on 1 May. The Air Force had largely been destroyed or grounded due to lack of fuel, so no new appointment was made. Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim remained as Commander of the Luftwaffe. In spite of its repeated relocations, the Armed Forces High Command continued to function, its organisation and structures having been maintained. But the same was not true of any other arm of government. Starting in March 1945, the staff of the various ministries had been evacuated to resort hotels in the Bavarian and Austrian Alps – chiefly in the region of Berchtesgaden, leaving only the ministers themselves in Berlin. On 13 April, the remaining foreign embassies and the diplomatic corps were evacuated to Bad Gastein. Finally on 20 April all the ministers and their personal staffs had been ordered to make their way southwards; but as by then the roads had been cut and there were insufficient transport aircraft available, several ministers (like Schwerin von Krosigk) had perforce headed north instead. Thus the government of Germany was, at the death of Hitler, split over six centres. The Propaganda Ministry, the personal fiefdom of Joseph Goebbels, had remained with him in Berlin, as had the Nazi Party Chancellery under Martin Bormann; while the Luftwaffe High Command had relocated to Berchtesgaden, having been until his abrupt dismissal on 23 April the counterpart fiefdom of Göring. Himmler had retained his personal powerbase in the offices of the SS and security apparatus, which had been established in Lübeck in the north and then relocated to Flensburg. Other government ministries and ministers were then variously located at Berchtesgaden and Dönitz's headquarters in Plön. With the Armed Forces High Command also located in the north – although many OKW personnel had gone south – there was, in consequence, no semblance any longer of a German central government, and most of the members of the cabinet lacked any support staff from their nominal ministries. Actions Dönitz's initial priority was to open communication with the commanders of German armies, and to establish with them their acknowledgement of his new authority as sole Supreme Commander of all German armed forces. He also sought their agreement with his overall policy of negotiating successive partial surrenders with the Western Allies, while maintaining the war against Soviet forces in the east. Key to this was sidelining Himmler, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg and other former Nazi grandees