The Yalta Conference in February 1945 led to a further development of the terms of surrender , as it was agreed that administration of post-war Germany would be split into four occupation zones for Britain , France , the United States and the Soviet Union respectively . In addition , but separately , it was agreed at Yalta that an additional clause 12a would be added to the July 1944 surrender text ; that the Allied Representatives " will take such steps , including the complete disarmament , demilitarisation and dismemberment of Germany as they deem requisite for future peace and security . " France , however , was not party to the Yalta agreement , which created a diplomatic problem as formal inclusion of the additional clause in the EAC text would inevitably create a French demand for equal representation in any dismemberment decisions . While this was unresolved , there were in effect two versions of the EAC text ; with and without the " dismemberment clause " . Moreover , by the end of March 1945 , the British government had come to doubt whether , once Germany had been completely overpowered ( as was the precondition for the agreed text for surrender ) , there would be any post-Nazi German civil authority capable of signing the instrument of surrender , or of putting its provisions into effect . They therefore proposed that the EAC text should be redrafted as a unilateral declaration of German defeat by the Allied Powers , and of their assumption of supreme authority following the total dissolution of the former German state . It was in this form that the text agreed by European Advisory Commission was finally effected as the Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany In the meanwhile , the Combined Chiefs of Staff of the Western Allies had , in August 1944 , agreed general guidelines for the terms of local military surrenders to be concluded with any capitulating German forces ; capitulation had to be unconditional and restricted to the purely military aspects of a local surrender , no commitments were to be given to the enemy , and surrender was to be without prejudice to any subsequent general instrument of surrender which might replace any document of partial surrender and which would be jointly imposed on Germany by the three Great Powers . These guidelines formed the basis for the series of partial capitulations of German forces to the Western Allies in April and May 1945
Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference
German Instrument of Surrender