Allied frustration increased in the late fall of 1944 as German resistance stiffened all along the Western Front. The failure of Operation Market-Garden had stymied British progress in the Netherlands, and American forces also encountered problems. Hodges's 1st Army came up against the "dragon's teeth" concrete antitank obstacles and pillboxes of the West Wall and the difficult terrain of Germany's Hurtgen Forest south of Aachen. The battle to take this dense and dismal forest became the bloodiest and most protracted since the hedgerow fighting in Normandy. To the south, Patton's 3rd Army had to struggle through the hilly country of Lorraine before reaching the West Wall in the coal-mining region of the Saar. Still farther south, General Jacob Devers' recently formed 6th Army Group, consisting of Patch's 7th and de Lattre's 1st French Army, contended with the Vosges Mountains, a long, low range along the western border of Alsace. But even though dreams of a quick triumph had vanished, certainty of ultimate victory remained high. Eisenhower and his commanders continued to prepare for the thrust to the Rhine and beyond.
THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE
But Hitler had one final trump to play - one last offensive. The counterstroke was strictly the Fuhrer's idea, and its ambitious scope appalled both Rundstedt and Model. Hitler envisioned a variation on the theme of an earlier triumph. He chose to strike in the Ardennes once again, recognizing that it was the weak point in the Allied line, just as it had been the French Achilles' heel in 1940. But this time, rather than penetrating into France, he planned to send his armor across the Meuse River all the way to Antwerp. If he could accomplish this, he would isolate Montgomery's forces from the American armies to the south.
To fulfill his grandiose dream, Hitler rashly weakened strength on the Eastern Front to provide a powerful striking force for the Ardennes operation. It included General Josef Sepp Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army on the north, General Hasso von Manteuffel's 5th Panzer Army in the center, and the refurbished 7th Army of General Erich Brandenberger on the south. Dietrich had been a close associate of Hitler's since the early days of the party, when he had led the Fuhrer's SS bodyguard. He later commanded a panzer division on the Eastern Front as well as an armored corps in Normandy. Dietrich lacked the skill and imaginative leadership of the aristocratic Manteuffel who had gained an impressive reputation as a panzer corps commander in Russia. Brandenberger, another veteran of panzer warfare, had taken over the 7th Army following the disasters of the summer. He had shown considerable ability in plugging weak points in the German line during the autumn fighting. In all, the OKW amassed 24 divisions, including 10 panzer, an armored force larger than the one that had executed the great Ardennes breakthrough in 1940.
Considering the ease with which the Wehrmacht had slashed through the Ardennes 4 1/2 years earlier, it is remarkable that the Allies failed to take greater precautions to protect this portion of the front. Although the Germans had clearly shown that they were still dangerous in a defensive role, Allied leaders did not consider them capable of a major counteroffensive.
Only four American divisions from Hodges's 1st Army held the Ardennes front, and Allied leaders were oblivious to the impending onslaught. The chief factor that contributed to their lack of concern was Hitler's insistence on complete radio silence in connection with the operation. Ultra was thus unable to read any messages indicating specifically that an assault was coming in the Ardennes. But Ultra and other sources did detect the transfer of panzer divisions and fighter-planes from the Eastern Front to the west. Eisenhower, Hodges, and other generals interpreted this buildup as preliminary to a possible attack to the north of the Ardennes near Aachen. More significantly, Ultra also intercepted numerous messages in which Model called for detailed aerial reconnaissance over the Ardennes. The Allies refused to give sufficient credence to these reports, an oversight that ranks as one of the great intelligence failures of the war.
Operation Autumn Fog opened with a predawn artillery barrage on December 16. It was a complete surprise. English-speaking German commandos infiltrated behind U.S. lines and caused great confusion. Dressed in American uniforms, they cut telephone lines, changed road signs, and killed military policemen in charge of directing troop convoys. They spread fear among American personnel, who began to suspect everyone and subjected strangers to informal questioning. Queries ranged from asking the identity of major league batting champions to the names of state capitals. Although this approach proved reasonably successful, even genuine Americans didn't know all the answers. At one point, General Bradley had to confess ignorance when asked to identify the husband of popular movie star Betty Grable. But his interrogator let him pass anyway. On another occasion, Bradley responded correctly that Springfield was the capital of Illinois, only to be told that the answer was really Chicago!
Members of the 1st SS Panzer Division inspired still more fear by murdering Americans who fell into their hands early in the offensive. The most notorious massacre occurred near the town of Malmedy, where German machine-gun and pistol fire took 86 lives.
