Where Gumbo Was #482
This is a story about a museum that should be so much more than it is, that has a story to tell, but really doesn't tell it, as I'll discuss below.
The museum itself is the historic site that draws visitors—the spot where World War II in Europe ended—and it is still in place for visitors. The maps are still on the wall, the chairs are still at the table where German Gen. Jodl signed the unconditional surrender on 7 May 1945, and there's a photo at the edge of the room to show where everyone sat.
The Surrender Museum is in a section of a French high school building, with its space long since separated from the school. The building became Supreme Headquarters for Allied forces in Europe in February, 1945, when Eisenhower moved it there from Versailles, where it had been since a few months after the Normandy invasion in June 1944.
The drama unfolded in the building in several parts. Hitler had committed suicide a few days before, and word came that German Admiral Donitz, who had taken charge, wanted to negotiate a surrender. At Eisenhower's demand, a German admiral was sent to Reims. Adm. Frideburg demanded there be only a partial surrender and that remaining German troops be allowed to move west away from the still-advancing Red Army.
The answer was "No." The Allies had long since agreed that only an unconditional surrender would be accepted. On May 7, Gen. Alfred Jodl arrived in Reims with authority to sign unconditionally. In the room at the top, once a school ping-pong hall, the German officers sat and signed in the presence of Allied generals, but not Eisenhower. Since Jodl was not the supreme commander, Eisenhower sent his deputy, Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, to accept the surrender.
The surrender at Reims was signed at just short of 3 am on May 7, to take effect the following day. And, while it was quickly announced all over the world, it was to quickly lose a bit of its place in history; since only a relatively minor Soviet liaison was present in Reims, the Soviet Union, which has already won the Battle of Berlin, wanted a 'do-over' in the defeated German capital the next day, with Soviet Field Marshal Zhukov present. That's the one that gets most of the attention and is the 'official' version.
For the next fifty years, little happened at the surrender site in Reims. The room and a few others were preserved when the College Moderne et Technique, a boys' high school, returned to its space (it's since become the Lycee Roosevelt and is coed. The street outside got a new name, and in 1985 the building became a historic monument, but the museum didn't open until 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of its momentous day.
And now to the rest of the museum.
Sadly, except for a short introductory film, the rest of the exhibits have the general appearance of someone having said "let's get some old uniforms and some mannequins and some set dressing to fill the rest of the space we have. Oh, and a few newspaper clippings, too, please."
The newspaper clippings are really the only part of the exhibits that hold to the theme of May 7 or of the Allied headquarters. The rest is as quite something else, as you can see above and below.
The uniform exhibits are quite random, and mostly American. They don't connect either to the surrender or to the work of the Allied headquarters; they are just, well, there... And some of the mannequins look less like soldiers than like left-over department store models, especially the women.
There's also this quite-impressive artwork and, below it, a quite puzzling collection of random broken parts of tank treads.
It doesn't make me happy to feel the way I do about this lost-opportunity, lost-message museum. Perhaps my judgment is too harsh, but I went away very disappointed, despite the impressive Surrender Room and its story.
And...Congratulations to GeorgeG, who identified the museum as our mystery location!
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