Defeat of Germany - 1945
 Tiger tank Mark IV wrecked in bomb crater near Hamich, Germany, from ILN 1944/12/02
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 "Punch & Pressure" from western and eastern fronts, from Time 1/45
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 Audie Murphy, from foundation
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 "Reach to the Reich" - Eastern Front, from Time 2/45
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 Yalta Conference 2/45, from Patch/NA
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 from Time, 1945/03 |
 Crossing the Rhine under enemy fire at St. Goar." 3/45, from Patch/NA
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 Remagen bridgehead , from Time 3/45
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 Patton, from Life 1/15/45
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 from Time, 1945/04/09 |
 concentration camp victims, by Bourke-White in Life 1945
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After Bulge - push to the Rhine in Jan & Feb.
- Ike more confident
- returned Hodges 1st to Bradley
- organized reserve of 20 divisions for any opportunity = flexibility
- 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 with 400,000 from Nijmegen, but bogged down in marshes
- Devers in south - eliminated Colmar pocket by early Feb. - to Strasbourg
- Bradley in center - to Cologne
Audie Murphy won Medal of Honor at Colmar Jan. 26, 1945; he saved his platoon by firing a machine gun from a damaged tank, killing 240 Germans. - map - film To Hell and Back
tanks sometimes outran artillery support - 419th in the "Triangle"
Operation Nordwind, the last German offensive of the war, 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, is stopped by the Trailblazer Division - 70th Division History
Hitler's mistake was to fight on the west side of Rhine, losing 250,000 POWs
Russian offensive started Jan. 12
- from the Vistula (Warsaw) - 400 mi. to Berlin
- Rokossovsky in N. - into East Prussia - 2m refugees
- Hungary vs. strong panzers of Hermann Balck - Budapest
- Lake Balaton Feb. 15 - last non-synth oil for Hitler
- 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
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 w/ 30,000 troops - RR, road to Qazin - 3300 trucks
- Middle East map of supply routes from Newsweek, 1942/07/13
Oder reached by time Yalta Conference held
- Russians liberated Auschwitz Jan. 27
- Churchill bombed Dresden Feb. 13 - 30,000 killed
- Conference of the Big Three at Yalta
Strategic bombing
- 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 - 60 cities - firestorms
- late Feb. - op. CLARION ag. transport. centers - not precison, but blanket - hit some Swiss cities 40 mi away
Mar. - after Budapest, Russians aimed for Austria
- where Germans ran out of fuel
- Mar. 29 - entered Austria
Rhine reached
- Mar. 3 by Patton near Coblenz
- Mar. 7 by Collins and 7th Corps - took Cologne
- but no bridges across Rhine
Remagen
- Mar. 7 by Lt. Karl Timmerlane of Co. A, 9th Armored
- Ike immediately sent reserve divisions
- 11 V-2s, bombers, swimmers (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
Patton's Palatinate campaign - Mar. 14-24
- 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 Stark in N. Hampshire - contract labor in Brown Co. paper mill - also Clinton, Miss. and U-boat.net
CO camps worse - civilian public service camps for 12,000 COs - e.g. Camp Simon (Gordon Zahn book)
German concentration camps liberated
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
Bradley crossed Rhine - Ruhr enveloped
- spent 4 days at Cannes resting, with Kay Summersby Mar 19-23
- Mar. 21 - gave Bradley command of Ruhr envelopment - with Simpson's 9th from Monty
Invasion/Liberation of Germany
- Ike commanded Allied forces - 85 divisions with 4m men total in Europe, North Africa, Italy
- Bradley commanded largest U.S. Army: 1.3m in 48 divisions, 12 corps, 4 armies
- Bourke-White pictures of concentration camps in Life magazine
Ike's decision
- 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. 28 cable to Stalin - would meet near Dresden
- Churchill opposed but Marshall & JCS approved (FDR ill)
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
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 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
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George Stevens: From D-Day to Berlin, documentary using 16mm Kodachrome movies taken by the Hollywood director