These German soldiers stand in the rubble-strewn streets of Bastogne, Belgium, on January 9, 1945, after being captured by the 4th US Armored Division, which helped break the German siege of the city.
At the beginning of 1945, the war that Germany had unleashed on the world was back and engulfing the entire globe. Unlike the events of 1918, in 1945 Germany fought literally to the bitter end.
The Germans persevered, even though by early 1945 practically everyone knew that a catastrophic defeat was the inevitable outcome.
They did not give up, even when Russian soldiers arrived in the garden of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Not even the Japanese offered such resistance.
In March, the forces of the Western Allies crossed the Rhine and captured hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the German Army Group B.
The Red Army had by then invaded Austria, and both fronts were rapidly approaching Berlin. Strategic bombing raids by Allied aircraft struck German territory, sometimes destroying entire cities in a single night.
“Raising the Flag over the Reichstag” – the famous photograph by Yevgeny Khaldei from May 2, 1945. It shows Soviet soldiers raising the Soviet flag on the Reichstag building after the Battle of Berlin. It was a reenactment of an earlier flag-raising ceremony. The photograph has been the subject of controversy regarding the identities of the soldiers and the photographer, as well as some significant image manipulation. Read more about this image .
In the first months of 1945, Germany put up a fierce defense, but rapidly lost territory, supplies ran out, and all options were exhausted.
In April, the Allied forces broke through the German defensive line in Italy. On April 25, 1945, East and West Germany clashed at the Elbe River near Torgau when Soviet and American troops met.
On April 30, when Russian troops marched into the outer districts of Berlin, Adolf Hitler committed suicide.
Leadership of Germany passed to Joseph Goebbels, but within 24 hours he too took his own life. Elsewhere, other Nazi leaders were either in Allied custody or on the run like refugees.
A group of Hitler Youth members receive instruction in the use of a machine gun somewhere in Germany on December 27, 1944.
Germany surrendered on May 7th, a week after Hitler’s death. National Socialism, the proud and boastful movement of the 1930s, was in its death throes.
The Nazis had promised the German people dignity, respect and prosperity – and for a while it seemed as if they would keep these promises.
But their ultimate legacy was a war that cost over 48 million lives, a racist genocide unlike any other in history, and a Germany that was devastated, occupied, and torn apart for over 40 years.
A formation of B-24 bombers from the 15th US Air Force, under Major General Nathan F. Twining, roars over the railway facilities in Salzburg, Austria, on December 27, 1944. The smoke from their bombs mingles with that from the many enemy smoke canisters.
A heavily armed German soldier carries ammunition crates forward during the German counter-offensive in the Belgian-Luxembourg salient on January 2, 1945.
An infantryman of the 82nd Airborne Division of the US Army undertakes a solo mission near Bra (Belgium) on December 24, 1944, while being covered in the background by a comrade.
A Soviet machine gun crew crosses a river along the Second Baltic Front in January 1945. The soldier on the left holds his rifle above his head, while his comrades push a floating device with a Maxim machine gun, followed by two men carrying several supply crates.
Low-flying C-47 transport planes roar overhead, bringing supplies to the besieged American forces fighting the Germans near Bastogne, Belgium, on January 6, 1945. In the distance, smoke rises from destroyed German equipment, while in the foreground, American tanks advance to support the infantry in the fight.
Refugees stand in a group on a street in La Gleize, Belgium, on January 2, 1945, waiting to be transported from the war-torn city after it had been recaptured by American forces during the German advance in the Belgian-Luxembourg salient.
A dead German soldier, killed during the German counter-offensive in the Belgian-Luxembourg salient, is left on a street corner in Stavelot, Belgium, on January 2, 1945, as the fighting in the Ardennes Offensive continues.
From left: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin are seated on the terrace of the Livadia Palace in Yalta, Crimea, in this photograph taken on February 4, 1945. The three leaders met to discuss the reorganization of Europe after the war and the fate of Germany.
Soviet troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front in action amidst the buildings of the Hungarian capital on February 5, 1945.
Across the English Channel, Britain was being relentlessly bombarded by thousands of V-1 and V-2 bombs launched from German-controlled territory. This photograph, taken from a rooftop in Fleet Street, shows a V-1 flying bomb heading towards central London. The distinctive skyline of London’s courthouses clearly marks the location. The bomb fell on a side street off Drury Lane, destroying several buildings, including the offices of the Daily Herald. The last enemy action on British soil was a V-1 attack on Datchworth in Hertfordshire on March 29, 1945.
As more and more members of the Volkssturm (People’s Storm) were sent to the front, German authorities came under increasing pressure regarding their stockpiles of army equipment and clothing. In a desperate attempt to remedy this shortage, collection points, known as “Volksopfer” (People’s Sacrifice), scoured the country, collecting uniforms, boots, and equipment from German civilians, as seen here in Berlin on February 12, 1945. The inscription “Volksopfer” bears the words: “The Führer expects your sacrifice for the Army and Home Defense. So that you can be proud that your Home Defense officer can show himself in uniform – empty your wardrobe and bring us the contents.”
On February 22, 1945, a group set out to repair telephone lines on the main street in Kranenburg. The floods had been caused by dike breaches by the retreating Germans. During the floods, British troops continued to be supplied in Germany by amphibious vehicles.
This combination of three photos shows the reaction of a 16-year-old German soldier after being captured by US forces in 1945 at an unknown location in Germany. Read more about the story behind this image .
Flak fire breaks through the contrails of the B-17 Flying Fortress of the 15th Air Force during the attack on the railway stations in Graz, Austria, on March 3, 1945.
