22. Heroes and Villains from World War II: The Defeat of Germany

My Name is General Alfred Jodl: German High Command Officer

I was a German soldier, a staff officer, and eventually Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command. For much of the Second World War, I stood inside the rooms where Germany's military campaigns were discussed, ordered, altered, and ultimately lost. I had been trained to believe that a soldier's responsibility was obedience and execution of orders. That conviction carried me from the German Empire of my youth to the headquarters of Adolf Hitler—and finally to the table where I signed Germany's unconditional surrender.

A Bavarian Officer

I was born Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl on May 10, 1890, in Würzburg, Bavaria. I entered the Bavarian Army as a young man and became an artillery officer. When the First World War began in 1914, I served on both the Western and Eastern Fronts and was wounded during the fighting. War taught me discipline, organization, and the importance of command. Germany's defeat in 1918 was a profound shock. I remained in military service afterward, joining the small Reichswehr permitted to Germany under the Treaty of Versailles.

Becoming a Staff Officer

The army of the 1920s and early 1930s was small, but it demanded professionalism from its officers. I became increasingly involved in staff work, planning, and operations rather than simply commanding soldiers in the field. When Adolf Hitler came to power and Germany began rapidly rebuilding its armed forces, opportunities for officers expanded with them. By 1939, I had become Chief of the Operations Staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht—the Armed Forces High Command, commonly called the OKW.

War From the Headquarters

When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Europe entered another great war. My battlefield was increasingly the headquarters conference room. I helped prepare and coordinate military operations involving Poland, Norway, Denmark, France, the Balkans, the Soviet Union, and eventually nearly every theater in which German forces fought. Maps covered the tables. Reports arrived constantly from armies hundreds or thousands of kilometers away. Hitler demanded information, issued instructions, and increasingly intervened personally in military decisions. My responsibility was to turn decisions made at the highest level into operational orders.

Serving Hitler's War

As Germany's victories gave way to defeats, disagreements inside the command became increasingly serious. Hitler often refused withdrawals because he believed holding ground demonstrated strength and determination. Many officers believed such decisions endangered entire armies. I sometimes challenged his military judgment, and at one point Hitler considered replacing me, yet I remained at my post. I continued signing and transmitting orders because I regarded myself first as an officer bound to the chain of command. Some of those orders, however, were criminal—including directives connected with the mistreatment and execution of prisoners and civilians.

The Reich Begins to Collapse

By 1944 and early 1945, there could be little doubt about Germany's military position. The Western Allies had landed in France and were advancing from the west. The Red Army was driving toward Germany from the east. German cities were being destroyed from the air, fuel was desperately scarce, experienced soldiers were disappearing, and replacements increasingly consisted of boys, older men, and inadequately trained recruits. Yet orders continued to arrive demanding that positions be held and counterattacks launched. The machinery of command continued operating even as the country around it collapsed.

The Final Days

In April 1945, Soviet forces surrounded Berlin. Hitler remained in his bunker while the German military situation disintegrated. On April 30, he killed himself. Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz became Germany's head of state and attempted to surrender German forces to the Western Allies while allowing as many soldiers and civilians as possible to escape Soviet captivity. The Western Allies would not accept such a divided surrender. Germany would surrender completely.

My Signature at Reims

I was sent to Allied headquarters at Reims, France. There, during the early hours of May 7, 1945, I signed the document of unconditional surrender on behalf of the German armed forces. The surrender became effective on May 8. After nearly six years of European war, Germany had been defeated. Millions were dead, cities lay in ruins, armies had disappeared, and the state whose military operations I had helped direct had ceased to function.

Judgment at Nuremberg

The Allies arrested me, and I became one of the defendants before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. I argued that I had acted as a professional soldier carrying out orders rather than determining Germany's political goals. The tribunal rejected that defense in important respects. I was convicted of conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. On October 16, 1946, I was executed by hanging.

