After the Allied invasion of western France, Germany assembled a reserve force and launched a counteroffensive in the Ardennes, which fizzled out by January. At this time, Soviet troops, moving from the east, entered Poland and East Prussia. In March, the Allies crossed the Rhine, capturing hundreds of thousands of soldiers from German Army Group B, while the Soviet Army entered Austrian territory. Both fronts were rapidly approaching Berlin. Strategic Allied bombings rained down on German soil, and sometimes entire cities disappeared from the face of the earth overnight. In the first months of 1945, Germany put up fierce resistance, but its troops were forced to retreat, experiencing difficulties with supplies, and had no room for maneuver. In April, Allied forces broke through the German defenses in Italy. East met West on the Elbe River on April 25, 1945, when Soviet and American troops approached Torgau. The end of the Third Reich came when Soviet troops occupied Berlin and Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, and German troops on all fronts surrendered unconditionally on May 8. Hitler's “Millennium Reich” lasted only 12 years, but they were unusually brutal.
1. The red flag over the Reichstag is the most famous photograph of Yevgeny Khaldei, taken on May 2, 1945. Soviet soldiers install the moisture of the USSR on the roof of the Reichstag building after the capture of Berlin. There is a lot of controversy over the fact that the shot was staged and for the sake of it the flag was raised again, as well as about the personalities of the soldiers, the photographer and the photomontage. (Yevgeny Khaldei / LOC)
2. The officer tells the boys from the Hitler Jugend how to use the machine gun. Germany, December 7, 1944. (AP Photo)
3. A squadron of B-24 bombers of Major General Nathan Twining over the Salzburg railway station, Austria, December 27, 1944. (AP Photo)
4. A German soldier carries boxes of ammunition during a counteroffensive in the direction of Belgium-Luxembourg, January 2, 1945. (AP Photo)
5. A soldier of the 82nd US Airborne Division makes a dash under the cover of a comrade, near Bra, Belgium, December 24, 1944. (AP Photo)
6. The calculation of the Soviet machine gun is ferried across the river flowing along the line of the Second Belorussian Front, January 1945. Machine gun and ammunition boxes are found on small rafts. (AP Photo)
7. Transport aircraft C-47 sent with a load of supplies to the positions of the surrounded American troops in Bastogne, January 6, 1945, Belgium. In the distance, you can see the smoke from the knocked out German equipment, in the foreground - the advancing American tanks. … (AP Photo)
8. The bodies of seven American soldiers who were killed by an SS man with shots to the head. They will be identified and buried on January 25, 1945. (AP Photo / Peter J. Carroll)
9. German soldiers on the street in Bastogne, Belgium, January 9, 1945, after they were captured by soldiers of the 4th US Armored Division. (AP Photo)
10. Refugees in the city of La Gleise, Belgium, January 2, 1945 after its occupation by American troops after the German counteroffensive. (AP Photo / Peter J. Carroll)
11. German soldier killed during the German counter-offensive against Belgium and Luxembourg on a street in the city of Stavelot, Belgium, January 2, 1945. (AP Photo / U. S. Army Signal Corps)
12. Left to right: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin Roosevelt and Chairman of the USSR Council of People's Commissars Joseph Stalin at the Livadia Palace in Yalta, Crimea, February 4, 1945. The leaders met to discuss the post-war reorganization of Europe and the fate of Germany. (AP Photo / File)
13. Soldiers of the 3rd Ukrainian Front during the fighting in Budapest, February 5, 1945. (AP Photo)
14. Germany has consistently struck V-1 and V-2 missiles across the English Channel. This shot was taken from the roof of a building and shows a V-1 rocket striking down in central London. Falling on the sidelines of Drury Lane, the missile destroyed several buildings, including the editorial office of the Daily Herald. The last Fau to fall on Britain exploded at Dutchworth, Hertfordshire on March 29, 1945. (AP Photo)
15. With the increase in the number of militias from Volkssturm, the German command began to experience a shortage of equipment and clothing. To fill the deficit, the authorities organized the Volksopfer, a clothing and footwear collection campaign that civilians were to donate to the militia. The inscription on the wall: "The Fuehrer looks forward to your donations to the army and the militia. If you want a militia to walk in uniform, empty your closet and bring your clothes here." February 12, 1945. (AP Photo)
16. Three American soldiers over the bodies of the Germans laid in a row, Echternach, Luxembourg, February 21, 1945. (AP Photo)
17. Repair of a telephone line on a road flooded with 1.5 meters of water, February 22, 1945. Retreating German forces blew up the dams, causing flooding, and the supply of British troops had to be carried out with amphibious vehicles. (AP Photo)
18. Three photographs showing the reaction of a 16-year-old German soldier when he was captured by the Americans. Germany, 1945. (AP Photo)
19. Explosions of anti-aircraft shells near bombers B-17 "Flying Fortress" over Austria, March 3, 1945. (AP Photo)
20. View from the roof of the Dresden City Hall after the bombing of the city by Allied aircraft from 13 to 15 February 1945. About 3,600 aircraft dropped 3,900 tons of conventional and incendiary bombs on the city. The fire destroyed about 25 square kilometers in the city center, killing more than 22,000 people. (Walter Hahn / AFP / Getty Images)
