WITH THE end of the Battle of the Bulge, the Western Allies resumed the advance across Europe that had begun on Normandy’s beaches more than six months earlier. American, British, Canadian, and French armies pushed from the Ardennes battlefields into Germany, driving toward the valley of the Rhine River, which protected the enemy’s heartland like a wide moat.
On March 7, American soldiers unexpectedly found a Rhine bridge still standing at Remagen, a village south of Bonn. Frantic German attempts to blow up the bridge failed, and GIs swept across to the river’s eastern bank. In the next several weeks, additional crossings were made to the north and south. By the end of March, combat engineers had built more than a half dozen sturdy bridges across the Rhine, allowing tanks, trucks, and infantrymen to capture several key German cities.
On March 31, 1945, British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, accompanied by American soldiers, cross the Rhine River to see how the assault on Nazi Germany is progressing.
In April, American forces surrounded the German industrial center known as the Ruhr Valley. Three hundred thousand enemy soldiers surrendered, and their commander shot himself rather than face capture. The final drive across Germany gained momentum, with American forces sweeping across Bavaria in the south to eventually occupy Austria and part of Czechoslovakia. British and Canadian troops pushed north through the cities of Hanover and Hamburg. Some German towns surrendered without a fight; others resisted and were smashed to rubble.
Allied soldiers march through the Siegfried Line.
From the east, Soviet forces encircled Berlin. On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his underground lair. The capital soon was overrun. Surviving German military leaders agreed to the unconditional surrender of all forces still fighting. The capitulation documents were signed at General Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims, France, on May 7. The war in Europe was over. The Third Reich, which Hitler had boasted would endure for a thousand years, had lasted for just twelve, ending with the utter destruction of the German empire and Germany’s military occupation by the victorious Allies.
The Queen Elizabeth sails into New York Harbor with thousands of returning soldiers.