German armor overwhelmed badly outnumbered American forces along a 70-mile front and rumbled on toward the Meuse. Allied leaders were slow to grasp the gravity of the situation, and the enemy benefited from the low overcast, which prevented Allied air power from intervening. But American units stubbornly defended two road junctions in eastern Belgium - St. Vith and Bastogne. Although St. Vith fell on December 22, Bastogne continued to hold out. When Eisenhower finally recognized that the German attack was a major operation, he ordered the U.S. 101st Airborne Division to reinforce the town's garrison. German troops surrounded Bastogne and issued an appeal for the defenders to surrender. General Anthony McAuliffe, the acting American commander, limited his response to one word: "Nuts!"
When the skies finally cleared on December 23, Allied fighter bombers decimated enemy armored spearheads. The Germans, who were also experiencing a severe fuel shortage, had no choice but to break off their offensive the following day. Manteuffel's 5th Panzer Army had penetrated to within five miles of the Meuse. It was now apparent that Hitler's dream of reaching Antwerp had been far too ambitious. His great counteroffensive had merely created a bulge in the Allied line 65 miles deep and 45 miles wide.
Meanwhile, for the purpose of greater efficiency, Eisenhower transferred the U.S. 1st and 9th armies, which lay to the north of the bulge, to Montgomery's 21st Army Group. The 9th Army, commanded by General William Simpson, had entered the Allied line in November between the British on the north and the 1st Army on the south. Its first units had seen action in the bloody fighting that led to the capture of Breton port of Brest in September. Marshall selected Simpson personally for this command. Although Eisenhower and Bradley would have preferred Collins, both soon came to appreciate Simpson's quiet, uncomplaining, and efficient professionalism.
This change left only Patton's 3rd Army to the south of the salient in Bradley's 12th Army Group. Although the decision contributed to much better coordination of U.S. and British forces in the north, Montgomery's arrogant attitude worsened already strained relations between him and the Americans. As one of Montgomery's own staff officers remarked, he "strode into Hodges's headquarters like Christ come to cleanse the temple."
Allied forces soon struck against the flanks of the bulge. Most notably, Patton executed one of the most remarkable feats of the war when he pivoted two of 3rd Army's three corps 90 degrees northward from Lorraine toward Bastogne. Despite intense cold, snow, and icy roads, his 4th Armored Division relieved Bastogne on December 26. To the north of the salient, Collins's VII Corps struck southward toward Houffalize on January 3, 1945. It soon became obvious to Manteuffel and Rundstedt that they must withdraw from the dangerously exposed salient. But Hitler, true to his "hold fast" mentality, refused. The Allies forced the Germans to give ground, nevertheless, and inflicted severe casualties. By the end of January, the had eliminated the bulge. Hitler had sacrificed his last reserves and his greatest concentration of armor in an enterprise that never had a chance of success. He had delayed the final Allied offensive in the west, but he would have precious little strength left to meet the attack when it came in early 1945. His disastrous failure in the Battle of the Bulge also dealt a severe blow to German morale on the Western Front. And he had played into Soviet hands by weakening his forces in the east.
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE COLMAR POCKET
Hitler did not limit his offensive operations to the Ardennes. Just before midnight on December 31, he unleashed seven infantry and three panzer divisions against Devers's 6th Army Group. Devers had commanded U.S. forces in Britain prior to Eisenhower's arrival and then moved to the Mediterranean, where he supervised the invasion of southern France. The Germans delivered their attack southward astride the Vosges Mountains toward the Saverne Gap, with a supporting thrust from the so-called Colmar pocket, a large bridgehead that they had retained on the west bank of the Rhine. Containing the city of Colmar, it lay to the south of Strasbourg, the provincial capital of Alsace. This offensive had two major aims. Hitler hoped to force Eisenhower to divert 3rd Army troops away from their attacks against the southern flank of the Bulge. He also wanted to maintain a strong foothold in Alsace, which he considered part of Germany. Allied leaders received ample warning of the attack from Ultra. But the shift of Patton's army to the north had required Patch and de Lattre to stretch their forces thinly to protect a considerably broader front.
When the Germans struck, American forces were driven back but finally held along the Moder River. By January 25, the Germans broke off their offensive and began to transfer some of their best divisions to the Eastern Front. It had not been necessary for Eisenhower to divert strength away from Patton to hold the line. Meanwhile, French and American forces had opened a counterattack against the southern flank of the Colmar pocket five days before the end of the enemy offensive. The French captured Colmar on February 2, and the Allies eliminated the last vestiges of the pocket one week later. Once again Hitler had squandered resources and failed to gain any lasting advantage.