Germany Surrounded: The Reich Faces Destruction — Told by Alfred Jodl

By the opening weeks of 1945, I no longer needed optimistic reports to understand Germany's position. I was Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command, and the maps before us told the truth plainly. From the east came millions of Soviet soldiers. From the west came the Americans, British, Canadians, French, and their allies. Germany was being compressed between two enormous military forces, while our ability to replace the men, machines, and fuel we were losing had nearly disappeared. Yet headquarters continued functioning. Orders were written, transmitted, and obeyed. The war was being lost, but it had not yet stopped.

The Map Was Closing Around Us

In January 1945, Germany still controlled territory beyond its prewar borders, but our position was collapsing rapidly. In the west, Allied armies had recovered from our Ardennes offensive and were preparing to advance toward the Rhine. In Italy, German forces remained under pressure. Most dangerous of all was the east. The Soviet Union had assembled enormous forces along the Vistula River in Poland. When its great winter offensive began on January 12, German defensive positions were overwhelmed. Soviet armies surged westward toward the German frontier.

The Red Army Comes West

The speed of the Soviet advance was alarming. Warsaw fell on January 17. Kraków followed soon afterward, and Soviet spearheads raced toward the Oder River. Refugees poured west ahead of them, carrying whatever possessions they could fit onto carts, wagons, trains, or their backs. East Prussia became a battlefield. German formations were cut apart or forced backward. Within weeks, Soviet troops stood along portions of the Oder, frighteningly close to Berlin. A front that had once been hundreds of miles away was approaching the capital itself.

Our Army Was Running Out of Men

On paper, Germany could still field armies. The reality was different. Years of fighting had consumed enormous numbers of experienced soldiers. Divisions that once possessed thousands of trained men were sometimes reduced to shadows of their former strength. Teenagers from the Hitler Youth and older men from the Volkssturm were being drawn into the defense. Sailors, airmen, police, and support personnel could be reorganized into ground units. Such measures created numbers on reports, but they could not instantly create experienced infantrymen, tank crews, artillery officers, or commanders.

Machines Without Fuel

Germany could still manufacture formidable weapons, but producing a tank and operating it were two different matters. Allied bombing and the loss of Romanian oil supplies had created severe fuel shortages. Aircraft could exist without enough aviation fuel to fly. Tanks could be available without enough gasoline to maneuver freely. Trucks, essential for moving ammunition and supplies, faced the same problem. Meanwhile, Allied aircraft increasingly dominated the skies over Germany. Movement during daylight became dangerous, railroads were repeatedly attacked, and factories struggled to keep production flowing through a transportation system being steadily destroyed.

The Western Armies Move Again

Across the western front, another threat was gathering. The failure of our Ardennes offensive had consumed reserves Germany desperately needed. American and British-led armies were approaching the Rhine, the great river that many Germans hoped might become an effective defensive barrier. But there were no reserves capable of recreating the strength Germany had possessed earlier in the war. Every kilometer surrendered in the west brought Allied armies closer to Germany's industrial heartland.

Orders From a Shrinking Reich

Still the command system operated. Reports arrived. Maps were changed. Telephone calls were made. Hitler continued demanding that strategically important positions be defended and frequently resisted withdrawals. Orders instructed formations to stand, counterattack, or recover lost ground even when commanders reported that they lacked the forces required. From headquarters, an army might still appear as a symbol on a map. At the front, that symbol might represent exhausted soldiers with few vehicles, little ammunition, and almost no hope of reinforcement.

Two Fronts, One Destination

The strategic problem was now brutally simple. If we moved forces east to stop the Soviets, we weakened the west. If we reinforced the west, the Red Army moved closer to Berlin. If we abandoned territory, we lost factories, railroads, manpower, and defensive positions. Germany had reached the stage in war where nearly every solution created another crisis. The Allies did not need to agree on every political question to accomplish their immediate military objective. They were approaching Germany from opposite directions, and both intended to destroy our ability to continue the war.

