Defeat of Germany

Defeat of Germany - 1945

Tiger tank Mark IV wrecked in bomb crater near Hamich, Germany, from ILN 1944/12/02

Eisenhower, from NA

"Punch & Pressure" from western and eastern fronts, from Time 1/45

Audie Murphy, from foundation

"Reach to the Reich" - Eastern Front, from Time 2/45

Yalta Conference 2/45, from Patch/NA

Attack on Cologne
from Time, 1945/03

Crossing the Rhine under enemy fire at St. Goar." 3/45, from Patch/NA

Remagen bridgehead , from Time 3/45

concentration camp victims, by Bourke-White in Life 1945

American generals in 1945: seated left to right are William H.Simpson, George S. Patton, Jr., Carl Spaatz, Dwight D.Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Courtney H. Hodges, and Leonard T.Gerow; standing are Ralph F. Stearley, Hoyt S. Vandenberg, WalterBedell Smith, Otto P. Weyland, and Richard E. Nugent, from NA - bg

Patton, from Life 1/15/45

"The Floods Come"
from Time, 1945/04/09

Ike, Bradley, Patton inspect art treasures stolen by Germans and hidden in salt mine in Germany, from NA 1945/04/12 - bg

2nd Lt. William Robertson and Lt. Alexander Sylvashko, Russian Army, shown in front of sign [East Meets West] symbolizing the historic meeting of the Russian and American Armies, near Torgau, Germany, from NA 4/25/45

After Bulge - push to the Rhine in Jan & Feb.

Ike more confident
returned Hodges 1st Army to Bradley
organized reserve of 20 divisions for any opportunity = flexibility
cross the Rhine at many locations and envelop Ruhr = attrition
Hitler's mistake was to fight on the west side of Rhine, losing 250,000 POWs
photo at right of Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, at his headquarters in the European theater of operations. He wears the five-star cluster of the newly-created rank of General of the Army.
maps "Counterattack" from Time,1945/01, and "Beginning of the End" from Time,1945/03

3 Armies

Monty in north - with 400,000 from Nijmegen, but bogged down in marshes
Devers in south - eliminated Colmar pocket by early Feb., moved toward Strasbourg
Bradley in center - to Cologne and the Ruhr.

Jan. 7 - Battle of Wingen-sur-Moder in Alsace Lorraine

Operation Nordwind, the last German offensive of the war, was launched Dec. 31, 1944, against the lines of Patch's Seventh Army weakened by the shift of Patton's Third Army north to relieve Bastogne.
The newly-arrived 70th "Trailblazer" Division stopped the German offensive during the first seven days of January, and freed 200 American POWs captured Dec. 31.

Jan. 12 - Russian offensive on broad front

from the Vistula (Warsaw) - 400 mi. to Berlin
1. Rokossovsky in N. - into East Prussia - 2m refugees
2. Hungary vs. strong panzers of Hermann Balck - Budapest
  Lake Balaton Feb. 15 - last non-synth oil for Hitler
3. Zhukov in center with Konev with half total USSR strength
  163 div, 6500 tanks, 32,000 guns, 4700 aircraft
1st time had same kind of superiority that Ike had in the West
Ger. had 71 div., 1800 tanks, 800 aircraft
Russians entered Austria by end of March
Peak of U.S. aid reached Dec. '44
total 19.6m tons (4%) thru Murmansk/Archangel (5.5m); Persia (5.7m); Far East (9.2m non-mil)
184,000 vehicles; 5000 aircraft
Persian Gulf Command under Donald Connolly with 30,000 troops
Railroad and highway to Qazin sent 3300 trucks
Mideast map of supply routes from Newsweek, 1942/07/13

Jan. 15 - Russians reached the Oder

Russians liberated Auschwitz Jan. 27
Conference of the Big Three at Yalta
"Meeting at Yalta," Universal newsreel 2/15/1945

Jan. 26 - Audie Murphy won Medal of Honor at Colmar; he saved his platoon by firing a machine gun from a damaged tank, killing 240 Germans. - map - film To Hell and Back

Feb. 13 - Strategic bombing of Dresden

map of air war "Closing the Gap" from Newsweek, 1944
reached its max. effect Feb. '45, but mistakes:
- sub pens intact with 12' concrete roofs
- no followup against industries
Feb. 13-14 - Dresden target of British saturation night bombing - 30,000 killed
60 German cities bombed and burned by firestorms
late Feb. - op. CLARION ag. transport. centers - not precison, but blanket - hit some Swiss cities 40 mi away

Feb. 20 - tanks sometimes outran artillery support - 419th in the "Triangle"

Mar. 3 - Rhine reached

Mar. 3 by Patton near Coblenz
Mar. 7 by Collins and 7th Corps - took Cologne
but no bridges across Rhine
"Allies Open Final Drive In Germany," Universal newsreel 3/15/1945

Mar. 7 - Remagen

captured Mar. 7 by Lt. Karl Timmerlane of Co. A, 9th Armored
Ike immediately sent reserve divisions
11 V-2s, bombers, swimmers (but spotted by new tank searchlight)
Mar. 17 collapse, but Hodges had 4 divisions across, 6 pontoons
Mar. 22 Patton took Oppenheim bridge - 2nd crack in the Rhine
Hitler replaced Runstedt with Kesselring, chief Guderian w/ Krebs