THE SOVIET ASSAULT ON POLAND
Long before the Western Allies had eliminated the Bulge and the Colmar pocket, Soviet forces unleashed a gigantic offensive in Poland. The Red Army originally planned this operation to coincide with the major Anglo-American assault in the west. Hitler's Ardennes counterstroke had delayed the latter but in the process had thinned out German forces opposite the Red Army to a dangerously low point. In December, German intelligence reported a buildup of 225 Soviet divisions and 22 armored corps along the front from the Baltic to the Carpathians. But Hitler insisted on continuing his Ardennes operation rather than shifting forces back to the Eastern Front. He even refused Guderian's request for evacuation of the 26 German divisions that the Soviets had cut off in Latvia's Courland Peninsula.
Hitler's blindness to the danger in Poland led him to transfer two panzer divisions from there to take part in an attempt to break the Russian encirclement of Budapest. Although the Germans penetrated to within 12 miles of the Hungarian capital in late January, a Soviet counterattack forced them to abandon their offensive. After savage street fighting, Red Army troops completed their conquest of Budapest on February 14.
While Hitler focused on the relief of Budapest, the Soviet high command prepared to deliver its blow in Poland. Three army groups assembled along the Vistula River - Rokossovsky's Second Belorussian Front to the northeast of Warsaw, Zhukov's First Belorussian Front to the south of the city, and Konev's First Ukrainian Front in extreme southern Poland. In all, the Soviets concentrated 1.5 million men, 3,300 tanks, 28,000 guns, and 10,000 aircraft. The Germans could muster only 596,000 men, 700 tanks, 8,200 guns, and 1,300 planes.
The Red Army launched its massive offensive on January 12. Konev struck from a bridgehead on the west bank of the Vistula, about 100 miles south of Warsaw. Zhukov attacked just below the Polish capital and swung behind the city. To the north, Rokossovsky wheeled toward East Prussia and Danzig. The three spearheads tore open a 200-mile gap in the German front and rolled on relentlessly. Zhukov seized Warsaw on January 17, and Konev's troops penetrated into the Province of Silesia, Germany's second most important industrial area, on January 20. Three days later, they crossed the Oder River near Breslau. Rokossovsky reached the Baltic east of Danzig on January 26, cutting off the German defenders of East Prussia. This proved to be the prelude to one of the least known operations of the war: the epic evacuation of an estimated two million people from various Baltic ports, far in excess of the 338,000 men rescued at Dunkirk. Nevertheless, Soviet submarines torpedoes several ships jammed with soldiers and refugees, the majority of whom died in the Baltic's icy waters. The most horrendous of these disasters occurred when submarine S-13 fired two torpedoes into the former passenger liner Wilhelm Grustloff. At the time, the Germans estimated that at least 6,000 persons died, but a recent computer-generated estimate puts the toll at over 9,600. Either way, it remains the worst maritime disaster in history, far exceeding the 1,517 lives lost in the much more famous sinking of the Titanic.
After taking Warsaw, Zhukov rolled westward and sliced into Germany. On January 31, his forces reached Kustrin on the Oder. Within a week, they crossed the river and established two sizable bridgeheads, one only 33 miles from the suburbs of Berlin. Zhukov now encountered serious supply problems. Konev was more fortunate, at least for the time being. On February 9, his forces drove northeastward from their bridgeheads across the Oder and a week later were just 60 miles from Berlin. But the Germans continued to hold out in bypassed Breslau. Hitler also shifted several divisions from the western front to bolster his defenses on the Oder. To make matters worse for the Soviets, a sudden thaw turned many of the roads to mud and melted the ice on the Oder.
By pushing forward so rapidly, Zhukov's armies had created a salient with a long, vulnerable northern flank. Relatively strong German forces still held much of the province of Pomerania, which lay between the Soviets and the Baltic. Guderian planned to stage a counterattack from this area in the hope of pinching off the advance Soviet units on the Oder. He urged that General von Weichs, a veteran of the 1941 and 1942 campaigns in Russia, lead the assault. Much to his astonishment, Hitler insisted on Himmler, who had neither military training nor skill. By this time, the Fuhrer so distrusted army generals that he preferred a loyal Nazi as commander, whatever his qualifications. Guderian also requested that Sepp Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army, which had broken off the Ardennes offensive, be shifted to Pomerania to take part in the counterattack. Again Hitler refused and instead sent Dietrich's forces to Hungary. Not surprisingly, when Guderian launched his counterstroke on February 15, it was far too weak to achieve his objective.
But the German attack made Stalin nervous, and he ordered Zhukov and Rokossovsky to eliminate the threat from the north before attempting to move farther west. German forces had to fall back to three strong points on the Baltic coast - Danzig, Gdynia, and Kolberg. It was not until March 30 that the last of them, Danzig, surrendered.
