In what was termed Operation Sunrise, Waffen SS General Karl Wolff met with OSS chief Allen Dulles in Lucerne, Switzerland, to discuss the surrender of German forces in northern Italy. What Wulff, a dedicated Nazi, really hoped to do was to end the war with the Western Allies so that the Western Allies and the Germans could throw back the Soviets.
The Soviets learned of the secret meetings for their part, and suspected that this was the goal.
Wulff did end up surrendering German forces in northern Italy prior to the German surrender in the war, although not by much.
Wulff was implicated in war crimes, but was not prosecuted, and cooperated with the Allies isn the prosecution of others. He was tried by the Wester German government following the war and briefly imprisoned for being in hte SS. He worked for an advertising agency after the war and died in 1984, being a questionable contributor to post war histories.
German forces on the channel islands raided Granville, sinking a small US warship and four merchant ships.
Pretty impressive for this late in the war.
Alfred Jodl informed Hitler that the Allies had captured the Ludendorff Bridge intact. Hitler was predictably outraged.
Goebbels wrotin in his dairy:
It is quite devastating that the Americans should have succeeded in capturing the Rhine bridge at Remagen intact and forming a bridgehead...
The Remagen bridgehead causes the Führer much anxiety. On the other hand he is of the opinion that it offers us certain advantages. Had the Americans not found a weak spot enabling them to cross the Rhine they probably would have swung forthwith against the Moselle. ... Nevertheless it must be assumed that the failure to blow the Remagen Bridge may well be due to sabotage, or at least serious negligence. The Fuhrer has ordered an inquiry and will impose a death sentence on anyone found guilty. The Fuhrer considers the bridgehead a definite thorn in the flesh of the Americans. He has now ringed the bridgehead with heavy weapons whose job it is to inflict the greatest possible casualties to American forces concentrated in the bridgehead. It may well be, therefore, that the bridgehead will not be all joy for the Americans.
In the evening comes the news that it has still not been possible to eliminate the Remagen bridgehead. On the contrary the Americans have reinforced it and are trying to extend it. The result is a very unpleasant situation for us. ... However we must succeed, for if the Americans continue to hold out on the right bank of the Rhine they have a base for a further advance and from the small beginning of a bridgehead such as we now see, a running sore will develop—as so often before—the poison from which will soon spread to the Reich's vitals.
The Luftwaffe began a concentrated effort to destroy the railroad bridge at Remagen.
U.S. troops were pouring across the bridge. Knowing that it was structurally weakened by efforts to destroy it, the US began to construct a pontoon on the afternoon of this day. Controlling both sides of the river, moreover, the US began to deploy amphibious vessels to cross the river, and the US Navy transported landing craft to the site.
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