promising false papers and identities for him and his leading lieutenants if they removed themselves promptly. Himmler called his fellow SS leaders together for a last time that day, and advised them to 'dive down within the Wehrmacht'. By the next day they had fled. This came too late for the concentration camp prisoners within the area who were now within Dönitz's nominal authority, while under the actual control of the SS. These had numbered around 10,000 when Dönitz assumed the presidency; mainly former inmates of the Neuengamme camp outside Hamburg, which had been shut down in preparation for the surrender of the city to the British. Between 16 and 28 April, the prisoners had been moved eastwards and concealed by the SS in a flotilla of unseaworthy ships anchored in the Bay of Lübeck, where they then remained without food or medical attention. At the time, this action had been opposed by Rear Admiral Konrad Englehardt on Dönitz's staff, but when the Flensburg government came into being, Dönitz made no attempt to free the prisoners, and his government avoided any subsequent acknowledgement that they had known they were there. On 3 May 1945, the prison flotilla was sunk by the Royal Air Force in the mistaken belief that the ships were being prepared to evacuate leading SS personnel. Over 7,000 prisoners drowned, mainly on the former liner Cap Arcona. Partial capitulations in the West On 2 May, while still at Plön, Dönitz was surprised to learn that German forces in Italy had surrendered unconditionally to the Western Allies. The capitulation had been negotiated without Hitler's knowledge or consent, and signed at Caserta on 29 April, but it did not come into effect for three days. While Hitler had been still alive, Dönitz had followed absolutely his commands to fight on to the last on all fronts. However, he now realized that the Wehrmacht's position in the West was untenable. He believed that surrendering German forces only to the Western Allies could present opportunities to split the British and Americans from the Soviets. Thereon he assumed direction of further German surrender initiatives, exploring opportunities for partial surrender in the West. In the East, however, he continued to order German armies to fight on. On 2 May, he tried unsuccessfully to countermand the decisions of the German commander in Berlin to surrender their forces to the Soviets; and on 3 May,