Flensburg Government

The Flensburg Government (German: Flensburger Regierung), also known as the Flensburg Cabinet (Flensburger Kabinett), the Dönitz Government (Regierung Dönitz), or the Schwerin von Krosigk Cabinet (Kabinett Schwerin von Krosigk), was the rump government of Nazi Germany during a period of three weeks around the end of World War II in Europe. The government was formed following the suicide of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945 during the Battle of Berlin. It was headed by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reichspräsident and Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk as the Leading Minister. The administration was referred to as the "Flensburg Government" because Dönitz's command relocated to Flensburg in northern Germany near the Danish border on 3 May 1945. The sports school at the Mürwik Naval School was used as the government headquarters. The cabinet was not legitimised according to the Weimar Constitution, which was still formally in force.

At the time of its formation, forces loyal to the Nazi regime still held control of most of Austria and the Sudetenland, which was annexed by Germany in 1938. They also still controlled most of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia which was partially annexed in 1939 when the remainder of Czechoslovakia was occupied, although after Hitler's death those Czech lands still occupied were effectively controlled by the SS with little meaningful oversight from Flensburg. Furthermore, the German military continued to occupy other non-German-speaking territories in disparate and isolated locations across Europe, such as Denmark, Norway, parts of the Netherlands, the Atlantic pockets in France and the British Channel Islands. However, in addition to losing most of its wartime conquests by this point, German forces had already been driven out of the vast majority of Germany's post-Anschluss territory, in addition to Luxembourg as well as the Polish and French territories Germany had either annexed or placed under direct German administration in the early stages of the war.

Due to the rapid Allied advance, the Flensburg government's nominal civil jurisdiction at its formation was essentially limited to those parts of Austria and the Sudetenland its forces still controlled as well as a narrow wedge of German territory running from the pre-1938 Austrian and Czechoslovak borders through Berlin to the Danish border. From 25 April 1945, these lands were cut in two by the American advance to join with Soviet forces at Torgau on the Elbe.

Upon the capitulation of all German forces on 8 May, the administration headed by Dönitz and Krosigk ceased to meaningfully function as a national government. For about two weeks after the surrender, it was for most practical purposes ignored by the Western Allies as well as neutral states and Japan. In the absence of direct military intervention within Flensburg itself, the ministry there continued to regularly meet and conduct what business it could. Finally, due to factors including pressure from the Soviet Union, on 23 May British troops arrested the entire cabinet as prisoners of war and thus effectively dissolved the last surviving legal remnants of the Nazi regime. This dissolution was formalised by the four Allied Powers on 5 June 1945, who at that time formed the Allied Control Council to co-ordinate the civil administration of Allied-occupied Germany.

Once it became apparent that Hitler intended to stay and die in the besieged city of Berlin, effective overall command of German armed forces was exercised through the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the German Military High Command, which had relocated to Rheinsberg. Anticipating that German-held territory would be split, separate military and civilian commands had provisionally been established on 15 April; under Field Marshal Albert Kesselring at Pullach for forces in the south and west, and under Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz at Plön for forces in the north and east; but then Hitler had stalled on transferring executive military authority to them.

On 27 April Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl, of the Army High Command, met at Rheinsberg with Dönitz and Heinrich Himmler to discuss the war situation now that the fall of Berlin could not be averted. Himmler took the chair as the acknowledged deputy Führer and, since the disgrace and dismissal of Hermann Göring, Hitler's expected successor. As they were leaving Rheinsberg on 28 April, Himmler asked Dönitz to confirm that he would be willing to serve in a successor government that Himmler might form. That day however, the British and Americans published Himmler's secret proposals for a separate peace in the West (which they had rejected), to which Hitler reacted by dismissing Himmler from all posts and ordering his arrest for treason. Telegrams sent by Martin Bormann on 29 and 30 April informed Dönitz of these developments and of Dönitz's own appointment as Hitler's successor.

With both Göring and Himmler removed from the succession, Hitler in his political testament had named Dönitz his successor as President and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and designated Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels head of government as Chancellor. Appointing Dönitz as president had no legal basis, even under Nazi law. The chancellor was an appointed official, but the president was elected. Although the Enabling Act of 1933 gave Hitler the right to pass laws that were contrary to the Weimar Constitution, its Article 2 stated explicitly that the president's powers were to remain "undisturbed", which has long been interpreted to forbid any attempt to tamper with the presidency.^{[non-primary source needed]} After the death of president Paul von Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler appropriated the president’s powers for himself in accordance with a Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich passed the previous day.^{[non-primary source needed]} However, in 1932 the constitution was amended to make the president of the Reichsgericht (High Court of Justice), not the chancellor, acting president pending new elections.^{[non-primary source needed]} (This position was vacant due to the suicide of Erwin Bumke on April 20.) Nonetheless, the Enabling Act did not specify any recourse that could be taken if the chancellor violated Article 2, and no legal challenge was ever mounted. Goebbels committed suicide in the Führerbunker on 1 May. The same day Dönitz accepted the offices of Supreme Commander and Head of State in separate broadcast addresses to the German armed forces and to the German people. Residual ministers of the Hitler cabinet, who had fled from the fall of Berlin to join Dönitz at the Wehrmacht barracks near Plön in Holstein, resigned the next day. Suspecting that Bormann might also have escaped from Berlin and be intending to seize power, Dönitz met with Hitler's former Finance Minister Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk and asked him to constitute a new Reich government.

Schwerin von Krosigk's cabinet first met in Eutin, to which he and his ministerial staff were evacuated, on 2 May. Later on 2 May, and in view of the rapidly advancing British Second Army forces which were approaching Lübeck, Dönitz met Schwerin von Krosigk, Paul Wegener, Himmler, and Keitel to discuss the urgent necessity of a further relocation. Himmler argued for a move to Prague, then the last major central European capital city in German hands, and closer to advancing American forces with whom he hoped to negotiate personally, but Dönitz refused to sanction any move outside the borders of Germany. Moreover, the political situation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was highly unstable. Dönitz decided instead to proceed to the Mürwik naval academy in Flensburg near the Danish border. The cabinet met in the sports school of the naval academy; while administrative offices and accommodation for the various ministries were established on the liner Patria [de], moored in Flensburg harbour. The German High Command, which moved from Rheinsberg to Neustadt in Holstein two days before, then also relocated to Flensburg, while the SS leadership had been gathering at Flensburg since 28 April.