Operation Sunrise (World War II)

Operation Sunrise, or the Bern incident, refers to a series of secret negotiations from February to May 1945 between representatives of Nazi Germany and the Western Allies of World War II to arrange a local surrender of German forces in northern Italy. Most of the meetings took place in the vicinity of Bern, Switzerland, and the lead negotiators were Waffen-SS General Karl Wolff and American agent Allen Dulles. The meetings provoked Soviet suspicion that the Americans were seeking to sign a separate peace with the Germans and led to heated correspondence between Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt, an early episode of the emerging Cold War. Roosevelt denied that there were any negotiations for surrender taking place in Switzerland. Dulles, however, appears to have made a verbal agreement to protect General Wolff from prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials as they worked out details of surrender.

In spite of warnings from other officials that he was violating the Casablanca agreement that called for all dealings with Axis members to be on terms of unconditional surrender, Dulles worked supportively with Wolff, determined to end the war before the communists reached Trieste. Prime Minister Winston Churchill was following the discussion closely, and said he believed that "misunderstandings" with the Soviets were resolved with Roosevelt's death on April 13. Churchill referred to the negotiations as Operation Crossword, apparently because he found them puzzling. President Harry Truman officially closed down talks with the Germans in Switzerland, and made sure that a Russian general was represented at the talks in Caserta, Italy that finalized the surrender of the entire force. Nonetheless, fallout from the incident seems to have discouraged full Soviet participation in the founding United Nations conference later that month.

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