Mar. 14-24 - Patton's Palatinate campaign

Patton at his best - 10 days defeated West Wall & 2 armies
took max advantage of Ultra - daily briefings - worked his way around all major Ger. units
driving to Trier on same road as Caesar in Gallic Wars: "could almost smell the coppery sweat and see the low dust clouds where those stark fighters moved into battle" - "greatest scene of carnage I have ever witnessed"
took 90,000 POW, conquered 6482 sq mi., 3072 towns & villages
special unit citation from Ike
Patton would take 1m prisoners - more than any other army

Other Losses by Canadian author James Bacque

1m died because of exposure and starvation in Ike's Rhine camps
officially 2.87m POWs but 1m unaccounted for
also in French camps - DEF - "disarmed enemy forces"
1000 calories per day, no Red Cross, no inspections
FDR's advisers strongly anti-German - Morgenthau, Asst Secy Treasury Harry Dexter White

U.S. POW camps much better according to Stark Decency by Allen Koop (1988) - Camp Aliceville in Alabama - Camp Stark in New Hampshire provided contract labor for Brown Company paper mill in Berlin, NH - also Clinton, Miss. and U-boat.net

CO camps worse - civilian public service camps for 12,000 COs, e.g. Camp Simon Story by Gordon Zahn (1979)

German concentration camps liberated

July 24, 1944 - Majdanek extermination camp near Lublin, Poland, was the first major camp to be liberated.
Oct. 26, 1944 Camp Vught was liberated in south Netherlands by the 4th Canadian Armor Division.
Jan. 27, 1945 - Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz in Poland.
Apr. 5 - Ohrdruf was the first of the camps found by the American army.
May - Bourke-White pictures of concentration camps in Life magazine

Invasion and Liberation of Germany

Ike commanded Allied forces - 85 divisions with 4m men total in Europe, North Africa, Italy
Bradley commanded largest U.S. Army Group: 1.3m in 48 divisions, 12 corps, 4 armies

Mar. 22 - Patton crossed Rhine

5th division crossed near Nierstein quietly Mar. 22, 1 day before Monty
Patton urinated in Rhine Mar. 24; picked up soil like William the Conqueror
from Mainz, thru Frankfurt corridor into central Germany
Universal cameraman Tom Priestley with Patton's 3rd Army at Coblenz
"Coblenz Key to Saar Captured," newsreel 4/5/1945
"Allied Net Tightens on Germany," newsreel 4/9/1945
"In the Wake of War in Germany," newsreel 4/23/1945
OSRD developed rockets

Mar. 23 - Monty crossed Rhine

In Operation Plunder, the British 2nd Army crossed the river at Rees and Wesel.

Mar. 24 - Bradley crossed Rhine

Ike gave Bradley command of Ruhr envelopment
with Simpson's 9th Army from Monty
Operation Varsity began Mar. 24 - largest airborne force in the war
"Air Army Invades Germany," newsreel 4/05/1945

Mar. 28 - Ike cable to Stalin - will halt at Elbe

Churchill opposed but Marshall & JCS approved (FDR was ill)
not Berlin, but Lubeck, Frankfurt corridor, Berchtesgaden
Russians only 35mi from Berlin, Ike 200 mi.
Bradley projected 100,000 casualties
Yalta already decided zones of occupation

Mar. 29 Stalin cable to FDR - opposed separate Italian surrender

Karl Wolff in Switz arranged surrender with US army
Operation Sunrise

End of German resistance

1st and 9th Armies met at Lippstadt Apr. 1
Apr. 11 - Simpson reached the Elbe at Magdeburg - "sudden opportunity" - 50 mi. to Berlin, but Ike said no
Apr. 17 - 317,000 surrender - German resistance ended - Model committed suicide - left Krupp factories intact at Essen
Photo of the 90th Division that discovered Reichsbank wealth, SS loot, and Berlin museum paintings that were removed from Berlin to a salt mine in Merkers, Germany, from NA

Apr. 16 - Russian offensive began from the Oder

"Whoever breaks in first, let him take Berlin."
Zhukov beat Konev by ordering his officers to lead attacks in person
"Floods Come" map from Time, 4/09/45
Zhukov entered Berlin Apr. 21
siege - 12,700 guns, 21,000 rocket launchers, 1500 tanks
May 2 - Surrender to Chuikov
125,000 Berliners killed, 8m German refugees

Apr. 22 - Patton into Czech - but not to Prague

Apr. 22 - Devers took Stuttgart, into Austria

Munich Apr. 30, Berchesgaden May 4, but no "National Redoubt"

Apr. 25 - US & USSR armies met at Elbe and next day at Torgau

Apr. 30 - Hitler suicide - cover illustration from Time 1945/05/07

May 7 - German surrender

at Reims, Ike wrote: "The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241 local time, May 7, 1945."

May 8 - VE Day

Victory in Europe Day was celebrated by crowds in Picadilly Square, London, and Times Square, New York City.
President Truman announced on radio at 9 am the official end of the war and proclaimed Sunday, May 13, a day of prayer.
The Soviet Union celebrated Victory Day on May 9.

Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, signing the ratified surrender terms for the German Army at Russian Headquarters in Berlin, from Patch/NA 5/07/45

VE Day newsreel
1945/05/10

On May 7, a jubilant American soldier hugs motherly English woman and victory smiles light the faces of happy service men and civilians at Piccadilly Circus, London, celebrating GermanyÕs unconditional surrender, from Patch/NA 5/07/45

Sources:

The Battle for the Rhineland and The Battle for the Ruhr and The Drive to the Elbe by Forrest Pogue.
Operation Varsity - The Rhine Crossing
Universal newsreels 1945 on DVD55-57
George Stevens: From D-Day to Berlin, documentary using 16mm Kodachrome movies taken by the Hollywood director.

Maps: