ABSTRACT
Germans sometimes refer to the collapse of Nazi Germany in May 1945 as "Stunde Null' (zero hour), suggesting an entirely new beginning. It did indeed mark more than just the end of the Nazi regime. It marked the end of the great-power status achieved under Bismarck in the previous century and the end of Germany's imperialist ambitions. The degree of destruction exceeded anything the Allies had earlier imagined. German cities lay in ruins, the greatest heap of rubble the world had ever seen. The country's economic infrastructure was devastated. Germany ceased to exist as a sovereign state. The Wehrmacht and the Nazi Party were dissolved. The DCinitz government carried on at the convenience of the Western Allies for another two weeks before its members were formally arrested in Flensburg on the Danish border on 22 May. Some leading Nazis sought to escape detection by blending in with the population. It was not until 23 May that Heinrich Himmler was discovered in the uniform of an ordinary enlisted man in a British detention camp for Wehrmacht soldiers in northern Germany. He committed suicide by swallowing a poison capsule implanted in his teeth.
