The Fall of Nazi Germany.

22-04-2019

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After the successful Allied invasions, D-Day” of western France, Germany gathered reserve forces and launched a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes, which collapsed by January. 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  under Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model. 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. In April, Allied forces pushed through the German defensive line in Italy. 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 (May 7 on the Western Front). Hitler’s planned “Thousand-Year Reich” lasted only 12 incredibly destructive years.