunal by a judge, a alternate judge, and a team of prosecutors and staff where Jodl and Keitel, among others were, indicted and convicted for the crimes of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Both Jodl and Keitel were hanged at Nuremberg.
Alfred Jodl in Paris and Wilhelm Keitel in Berlin for the vanquished, were ‘good’ enough for the purpose of signing the surrender documents, but they were not ‘good’ enough to avoid being indicted, convicted, and hanged after the war.
Some of the facts that led to their conviction came out after the war, but some described in the indictment were known from the start. So it seems strange to me that the vanquished were represented at the signing of the surrender by Generals who were later hanged for being perpetrators of the war.
Perhaps from the Allied point of view they really didn’t care who signed the surrender for and on behalf of the Germans, as long as the Germans themselves accepted it as a sign to put down their weapons. Perhaps that is the way to look at it.
Footnote
It turned out that General Susloparov was trying to contact his superiors to determine whether he should sign the surrender document in Reims but was overtaken by events when the time for the signing arrived. What was he to do? At the same time his superiors were trying to contact him to tell him not to sign. In the event, he survived the war and worked in the Military Diplomatic Academy in Moscow, dying in 1974.