Page 505 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

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This objective should be reached by continuing the struggle until the Allies had de-
stroyed Nazism. Furthermore, the wording of “unconditional surrender” should provide
the Allies with the freedom in planning the war, in order to ensure that the victory was
18
“total and convincing” . Simply, this meant the beginning of a total conduct of the war
– without rules of engagement defined by policy-makers. This also meant that “vic-
tory” went far beyond the defeat of the enemy nation. To a greater degree, a completely
new term of international law was created. This “national-political total capitulation”
regarded a capitulation not only as consequence of a military defeat, but also demanded
a nullification of a political system and some cultural values like militarism. By deny-
ing the enemy’s national sovereignty – which also included its sovereignty as defined by
international law – it was also no longer accepted as a negotiating party. Consequently,
the outcome of this war would not be the result of negotiations, but an imposed treaty. In
this sense, the Nazi-regime and the military power of Germany were connected. With-
out the destruction of one part, the acknowledgement of the defeat was not possible.
Besides, it seemed
– from the point of view of the Allies – politically preferable not to acknowledge
Germany as an internationally recognized sovereign. Reorganizing Europe after the war
would be much easier without Germany as internationally recognized entity. 19
If Europe was to be reorganized after the end of the war, then it must be assumed
that “Hour Zero” is an event that could be planned. If “Hour Zero” can be planned, then
one can assume that the Allies had certain concepts for the design of a postwar Europe.
However, this was not true. From the outside, the Allies seemed to be a big monolithic
block. From the inside they were not in agreement among themselves. It is surely not
an exaggerated statement to claim that each ally had internal disagreements what to
do with Europe after the war had ended. Many of the political decisions made during
the war were not the result of visionary planning; they were just reactions on militarily
determined and prejudged events. First, it showed very clear how little was coordi-
nated between the Allies. Secondly this proved how much need for an improvement of
the inner Allied communication existed.
Following the capitulation of Italy on September 8, 1943 there were grave differ-
ences in opinion between the British and the American side. These differences were
triggered by the question whether or not the documents of capitulation should be very
short and limited to military questions or if the wording should be much more compre-
hensive. Interestingly enough, the Soviet Union, despite the fact that it also belonged to

18 Boog, Horst. “Die Anti-Hitler Koalition.” In Der Globale Krieg: Die Ausweitung zum Weltkrieg und der

Wechsel der Initiative 1941 - 1943. Edited by Horst Boog et al., 3–94. Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite
Weltkrieg 6. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1990

19 See in detail Horst Boog, “Die Anti-Hitler Koalition,” in Der Globale Krieg: Die Ausweitung zum Weltkrieg
und der Wechsel der Initiative 1941 - 1943, ed. Horst Boog et al., Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite
Weltkrieg 6 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1990), 3–94., p. 82 – 85, likewise Loth, Wilfried. “Die
deutsche Frage und der Wandel des internationalen Systems.” In Der Zusammenbruch des Deutschen
Reiches: Die Folgen des Weltkrieges. Edited by Rolf-Dieter Müller, 201–378. Das Deutsche Reich und der
Zweite Weltkrieg 10/2. München: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2008