> If you were a German of value (like a rocket scientist) you were eager to surrender to the Americans before the Soviets could...

Misleading. Pretty much all Germans were eager to surrender to the Western Allies - US/UK/France. That became the German government's official top priority in the closing days of the war, and Eisenhower threatened to seal the Western Front (to German soldiers and civilians fleeing the Soviets) when the Germans dragged their heels on his terms of surrender.

A relatively brief treatment can be found here - https://history.army.mil/portals/143/Images/Publications/cat...