My Name is Marshal Georgy Zhukov: Soviet Commander

I was born into poverty, became a cavalryman, survived revolution and civil war, and eventually commanded Soviet armies in some of the greatest battles ever fought. During the Second World War, I was sent where the situation was most dangerous—Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, Belarus, and finally Berlin. I did not believe wars were won by speeches. They were won through preparation, discipline, overwhelming force, and the willingness to continue when the enemy believed you could go no farther.

From Poverty to the Army

I was born on December 1, 1896, in the village of Strelkovka, southwest of Moscow, into a poor peasant family. As a boy, I worked hard and eventually became an apprentice furrier in Moscow. In 1915, during the First World War, I was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army and served in the cavalry. I fought bravely, was wounded, and received the Cross of St. George for my service. Russia was already beginning to fracture, however, and revolution would soon destroy the world into which I had been born.

Revolution and the Red Army

After the Bolshevik Revolution, I joined the Red Army and fought during the Russian Civil War. I became a Communist Party member and remained in the military after the fighting ended. I studied warfare carefully and rose through the cavalry commands. I believed an officer had to understand more than courage. Modern warfare demanded artillery, tanks, aircraft, communications, logistics, and coordination on an enormous scale. The commander who failed to prepare before battle would pay for that failure with the lives of his soldiers.

My First Great Victory

In 1939, I was sent to command Soviet and Mongolian forces against the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol near the border of Mongolia and Manchuria. I concentrated armor, artillery, infantry, and aircraft before striking the Japanese positions from several directions. Our forces surrounded much of the enemy and destroyed them. The victory demonstrated the effectiveness of concentrated mechanized warfare and helped establish my reputation. Soon I would face a far more dangerous enemy.

Germany Invades

On June 22, 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. The disaster was enormous. Soviet armies were surrounded, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were captured, and German forces drove deep into our territory. I argued repeatedly that we had to deal with the military situation as it actually existed, even when Stalin did not want to hear it. I was removed as chief of the General Staff after disagreeing with him over the defense of Kyiv, but I was soon given another assignment. The Germans were approaching Leningrad and Moscow.

Defending Moscow

When I reached Moscow in October 1941, the danger was immediate. German armies were approaching the capital, and panic was spreading. We constructed defenses, moved reserves into position, and demanded that every available unit hold. Then winter came, along with fresh Soviet formations. In December, we counterattacked. The Germans were driven away from Moscow. They had expected the Soviet Union to collapse quickly. Instead, for the first time in the war, a major German offensive had been decisively stopped.

Turning the War Around

I later helped coordinate Soviet operations surrounding Stalingrad and played a major role in planning the defense and counteroffensive at Kursk in 1943. By then the Red Army had changed. We had learned bitter lessons in 1941 and 1942. Our commanders were more experienced, our factories produced enormous quantities of weapons, and our soldiers understood that Germany could be defeated. At Kursk, German armored forces struck heavily prepared Soviet defenses and exhausted themselves. Afterward, the strategic initiative increasingly belonged to us.

The Road Toward Germany

In 1944, I helped coordinate Operation Bagration, the massive Soviet offensive that destroyed much of Germany's Army Group Centre. The Red Army drove west through Belarus and toward Poland. In January 1945, I commanded the 1st Belorussian Front during the Vistula–Oder Offensive. Our armies advanced with extraordinary speed from Poland toward Germany. Soon we stood along the Oder River, only dozens of miles from Berlin.

The Battle for Berlin

In April 1945, my forces attacked across the Oder and fought through the heavily defended Seelow Heights. The Germans resisted fiercely, but they no longer possessed the strength to stop us. We surrounded Berlin and entered the city. Fighting continued street by street and building by building as Soviet troops pushed toward the center. On April 30, Hitler killed himself. On May 2, Berlin's garrison surrendered. The city that had launched a war of annihilation against the Soviet Union was now occupied by the Red Army.