Meanwhile, Hitler ordered his troops in Hungary, bolstered by the arrival of the 6th SS Panzer Army, to launch the final German offensive of the war. He hoped to protect the oil fields in western Hungary by driving to the Danube River and threatening Budapest. The attack began on March 5 and made some progress but soon fell afoul of muddy conditions, a fuel shortage, and stronger Red Army forces. By March 15, the Soviets had regained the initiative, and Marshal Tolbukhin's army group started an offensive. The Germans resisted stubbornly for three days, but when Soviet troops threatened to cut off their escape route, they fell back precipitously. Their retreat became a rout, and Tolbukhin's forces pursued them across the Austrian border. The Soviets reached the outskirts of Vienna on April 4 and, after six days of street fighting, occupied the entire city.
As the Red Army penetrated into Germany and Austria, many civilians fled in panic. There was good reason for their flight, as Soviet political officers had exhorted Red Army soldiers to take vengeance on the German population. Many of the troops needed little or no persuasion. They were vividly aware of the atrocities that the Germans had perpetrated in the Soviet Union, and now, after years of savage fighting, they had finally reached the homeland of the hated enemy. But most of the German people did not flee and felt the invader's wrath. Soviet soldiers shot some of them and raped many women, including the very young and the very old.
Amid all these disasters and growing chaos, Hitler decided to rid himself of Guderian. The general had always been outspoken and was never afraid of Hitler, qualities that the Fuhrer actually admired. But in recent weeks, the quarrels between the two men had deteriorated into shouting matches. On March 28, Hitler sent Guderian on sick leave and replaced him with General Hans Krebs, a much weaker personality who had no thought of disagreeing with Hitler.
THE YALTA CONFERENCE
Early in February, with the Soviets already less than 40 miles from Berlin and the Western Allies still recovering from their rude shock in the Ardennes, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met in their second "Big Three" conference at the seaside resort of Yalta in the Crimea. With the Red Army in control of most of Eastern Europe and seemingly poised to strike directly at Berlin, Stalin participated from a position of great strength, and the Western Allies were quite aware of it. Roosevelt also hoped for Soviet participation in the war against Japan as well as cooperation between the two countries in the postwar era. In pursuit of these objectives, he worked more closely with Stalin than with Churchill, much to the latter's chagrin. To some extent this reflected the obvious decline in Britain's stature in the Allied coalition, but it was also due in part to continuing American suspicion of British imperialist ambitions. The Americans also realized that the Soviets would be in control of Eastern Europe when the war ended and hoped to avoid alienating Stalin by being too demanding regarding this area. This did not mean that all would go smoothly, and the tendency of both sides to cast their arguments in ideological terms helped to create tension that would continue after the conference ended.
The Big Three agreed to the American-sponsored Declaration on Liberated Europe, a rather forlorn attempt to moderate Soviet intentions in Eastern Europe. It provided for the establishment of coalition governments containing Communists and non-Communists in all liberated countries as well as free parliamentary elections. Churchill and Roosevelt also recognized the USSR's claim to eastern Poland and agreed that the border should run generally along the line that British foreign secretary Lord Curzon had proposed in 1919. They also essentially accepted Stalin's demand that Poland and the Soviet Union divide East Prussia and that the Poles receive additional compensation east of the Oder. In return, the Western leaders won Stalin's agreement that the London Poles would be represented in the Polish Liberation Committee and that free elections would determine Poland's future government.
As for Germany, the three men affirmed their intention to divide the country into occupation zones for each of the major allies as well as allotting a smaller zone for France. The Soviet zone would include most of eastern Germany. They also provided for the division of Berlin into occupation zones and declared their dedication to disarming Germany as well as punishing war criminals and eliminating Nazi influence. Finally, Stalin demanded extensive reparations from Germany to compensate for wartime losses and to help rebuild the Soviet economy. Churchill and Roosevelt managed to defer the actual amount until after the war.
THE ALLIED DRIVE TO THE RHINE
After the failure of Hitler's Second Ardennes offensive, logic dictated a German withdrawal to the Rhine. The Reich's only hope of holding out against the Western Allies' might was to defend the great river barrier. German forces were not powerful enough to attempt a stand west of the Rhine. Not only had they suffered from the fearful pounding in the Ardennes, but their leaders had shifted much of their remaining strength to try to stem the Soviet flood. Hitler nevertheless insisted that his troops contest every inch of German soil. They would fight to the west of the Rhine.
The Allied plan for clearing the Rhineland provided for three separate operations. In the north, Dempsey's British 2nd and Crerar's Canadian 1st armies would strike southward, while Simpson's U.S. 9th Army was to thrust northward to meet them. In the center, Hodges's 1st Army, now restored to Bradley's 12th Army Group, would drive toward Cologne and Bonn on the Rhine and then pivot southward along the river. It was to link up with Patton's 3rd Army, which was to swing along the north bank of the Moselle River toward the Rhine. Farther south, Patch's 7th Army would move northward to make contact with Patton's forces near Koblenz.
