Eisenhower’s Top Secret Message and German Surrender Documents Lead WWII Auction

RR Auction’s Fine Autographs and Artifacts Featuring World War II and Military sale focuses on the closing chapter of World War II with documents chronicling the surrender of Nazi Germany and the formal end of the conflict.

Among the lots is the original German surrender negotiation authorization signed by Admiral Karl Dönitz on May 6, 1945. This simple document granted Colonel General Alfred Jodl the authority to “discuss” the terms of armistice with Eisenhower’s headquarters. Accompanying the Dönitz document are Jodl’s pencil-drafted radio telegrams, including his May 6 message: “Move in direction ‘Frankenstrub’”, a coded call for mass evacuation toward Berchtesgaden. As negotiations dragged through the night, Jodl’s blunt assessment would come to define the end: “I see no alternative - chaos or signature.” Hours later, Dönitz authorized surrender.

Jodl signed the Instrument of Unconditional Surrender in Reims, France. General Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the moment with the eleven-word message: “The mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7th, 1945.” A rare signed copy of Eisenhower’s top secret message - marked Copy No. 37 and inscribed in fountain pen by Eisenhower - will be offered in the sale, along with his confidential ceasefire directive, instructing: “All offensive operations by Allied Expeditionary Force will cease.”

Other highlights in the sale include:

• a restored German Enigma I cipher machine (c. 1943) housed in an original wartime case
• three wartime letters by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, including an autograph postscript dated August 26, 1939, just days before Germany invaded Poland: 
“I still hope we may avoid the worst, but if it comes we are thank God prepared for it.”

• an autograph letter and poem by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• scientific manuscripts by Louis Pasteur and Albert Einstein
• scarce handwritten letters by Oliver Cromwell, James A. Garfield, Pablo Picasso, and Paul Gauguin

The sale will end  on June 11.