The German Instrument of Surrender (; ; ) was a legal document effecting the unconditional surrender of the remaining Nazi German armed forces to the Allies, and ended World War II in Europe; the signing took place at 22:43 CET on 8 May 1945 and the surrender took effect at 23:01 CET on the same day. The day before that, Nazi Germany had signed another surrender document close to it with the Allies in Reims in France, but it was not recognized by the Soviet Union for enforcement, so another document was needed to sign; and in addition, immediately after signing the German forces were ordered to cease fire in the west and continue fighting in the east. Germany under the Flensburg Government led by the head of state Karl Dönitz also accepted the Allied suggestion to sign a new document. The document was signed at the seat of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (Karlshorst, Berlin) by the representatives from the German "Oberkommando der Wehrmacht" (OKW), Allied Expeditionary Force represented by the British, and Supreme High Command of the Soviet Red Army; with further the French and American representatives signing as the witnesses. This time, the Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel was the highest representative of Nazi Germany at the signing ceremony. This surrender document of Germany also led to the de facto fall of Nazi Germany. As one result of Nazi German downfall, the Allies (officially United Nations) had occupied Germany since the Nazi defeat — which was later confirmed via the Berlin Declaration by the four countries of Allies as the common representative of new Germany (United States-US, United Kingdom-UK, France, and Soviet Union-USSR), on 5 June 1945. There were three language versions of the surrender document — English, Russian, and German — with the English and Russian versions proclaimed in the document itself as the only authoritative ones. Background On 30 April 1945, the head of state of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler killed himself in his Führerbunker, under the Reich Chancellery, having drawn up a testament in which Admiral Karl Dönitz succeeded him as next head of state of Nazi Germany, with the title of Reich President. But with the fall of Berlin two days later, and American and Soviet forces having linked up at Torgau on the Elbe, the area of Germany still under German military control had been split in two. Moreover, the speed of the