21. The burning of corpses in Dresden after the Allied air raids from 13 to 15 February 1945. After the war, the bombing was severely criticized, since it was not industrial areas that were attacked, but the historical center, which had no military significance. (Deutsches Bundesarchiv / German Federal Archive)
22. Soldiers of the 3rd US Army in Koblenz, Germany, March 18, 1945. (AP Photo / Byron H. Rollins)
23. Soldiers of the US 7th Army rush into a breakthrough in the Siegfried Line on the road to Karlsruhe, March 27, 1945. (AP Photo)
24. Private First Class Abraham Mirmelstein holds a sacred Torah scroll, while Captain Manuel Polyakov and Corporal Martin Villene read prayers at Schloss Reidt, the residence of Dr. Goebbels, Nazi propaganda minister. Munchengladbach, Germany, March 18, 1945. This service was the first Jewish church service east of the Ruhr to commemorate the fallen soldiers of the 29th Division of the US 9th Army. (AP Photo)
25. American soldiers in a landing boat cross the Rhine under fire from German troops, March 1945. (AP Photo)
26. Unidentified American soldier killed by a German sniper in Koblenz in March 1945. (AP Photo / Byron H. Rollins)
27. Cologne Cathedral in the center of the destroyed city on the west bank of the Rhine, April 24, 1945. The train station and the Hohenzollern bridge (right) were completely destroyed in three years of bombing. (AP Photo)
28. General Volkssturm, the last militia forces of Germany, next to the portrait of the Fuhrer, Leipzig, April 19, 1945. He committed suicide in order not to be taken prisoner by American troops. (AP Photo / U. S. Army Signal Corps, J. M. Heslop)
29. An American soldier from the 12th Armored Division next to a group of German prisoners somewhere in a forest in Germany, April 1945. (AP Photo)
30. Adolf Hitler awards members of the Nazi youth organization Hitler Jugend in front of the bunker of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, April 25, 1945. The picture was taken four days before Hitler's suicide. (AP Photo)
31. Assembly line for Heinkel He-162 fighters at the Junkers underground plant in Tartun, Germany, early April 1945. The huge halls of the former salt mine were discovered by the US 1st Army during the attack on Magdeburg. (AP Photo)
32. Soviet officers and American soldiers during a meeting on the Elbe in April 1945. (Waralbum.ru)
33. Site for the Germans, surrounded and captured by the 7th US Army during its offensive on Heidelberg, April 4, 1945. (AP Photo)
34. American soldier at the monument to the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig on April 18, 1945. It was here, at the monument erected in honor of the victory over Napoleon in 1813, that the last center of defense in the city was located. Fifty SS men, with enough food and ammunition to hold out for about three months, dug in here with the intention of fighting to the last. In the end, finding themselves under heavy fire from American artillery, they surrendered. (Eric Schwab / AFP / Getty Images)
35. Soviet soldiers are fighting in the suburbs of Konigsberg, East Prussia, April 1945. (Dmitry Chernov / Waralbum.ru)
36. German officer eats canned food in ruined Saarbrücken, early spring 1945. (AP Photo)
37. A Czech woman kisses a Soviet soldier-liberator, Prague, May 5, 1945. (AP Photo)
38. The New York subway froze during rush hour on May 1, 1945: news of Hitler's death was received. The leader of Nazi Germany shot himself in a bunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945. His successor, Karl Doenitz, announced over the radio that Hitler died a heroic death and the war against the Allies must continue. (AP Photo)
39. British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (right) reads the pact of surrender in the presence of German officers (left to right): Major Friedel, Admiral Wagner, Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg in the headquarters of the 21st Army Group, Luneburg Heath, May 4, 1945 … The pact provided for the cessation of hostilities on the fronts in northern Germany, Denmark and Holland from 8 am on May 5. German forces in Italy surrendered earlier, on April 29, and the remnants of the army in Western Europe on May 7, and on the Eastern Front on May 8. The five-year war in the vastness of Europe was over. (AP Photo)
40. A huge crowd of people in the center of London on May 8, the day of victory in Europe, listening to the announcement of the Prime Minister of Germany's unconditional surrender. About a million people took to the streets of London that day. (AP Photo)
41. Times Square in New York is filled with people celebrating the victory over Germany on May 7, 1945. (AP Photo / Tom Fitzsimmons) #
42. Celebrating victory on Red Square in Moscow. Fireworks, artillery salute and illumination on May 9, 1945. (Sergei Loskutov / Waralbum.ru)
43. Reichstag building in Berlin at the end of World War II. (AP Photo)
44. Soviet Il-2 attack aircraft over Berlin, 1945. (Waralbum.ru)
45. Color photograph of Nuremberg destroyed by the bombing, June 1945. Nuremberg hosted congresses of the NSDAP from 1927 to 1938. The last planned convention in 1939 was canceled due to the German invasion of Poland the day before. It was also where the Nuremberg Laws were written - the draconian anti-Semitic laws of Nazi Germany. Allied bombing from 1943 to 1945 destroyed more than 90% of the buildings in the city center. More than 6,000 people died. Soon Nuremberg will become famous again: now thanks to the trial of the surviving leaders of the Third Reich. Among their crimes are the murder of more than 10 million people, including 6 million Jews, crimes against humanity. The next, 18th part of the retrospective will be devoted to the genocide. (NARA)