The British and Canadians opened this ambitious plan with an enormous artillery barrage on February 8. The offensive also featured a joint U.S.-British airborne drop (Operation Varsity) that in some ways was larger than that of Operation Market-Garden. The paratroopers seized a key area of high ground, but despite their efforts, the ground forces encountered bitter resistance as well as flooded terrain, which slowed their progress. They did not reach the Rhine until February 21. Simpson's forces suffered from even greater obstacles. They had to cross the Roer River to launch their attack, and the Germans opened the gates of a dam upstream, flooding the area. The Americans had to wait two weeks before the waters subsided sufficiently for them to negotiate the remaining barrier in assault boats. On March 4, they finally made contact with the Canadians.
The 1st Army opened its offensive on February 26 when Collins's VII Corps crossed the Roer with a dual mission: to protect Simpson's left flank and to capture Cologne, which fell on March 5. Although much of the city lay in ruins, its great twin-spired Gothic cathedral, despite some damage, remained intact. Meanwhile, the 1st Army's III Corps moved toward Bonn and Remagen, 15 miles farther south.
At Remagen, a platoon of the 9th Armored Division accomplished one of the most incredible feats of the war. It stormed the Ludendorff railroad bridge on March 7 and, despite heavy enemy fire, succeeding in seizing its objective. The Germans had tried to blow up the span; two preliminary explosions had caused some structural damage, but the main charge had failed to detonate. The Americans quickly established a bridgehead on the west bank of the Rhine, and within 24 hours, 8,000 men were across the river. It was the only bridge along the entire course of the Rhine that the Germans failed to destroy. Ironically, its capture came on the ninth anniversary of the German occupation of the Rhineland. Hitler reacted to the Remagen disaster by dismissing Rundstedt as commander in chief of the Western Front for the second and last time. Kesselring, the commander in Italy, succeeded Rundstedt. General von Vietinghoff took Kesselring's place in Italy.
The armored spearhead of Patton's 3rd Army dashed 65 miles along the north bank of the Moselle and reached the Rhine in less than three days. On March 14, Patton sent his XII Corps southward across the Moselle and along the Rhine. The Germans had expected him to swing north to exploit the Remagen bridgehead, and his maneuver took them by surprise. At the same time, Patch's 7th Army struck northward through the Saar to link up with Patton. By March 25, all organized resistance west of the Rhine had ceased. Hitler's decision to fight in the Rhineland had cost him dearly. The Allies had mauled his forces and had taken 290,000 prisoners. As the struggle for the Rhineland unfolded, German morale, which had been so strong for so long, began to crack.
The Remagen bridgehead was located in one of the most rugged areas of the Rhine, one that the Allies had not intended as a major crossing point. But once the 1st Army gained its foothold there, Eisenhower moved quickly to expand it. In part, he did this to draw German troops away from other portions of the Rhine's east bank and ease the task of establishing additional bridgeheads. The 3rd Army gained the first of these when it secured a foothold southwest of Frankfurt on March 22. The Germans, who had managed to retreat across the river, had blown up the bridges but were too few, too disorganized, and too demoralized to offer any real resistance.
Patton had carried out his bold crossing deliberately to "jump the Rhine" before Montgomery, who was still planning an operation that Eisenhower had intended as the main crossing. The British commander had massed 25 divisions from the 2nd and 9th armies preparatory to an assault across the river to the north of the Ruhr. Before launching this pile-driver blow on March 23, he subjected the east bank of the Rhine to a colossal pounding from 3,000 artillery pieces as well as aerial bombardment. Considering the fact that only five weak German divisions guarded the landing area, this proved more than adequate. The Germans offered little resistance. Allied airborne troops also dropped behind enemy lines once the operation began and contributed to its overwhelming success. By March 27, all seven Allied armies were across the great river, and the way to the Reich's heartland lay open.
CRUSHING THE AXIS IN ITALY
Germany was not the only place where catastrophe beckoned the Nazi regime. In Italy, a three-month lull in Allied offensive operations came to an end early in April. The Allies outnumbered the enemy 2 to 1. They enjoyed the margin of superiority in artillery and a 3-to-1 advantage in tanks. In addition, they had recently received much up-to-date equipment and abundant supplies. Allied air power also dominated the skies.
British troops opened their attack on April 9 with a frontal assault along the Senio and Reno rivers coupled with an amphibious operation across Lake Comacchio, a large body of water near the Adriatic coast. By April 18, the 8th Army had broken into the broad plain of the great Po River. Meanwhile, the 5th Army opened its attack across the last remaining mountain ridges south of the plain on April 14 and achieved a breakthrough three days later.