A view from Dresden’s City Hall of the destroyed Old Town after the Allied bombing raids of February 13–15, 1945. Around 3,600 aircraft dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the German city. The resulting firestorm destroyed 34 square kilometers of the city center and killed over 22,000 people. Read more about this topic: “The Ruins of Dresden, 1945” .
Soldiers of the 3rd US Army storm into Koblenz on March 18, 1945, while a dead comrade lies against the wall.
Men of the 7th American Army stream through a breach in the West Wall defenses on March 27, 1945, on their way to Karlsruhe, Germany, which lies on the road to Stuttgart.
Private Abraham Mirmelstein of Newport News, Virginia, holds the Holy Scroll while Captain Manuel M. Poliakoff and Private Martin Willen of Baltimore, Maryland, conduct a service on March 18, 1945, at Rheydt Castle, the former residence of Nazi Propaganda Minister Dr. Joseph Paul Goebbels, in Mönchengladbach. These were the first Jewish services east of the Rur River and were held in memory of the Jewish soldiers killed by the 29th Division of the 9th U.S. Army.
American soldiers huddle together on board a storm boat in March 1945 as they cross the Rhine near St. Goar under heavy fire from German forces.
An American soldier, who was shot dead by a German sniper in Koblenz, Germany, in March 1945, clutches his rifle and hand grenade.
The war-damaged Cologne Cathedral rises above the devastated area on the west bank of the Rhine in Cologne on April 24, 1945. The train station and the Hohenzollern Bridge (right) are completely destroyed after three years of Allied air raids. Read more: “ Cologne Cathedral rises high above the ruins of the city after the Allied bombing raids of 1944. ”
An American soldier from the 12th Armored Division guards a group of German soldiers who were captured in a forest at an unknown location in Germany in April 1945.
Adolf Hitler is pictured awarding members of his National Socialist youth organization, the “Hitler Youth,” in a photograph allegedly taken on April 25, 1945, in front of the Reich Chancellor’s Bunker in Berlin. This was just four days before Hitler committed suicide.
Partially completed Heinkel He-162 jet fighters stand on the assembly line in the underground Junkers factory in Tarthun, Germany, in early April 1945. The vast underground tunnels in a former salt mine were discovered by the 1st US Army during their advance on Magdeburg.
Soviet officers and US soldiers at a friendly meeting on the Elbe River in April 1945.
The camps set up by the Allies for their prisoners never seemed big enough. Here you see an overcrowded cage with Germans herded together by the Seventh Army during their advance on Heidelberg on April 4, 1945.
A U.S. soldier stands amidst the rubble of the Monument to the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig after the city was attacked on April 18, 1945. The massive monument, commemorating Napoleon’s defeat in 1813, was one of the city’s last strongholds to surrender. 150 SS fanatics, who had stored ammunition and food for three months in the building, barricaded themselves inside, determined to hold out as long as their supplies allowed. Artillery from the American First Army eventually forced the SS troops to surrender.
In April 1945, Soviet soldiers engaged in house-to-house fighting in the outskirts of Königsberg in East Prussia.
A German officer eats C-rations while sitting amidst the ruins of Saarbrücken, a German city and fortress along the Siegfried Line, in the spring of 1945.
Overwhelmed with emotion, this Czech mother kisses a Russian soldier in Prague (Czech Republic) on May 5, 1945, and thanks him for fighting to liberate her beloved homeland.
On May 1, 1945, the New York subway system came to a standstill when news of Hitler’s death arrived. The German leader and head of the Nazi Party had shot himself in the head on April 30, 1945, in a bunker in Berlin. His successor, Karl Dönitz, announced on German radio that Hitler had died a hero’s death and would continue the war against the Allies.
British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (right) reads the surrender pact aloud in a tent at Montgomery’s headquarters of the 21st Army Group in the Lüneburg Heath on May 4, 1945, while high-ranking German officers (from left: Major Friedel, Rear Admiral Wagner, and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg) look on. The pact stipulated an armistice on the British fronts in northwestern Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands, effective at 8:00 a.m. on May 5. German forces in Italy had already surrendered on April 29, and the rest of the army in Western Europe on May 7. On the Eastern Front, the German surrender to the Soviets took place on May 8, 1945. More than five years of horrific war on European soil were officially over.
On VE Day (Victory Day in Europe), May 8, 1945, an excited crowd thronged Whitehall in central London to hear the Prime Minister’s official announcement of Germany’s unconditional surrender. More than a million people celebrated in the streets of London.
Looking north from 44th Street, New York’s Times Square on Monday, May 7, 1945, is packed with crowds celebrating the news of Germany’s unconditional surrender in World War II.
Victory celebration on Red Square in Moscow, Soviet Union. On May 9, 1945, fireworks began, followed by gunfire and a sky illuminated by searchlights.
The destroyed Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, with a destroyed German military vehicle in the foreground, at the end of World War II.
Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 ground attack aircraft fly in the sky over Berlin, Germany in 1945.
A color photograph of the bombed-out Old Town of Nuremberg in June 1945, after the end of World War II. Nuremberg had hosted major Nazi Party rallies from 1927 to 1938. The last rally, planned for 1939, was canceled at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict: the German invasion of Poland the day before the rally. The city was also the birthplace of the Nuremberg Laws, a series of draconian anti-Semitic laws enacted by Nazi Germany. Allied bombing raids from 1943 to 1945 destroyed more than 90% of the city center and killed over 6,000 residents. Nuremberg would soon become famous one last time as the host of the Nuremberg Trials—a series of military tribunals established to try the surviving leaders of Nazi Germany. The war crimes attributed to these men included “crimes against humanity”, the systematic murder of more than 10 million people, including about 6 million Jews.
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