May 1945: Allied victory in Europe

Following massive breakthroughs on both the Eastern and Western Fronts, Soviet forces attacked Berlin on 16 April 1945. When it became clear that Germany would be unable to resist, Hitler and most of the German leadership committed suicide. After the Soviet army captured Berlin on 2 May 1945, the remainder of the Germany army conducted a fighting retreat so they could surrender to the western Allies rather than the USSR. The German government, reconstituted around Admiral Karl Dönitz and represented by General Alfred Jodl, unconditionally surrendered on 8 May 1945.

The German position in 1945 was extremely weak on both fronts. The failure of the Battle of the Bulge had exhausted the last of the fuel resources and most of the ammunition on the Western Front. The Eastern Front was in disarray, with hundreds of thousands of German soldiers trapped in Courland and the remainder divided between fronts in Austria, northwestern Hungary, and Poland. The Allies launched coordinated attacks on both fronts in January and February 1945. The Western Allies crossed the Rhine while the USSR attacked through Poland, stopping just shy of Berlin. A new Allied combined assault was launched in March April 1945, with the Soviets attacking Berlin and the Western Allies, trapping the main German army in the Ruhr, advancing to the Elbe River.

In the final days of the war, the Allies had an overwhelming and obvious advantage. A lack of resources, manpower, and low morale caused German lines to rapidly collapse in the face of the Allied advance. Facing imminent defeat and capture, Hitler and most of his senior officials committed suicide on 30 April 1945 and the following days. Control of the German government and armies reverted to Dönitz and Jodl, two of the highest-ranking Nazis still alive.

Rather than immediately surrendering, Dönitz and Jodl continued a fighting retreat along the Eastern Front with the objectives of protecting German civilians fleeing from the Soviet army and surrendering the majority of remaining German forces to the Western Allies rather than to the Soviets. The Soviet advance into Poland and Germany had been accompanied by mass war crimes against civilians and execution of POWs, so, to avoid this fate for more German civilians and soldiers, Dönitz and Jodl sought to surrender to Western Allies rather than the USSR. Dönitz and Jodl finally surrendered on 8 May 1945, with the German army in the Courland Pocket surrendering on 9 May after being informed of Jodl’s surrender.

Dönitz and Jodl’s surrender on 8 May 1945 marks the end of the Second World War in Europe. This conflict had lasted for 6 years and resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of soldiers and civilians. The genocide of European Jews and Romani was an integral part of the Second World War in Europe, devastating these and other oppressed communities. The Soviet advance into eastern Europe precipitated a final ethnic cleansing, with hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans being killed and 12 to 14 million others fleeing to Germany in fear of reprisals against their ethnic group. Following German surrender, Axis Europe was divided into occupation zones by the USSR and the Western Allies. These occupation zones hardened in the aftermath of the Second World War and formed the basis of the division of Europe during the Cold War.