Vietinghoff had committed most of his forces to the front line and was unable to establish a new defensive position. He urged Hitler to authorize a retreat to the Po, but the Fuhrer, as usual, refused. Finally, on April 20, Vietinghoff ordered a withdrawal himself. But by that time it was too late. Allied armored forces swept toward the river and cut off many Germans. The entire Axis position in Italy had collapsed.
As the Axis disasters mounted, Mussolini attempted to escape to Switzerland with his longtime mistress, Clara Petacci. But Italian partisans cut short their flight on April 28 and shot them both to death. They brought their bodies to Milan and dumped them in a large square, where a mob of vengeful Italians trampled and spat on the corpses. One well-placed kick broke the former Duce's jaw. When this grisly ritual ended, partisans strung wire along the forlorn couple's feet and hung them upside down from a steel girder, where they remained on display for some time. Thus, the man who had once dreamed of creating a new Roman Empire perished in total degradation.
All that remained was the surrender of the surviving Axis troops. Actually, General Karl Wolff, head of the SS in Italy, had opened secret negotiations for capitulation through neutral Switzerland as early as February. He had encountered a myriad of obstacles, however, and had been unable to conclude arrangements before the start of the final Allied offensive. Now, as it became obvious that nothing could prevent total defeat, Vietinghoff joined Wolff in seeking an end to the struggle. German representatives signed an unconditional surrender agreement on April 29, and the document became effective May 2.
THE ALLIES OVERRUN THE REICH
Meanwhile, the stage was set for the final German collapse in the Reich itself. The establishment of multiple Allied bridgeheads on the east bank of the Rhine accelerated the disintegration of German forces. The great North German Plain lay in the path of the Allied leviathan, and although occasional river barriers remained to be crossed, they were still a considerable distance to the east. The badly outnumbered, exhausted, and demoralized soldiers of the Wehrmacht were nearing the end of their tether. Equipment was breaking down, supplies were running low, and Allied planes roamed at will over the stricken Fatherland. Fuel shortages became so critical that tanks could not move and planes could not fly.
The next Allied objective was the Ruhr. Its neutralization would be a final death blow to German industry. Elements of Simpson's 9th Army dashed around the Ruhr's northern flank, while units of Hodge's 1st Army swept around the sprawling industrial complex from the south. The two arms of the envelopment came together at Lippstadt on April 1, trapping all of Model's Army Group B and two corps of Army Group H, which defended northern Germany. Hitler characteristically proclaimed the Ruhr a fortress to be defended to the last man and the last bullet. But it was not a fortress, and its garrison was in no condition to carry out prolonged resistance. For the next two weeks, the encircling forces applied increasing pressure on the defenders and secured their capitulation on the 19th. A total of 325,000 Germans surrendered. Among those who did not was Model, who preferred suicide to captivity.
Even while the Battle of the Ruhr pocket was raging, other elements of both 9th and 1st armies were stabbing deeply into the heart of Germany. The creation of the Ruhr pocket had left a yawning void in their path with only scattered German units between them and the Elbe River far to the east. Simpson's spearhead reached the river on April 11 and by April 13 had secured a bridgehead on the east bank only 50 miles from Berlin. It appeared that the road to the German capital was open. Simpson urged that he be allowed to push on to Berlin. But Eisenhower ordered him to halt while Allied armies "cleaned up" the flanks to the north and south. The American advance now shifted to the southeast toward Leipzig, Chemnitz, and Dresden. It also focused on Bavaria and Austria, where Hitler supposedly planned to make a last stand in a National Redoubt centered in the Alps. On April 16, the Soviets launched their long-awaited final offensive against Berlin and encircled the city ten days later.
Eisenhower's decision to halt Simpson's advance became still another of the controversial issues of the war. Critics, especially Simpson and Montgomery, charged that had Ike allowed the 9th Army to continue its drive, it would have reached Berlin before the Soviets. But only Simpson's spearhead had reached the Elbe, and its tanks were running low on fuel. Most of his forces were still far to the west. The Americans had fewer than 50,000 men and little artillery in their advance positions. The Red Army, by contrast, had been massing troops and supplies on the Oder for weeks and were only 33 miles away from the city. Had Simpson attempted to continue his push toward Berlin, the Soviets would almost certainly have speeded up the timetable for their offensive against the capital. With two bridgeheads to the west of the Oder and 1,250,000 men and 22,000 artillery pieces in position, it seems likely that they would have reached Berlin in force before the Americans.
When he made his decision to halt, Eisenhower recognized the weakness of Simpson's advance forces as well as the far greater strength of the Soviets. He also knew that the Big Three had agreed to divide Germany into occupation zones after the war and that Berlin would lie within the Soviet zone. Even if American forces had been able to take the city, this agreement would have required their withdrawal from the portion reserved for the Soviets as well as from territory east of the Elbe. At this point, Eisenhower also considered both the Leipzig-Dresden area and the National Redoubt more important military objectives for the Western Allies than Berlin, which he assumed would fall to the Red Army.
