Operation Crossword

During World War II, Operation Crossword or Operation Sunrise was a series of secret negotiations conducted in March 1945 in Switzerland between representatives of Nazi Germany and the Western Allies to arrange a local surrender of German forces in northern Italy. One of the most notable parts of the operation was secret negotiations between Waffen-SS General Karl Wolff and Allen Dulles on March 8, 1945 in Luzern. Wolff offered the following plan: Army Group C goes into Germany, while Allied Forces Commander Harold Alexander advances in the direction of the Southern Alps. Subsequently, on March 15 and March 19, Wolff conducted further secret negotiations on the surrender with American general Lyman Lemnitzer and British general Terence Airey.

On March 12, the U.S. ambassador in the USSR, W. Averell Harriman, notified Vyacheslav Molotov of the possibility of Wolff's arrival in Lugano to conduct negotiations on the German Forces surrender in Italy. On the same day, Molotov replied that the Soviet government would not object to negotiations between American and British officers and Wolff, provided that representatives of Soviet Military Command could also take part in them. However, on March 16 the Soviet side was informed that its representatives would not be allowed to take part in negotiations with Wolff in any case.

On March 22 Molotov, in his letter to the American ambassador, wrote that "for two weeks, in Bern, behind the back of the Soviet Union, negotiations between representatives of the German Military Command on one side and representatives of American and British Command on the other side are conducted. The Soviet government considers this absolutely inadmissible." This led to Roosevelt's letter to Stalin on March 25 and Stalin's reply on March 29. The actual surrender in Italy was signed on April 29, 1945 agreeing to a cessation of hostilities on 2 May.

Operation Crossword was depicted in the Soviet film Seventeen Moments of Spring, named "Operation Sunrise Crossword" in the film.

References

• Bradley F. Smith and Elena Agarossi, Operation Sunrise: The Secret Surrender. New York, 1979
• "Analysis of the Name File of Guido Zimmer". Records of the Central Intelligence Agency - Records of the Directorate of Operations. http://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-263-cia-records/rg-263-zimmer.html. Retrieved September 10, 2006. 
• "Insidious Moments of the Victorious War" (in Russian). Soviet Russia (newspaper). Archived from the original on October 28, 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20061028154709/http://www.sovross.ru/2005/40/40_3_12.htm. Retrieved September 10, 2006. 
• ""They Are Honest and Modest People..."" (in Russian). SVR. http://svr.gov.ru/smi/2000/trud20000415.htm. Retrieved September 10, 2006. 

This military-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: Military stubs Battles and operations of World War II World War II espionage Soviet Union–United Kingdom relations Soviet Union–United States relations Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую Dean Cawdor Crozer Arboretum Look at other dictionaries: Operation Sunrise — may refer to: Operation Sunrise (Vietnam War), a 1962 test of the Strategic Hamlet Program Operation Crossword or Operation Sunrise, a series of secret negotiations conducted in March 1945 in Switzerland Siege of Lal Masjid or Operation Sunrise,… …   Wikipedia Operation Sunrise — Als Operation Sunrise wurden die Kapitulationsverhandlungen zwischen den Deutschen und Amerikanern in der Endphase des Zweiten Weltkriegs genannt. Von den Briten erhielten die Verhandlungen den Namen Operation Crossword. Konkret verhandelte der… …   Deutsch Wikipedia Crossword — For other uses of crossword, see crossword (disambiguation) An American style crossword grid layout A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or rectangular grid of white and shaded squares. The goal is to fill the… …   Wikipedia Crossword abbreviations — Cryptic crosswords often use abbreviations to clue individual letters or short fragments of the overall solution. These include: Any conventional abbreviations found in a standard dictionary, such as: current : AC (for alternating current ); less …   Wikipedia List of World War II topics (O) — # O I # OA vz.27 # Oak Ridge Associated Universities # Oak Ridge City Center # Oak Ridge High School (Oak Ridge, Tennessee) # Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education # Oak Ridge National Laboratory # Oak Ridge, Tennessee # Oakley Hall #… …   Wikipedia Seventeen Moments of Spring — Infobox Film name = Seventeen Moments of Spring image size = caption = director = Tatiana Lioznova producer = writer = based on the books by Yulian Semyonov narrator = starring = Vyacheslav Tikhonov music = Mikael Tariverdiev cinematography =… …   Wikipedia Spring 1945 offensive in Italy — Spring 1945 Offensive Part of World War II, Italian Campaign Date 6 April 1945 – 2 May 1945 Location …   Wikipedia Dulles' Plan — The Dulles plan or the Dulles Doctrine (Russian: План Даллеса or Доктрина Даллеса) is the central document of a conspiracy theory, according to which the CIA chief Allen Dulles had developed a plan for United States to destroy the Soviet Union… …   Wikipedia Gehlen Organization — was an intelligence agency established in June 1946 by U.S. occupation authorities in the United States Zone of Germany, and consisted of former members of the 12th Department of the Army General Staff (Foreign Armies East, or FHO). It carries… …   Wikipedia Reinhard Gehlen — Infobox Military Person name= Reinhard Gehlen lived=April 3 1902 – dda|1979|06|08|1902|03|03|df=y placeofbirth= Erfurt, Germany placeofdeath= Starnberg, Germany caption= Reinhard Gehlen nickname= allegiance=flagicon|Nazi Germany Nazi Germany… …   Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”