After the successful Allied invasions of western France,
Germany gathered reserve forces and launched a massive
counter-offensive in the Ardennes. At the same time, Soviet forces
were closing in from the east, invading Poland and East Prussia. By
March, Western Allied forces were crossing the Rhine River,
capturing hundreds of thousands of troops from Germany's Army Group
B. The Red Army had meanwhile entered Austria, and both fronts
quickly approached Berlin. Strategic bombing campaigns by Allied
aircraft were pounding German territory, sometimes destroying
entire cities in a night. In the first several months of 1945,
Germany put up a fierce defense, but rapidly lost territory, ran
out of supplies, and exhausted its options. East met West on the
River Elbe on April 25, 1945, when Soviet and American troops met
near Torgau, Germany. Then came the end of the Third Reich, as the
Soviets took Berlin, Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30,
and Germany surrendered unconditionally on all fronts on May 8.
Hitler's planned "Thousand-Year Reich" lasted only 12 incredibly
destructive years.
A group of Hitler youth receive instruction in the use of a
machine-gun, somewhere in Germany, on December 27, 1944.
A formation of B-24s thunder over the railway yards of
Salzburg, Austria, on December 27, 1944.
A heavily armed German soldier during the German
counter-offensive in the Belgium-Luxembourg salient, on January 2,
1945.
A US infantryman from the 82nd Airborne Division goes out on a
one-man sortie while covered by a comrade in the background,
December 24, 1944.
Low flying C-47 transport planes roar overhead as they carry
supplies to the besieged American Forces at Bastogne, January 6,
1945 in Belgium.
The bodies of seven American soldiers that had been shot in the
face by an SS trooper are recovered from the snow January 25,
1945.
Captured German soldiers stand in the debris strewn street of
Bastogne, Belgium, on January 9, 1945.
A dead German soldier, is left behind on a street corner in
Stavelot, Belgium, on January 2, 1945.
From left, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Josef
Stalin sit on the patio of Livadia Palace, Yalta, Crimea, in this
February 4, 1945 photo.
Soviet troops in Budapest, Hungary on February 5, 1945.
Across the Channel, Britain was being struck by continual
bombardment by thousands of V-1 and V-2 bombs launched from
German-controlled territory. This photo, shows a V-1 flying bomb
plunging toward central London.
Three U.S. soldiers look over the bodies of dead German
soldiers arranged in rows in Echternach, Luxembourg, on February
21, 1945.
This combination of three photographs shows the reaction of a
16-year old German soldier after he was captured by U.S. forces in
1945.
Flak bursts through the vapor trails from B-17 flying
fortresses during the attack on the rail yards at Graz, Austria, on
March 3, 1945.
A large stack of corpses is cremated in Dresden, Germany, after
the British-American air attack between February 13 and 15,
1945.
Soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Army storm into Coblenz, Germany, as a
dead comrade lies against the wall, on March 18, 1945.
The American 7th Army pours through a breach in the Siegfried
Line on their way to Karlsruhe, Germany on March 27, 1945.
American soldiers aboard an assault boat huddle together as
they cross the Rhine river while under heavy fire from German
forces, in March of 1945.
An unidentified American soldier, shot dead by a German sniper,
clutches his rifle and hand grenade in March of 1945 in Coblenz,
Germany.
With a torn picture of his "Fhrer" beside his clenched fist, a
general of the Volkssturm lies dead on the floor of city hall in
Leipzig, April 19, 1945. He committed suicide rather than face the
U.S. troops capturing the city.
An American soldier of the 12th Armored Division stands guard
over a group of German soldiers, captured in April 1945.
Adolf Hitler decorates members of his Nazi youth organization
in a photo taken in front of his Bunker in Berlin, on April 25,
1945. That was just four days before Hitler committed suicide.
Soviet officers and U.S. soldiers during a friendly meeting on
the Elbe River in April of 1945.
Compounds erected by the Allies for their collections of
prisoners never seem to be big enough, here is an over-crowded cage
of Germans rounded up by the Seventh Army during its drive to
Heidelberg, on April 4, 1945.
A U.S. soldier stands in the middle of rubble in the Monument
of the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig after they attacked the
city on April 18, 1945. The huge monument commemorating the defeat
of Napoleon in 1813 was one of the last strongholds in the city to
surrender.
Soviet soldiers lead house-to-house fighting in the outskirts
of Knigsberg, East Prussia, Germany, in April of 1945.
Overwhelmed with emotion, this Czech mother kisses a Russian
soldier in Prague, Czech Republic on May 5, 1945, thanking him for
her freedom.
Soviet soldiers raising the flag of the Soviet Union on top of
the Reichstag building following the Battle of Berlin. May 2,
1945
The subway rush hour is brought to a standstill in New York
City, May 1, 1945 as the report of Hitler's death was
received.
Field Marshal Montgomery, right, reads over the surrender pact,
while senior German officers, look on, in a tent at Montgomery's
headquarters May 4, 1945.
A mass of humanity jammed into central London on VE-Day, May 8,
1945, to hear Churchill officially announce Germany's unconditional
surrender. More than one million people celebrated in the streets
of London.
Times Square is packed Monday, May 7, 1945, with crowds
celebrating the news of Germany's unconditional surrender in World
War II.
Soviet aircraft fly in the skies above Berlin, Germany in
1945.