In reality, the National Redoubt was a myth. Although American leaders had long speculated on the possibility of a last-ditch stand by the die-hard Nazis in the south, the Germans never planned such a desperate scenario. But Propaganda Minister Goebbels had learned of this American illusion in late 1944 and did everything he could to encourage his enemies in their belief. He was remarkably successful. Although U.S. intelligence wavered between skepticism and acceptance, Eisenhower became convinced that the possibility of a redoubt had to be assumed. Bradley was even more certain of its existence. Both men feared that unless American troops moved into this area quickly, SS forces and other Nazi fanatics might prolong the war for months, perhaps even years.
Allied forces were now lunging forward everywhere. Crerar's Canadian 1st Army liberated most of the remainder of the Netherlands and occupied the northwestern portion of Germany. Dempsey's British 2nd Army reached Lubeck on the Baltic on May 3, effectively sealing off Denmark to the northwest from the advancing Soviet armies. In the south, the French 1st Army crossed the Rhine and drove toward western Austria. Patch's 7th Army seized Nuremburg, site of the Nazi party rallies, on April 20; then hooked south to take Munich, the party's birthplace, ten days later. It captured Hitler's mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden on May 4.
Patton's 3rd Army drove into eastern Germany and crossed the Czech border on April 25. With only weak German forces between his tanks and Prague, Patton asked permission to push on to the Czech capital. Eisenhower refused, indicating that it, like Berlin, was now a political rather than military objective and lay in the path of the Red Army's advance. There seems little doubt that Patton could have reached Prague first, because the Soviets were considerably farther away and encountering stronger resistance. Instead, elements of the 3rd Army swung southward into Austria and soon discovered that there was no National Redoubt. Prague fell to the Red Army on May 9.
THE NAZI DEATH CAMPS FALL
As Allied armies converged from east and west, they began to occupy the Nazi death camps in Poland and the concentration camps of the Reich itself. SS units attempted to destroy the evidence of their monstrous deeds in the Polish camps. Although not always successful in this endeavor, they did blow up the huge crematoriums at Auschwitz. SS guards herded many of the surviving inmates westward and shot large numbers along the way. Soviet troops had captured Maidanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Belzec during their 1944 summer offensive and overran Auschwitz and Chelmno in January 1945. They found horrific evidence of the mass slaughter perpetrated by the Nazis in these camps as well as some survivors, many of whom were near death. Moscow publicized some of this but downplayed the fact that the overwhelming majority were Jews. Nevertheless, the fate of the Jews soon became known throughout the world, and the names of the camps became synonymous with murderous brutality.
The rapid advance of Allied forces in the west engulfed the concentration camps of Germany before the SS could destroy them. One by one, they also revealed their terrible secrets, including huge piles of corpses and the living skeletons of the survivors as well as torture chambers and strangling rooms where guards hung prisoners with short nooses attached to rows of hooks. There were also lamp shades, purses, and gloves made from human skin. Photographs and films brought much of the impact of these horrors home to the people of Britain and America.
HIGH DRAMA IN BERLIN
But the greatest drama of all unfolded in Berlin. Hitler had shifted his headquarters to the capital from East Prussia when the Soviets opened their January offensive. With the approach of enemy troops, he took refuge in an underground bunker near the Reich's Chancellery building. The once mighty conqueror had become a physical wreck during the years of defeat. He had developed a stoop, suffered from tremors in his limbs, and dragged his left leg when he walked. The pressure of directing the war effort, lack of sleep, and nervous exhaustion all contributed to this deterioration. He had also fallen under the influence of a quack doctor, Theodore Morell, who convinced him that the answer to his health problems lay in frequent injections of powerful drugs as well as a variety of pills. These remedies actually made his condition worse. The injuries that the Fuhrer suffered in the attempt on his life in July 1944, though not serious, also weakened him.
Despite his failing health, Hitler cowed his associates with the violence of his wrath and retained the power of life and death over every German from the highest generals to the lowliest members of society. His capacity for hatred and his morbid fascination with destruction grew more pronounced as the certainty of final defeat became ever greater. In March 1945, he ordered Speer to supervise the destruction of everything that might be useful to the Allies as they advanced into Germany. His list included bridges, dams, factories, mines, railroads, and rolling stock. He visualized a total scorched-earth policy. Speer balked at this and told Hitler that the war was lost and that nothing should be done to jeopardize the survival of the German people. The Fuhrer was not impressed:
"If the war is to be lost, the nation will also perish. ...There is no longer need to consider the basis for even a most primitive existence. On the contrary, it is better to destroy even that, and to destroy it ourselves. The nation has proved itself weak, and the future belongs to the stronger Eastern nation. Besides, those who remain after the battle are of little value; for the good have fallen."
Appalled at the prospect of such senseless destruction, Speer set out to sabotage the Fuhrer's orders and succeeded to a considerable degree. Although Germany emerged from the war in a thoroughly battered condition, the devastation was not as total as Hitler, the self-proclaimed embodiment of the German nation, had desired.
Hitler was still in the bunker when the Red Army launched its final offensive on April 16. The Soviet plan provided for Zhukov's forces to outflank Berlin from the north while Konev's troops swung around from the south. The assault began with the most intensive artillery barrage of the war, featuring a concentration of one gun every 13 feet. The Germans fought desperately, but within two days, the Soviets had broken through and poured like a torrent toward and around the capital. The two wings of the pincers met to the west of Berlin on April 25. Other Red Army forces dashed westward and on the same day met elements of the U.S. 1st Army near Torgau on the Elbe.
Although Hitler's aides had urged him to leave Berlin even before the start of the Red Army offensive, he refused and remained in his bunker after the Soviet jaws closed. Even now he visualized a miraculous turnabout in the war and continued to talk about counteroffensives using divisions that existed only on paper. He clutched at the few straws that still seemed available. The most notable example occurred when President Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, four days before the Soviets opened their drive on Berlin. Both Hitler and Goebbels saw a parallel between Roosevelt's death and the demise of the Russian tsarina Elizabeth in 1762 during the Seven Years' War, when Frederick the Great was king of Prussia. At that time, the Russians were threatening to capture Berlin, but following the tsarina's death, her successor chose to make peace with Frederick instead. Hitler now saw himself as a modern-day Frederick. He and Goebbels hoped that Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman, might be the architect of a negotiated peace with Germany. Both men continued to believe that sooner or later the Western Allies would fall out with the Soviets and join Germany in an anti-Communist crusade. Their expectation proved totally unfounded. Truman was determined to fight the war to the victorious conclusion so close at hand.
Red Army troops penetrated into Berlin's suburbs on April 22, and the German capital won the dubious designation of "fortress" from the Fuhrer. The struggle for the German capital became much like that of Stalingrad 2 1/2 years earlier. The German garrison fought with fanatical dedication while Hitler did what he could to spur them on. But his cause was beyond redemption. The Soviets pushed forward and by April 26, they were less than a mile from Hitler's bunker. The city, already devastated by years of Allied air attacks, sank into total ruin from the effects of Red Army artillery and the savage fighting.
THE BITTER END
As the days passed, Hitler's last illusions about a miraculous turning of the tide slipped away. Realizing that the end was near, he lashed out with particular fury at those whom he held responsible for his defeat - the German officer corps, the German army, the German people. Then he received the unkindest cuts of all. The first came from Goering, who had moved his headquarters to the Bavarian Alps. Misinterpreting instructions from Hitler, Goering announced that he was assuming the power to negotiate with the Allies. This so enraged Hitler that he ordered Goering arrested. Soon afterward, he received a report that Himmler, who was in northern Germany, had attempted to open peace negotiations. Even the man whom Hitler referred to as "treue Heinrich" (loyal Heinrich) had proved guilty of treachery.
By April 29, Hitler had resigned himself to death, but he still had unfinished business. First he married his longtime mistress, Eva Braun. Then he drafted his political testament in which he expelled Goering and Himmler from the party as traitors and appointed Admiral Donitz president and commander in chief of the armed forces. The following day, Hitler retired to his suite, where he and his bride committed suicide - she by poison, he by a pistol shot through the mouth. Aides burned their bodies in the Chancellery garden. Goebbels and his wife poisoned their six children soon afterward and then took their own lives. On May 2, the last fighting ended in Berlin. The shattered, flaming city was a suitable setting for Hitler's Gotterdammerung (twilight of the gods). The Soviets paid a high price for the capture of Berlin. Although estimates vary, it appears that they suffered over 300,000 killed, wounded, and missing. German military casualties are unknown, but the Soviets claim to have taken 134,000 prisoners. Perhaps 100,000 civilians lost their lives during the struggle. Red Army soldiers also engaged in an orgy of rape in the aftermath of the battle. Estimates of rape victims range from 95,000 to 130,000.
The war in Europe was not yet over, but it would linger only a few more days. On May 2, Donitz asked for a separate peace with the Western Allies, indicating his intention to continue the war against the Soviets. The Americans and British refused. Unconditional surrender was the only option. It finally came in a schoolhouse in Reims, France, at 2:41 on the morning of May 7. A second ceremony followed in Berlin the next day as Allied and German military leaders met to ratify the earlier agreement. World War II in Europe was over, and with it Hitler's "Thousand-Year Reich" expired. It had lasted 12 years.