Victory and the German Surrender

On May 8–9, 1945, I represented the Soviet Union at the final German surrender ceremony in Berlin. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed the surrender documents before the Allied representatives. Germany was defeated. The Soviet Union had paid an almost unimaginable price—millions of soldiers and civilians were dead, entire communities had been destroyed, and vast regions of our country had been devastated. Victory brought enormous pride, but it could never restore everything that had been lost.

The Soviet Offensive Explodes Across Poland — Told by Georgy Zhukov

By January 1945, we had driven the German armies far from the gates of Moscow, but the war was not finished. Before us stretched occupied Poland, the Oder River, and beyond it Germany itself. I commanded the 1st Belorussian Front, while Marshal Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front stood farther south. We had learned through years of terrible fighting that a great offensive could not depend on courage alone. Behind our lines we assembled artillery, tanks, ammunition, fuel, bridging equipment, and enormous numbers of soldiers. When we struck, we intended not merely to push the Germans backward. We intended to break their front open.

Waiting Along the Vistula

For months, Soviet forces had occupied bridgeheads west of the Vistula River. My forces held the important Magnuszew and Puławy bridgeheads south of Warsaw. The Germans knew an offensive was coming, but they could not know precisely where the heaviest blows would fall. We concentrated men and equipment while attempting to conceal our preparations. The Soviet High Command originally planned the major offensive for later in January, but it began on January 12 in Konev's sector and on January 14 in mine as the situation on the Western Front added urgency to Allied operations.

The Guns Open Fire

When my offensive began, Soviet artillery struck German defenses with tremendous force. Thousands of guns and mortars supported the attack, while infantry and armored formations moved out from the bridgeheads. German positions were overwhelmed in many places. Their forces were too thinly spread, and they lacked sufficient reserves to seal the breaches. Once openings appeared, our tank armies moved through them. The objective was speed. We did not want to give the Germans time to construct another strong defensive line behind the first.

Warsaw Falls

Warsaw had already endured destruction almost beyond description. The Germans had crushed the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 and systematically destroyed much of the city afterward. On January 17, 1945, Soviet and Polish forces entered the ruins after German troops withdrew. For Poland, the German occupation was ending, but Soviet arrival did not mean political freedom in the Western sense; Stalin was already ensuring that a Soviet-backed government would dominate postwar Poland. Military victory and political liberation were not always the same thing.

The Advance Becomes a Race

Our armies now moved faster than many had thought possible. Soviet armored columns sometimes advanced dozens of miles in a day. German units that stopped too long risked being bypassed or surrounded. Poznań became an important German stronghold in our path, but instead of stopping the entire offensive to capture it immediately, we surrounded the fortress and continued west while other Soviet forces remained behind to reduce it. This was essential. Berlin lay ahead, and I would not sacrifice the momentum of an entire front for one fortified city.

Konev Drives Through the South

To my left, Konev's armies were advancing across southern Poland. Kraków was taken on January 19. His forces pushed into the industrial region of Upper Silesia, whose factories and mines were enormously important to Germany's remaining war economy. Soviet troops also reached Auschwitz, liberating the concentration and extermination camp on January 27. There they encountered evidence of a system of mass murder that German forces had attempted to conceal as they retreated.

German Defenses Collapse

The German command tried desperately to rebuild its front. Units were transferred, reorganized, and thrown into defensive positions, but events moved faster than their headquarters could respond. German forces had lost enormous numbers of experienced soldiers during the previous years. Fuel was scarce. Soviet aircraft and artillery supported our advance, while our armored formations exploited every weakness. Some German units fought stubbornly, but local resistance could no longer restore a front that was collapsing across hundreds of miles.

Refugees on the Roads

We were not advancing across an empty battlefield. German civilians fled westward as Soviet forces approached, particularly from East Prussia and other eastern territories. Many feared Soviet soldiers because they knew what German forces had done in the Soviet Union and had heard reports of revenge against German civilians. Those fears were not imaginary. Looting, killings, and widespread sexual violence occurred during the Soviet advance. Years of German atrocities had created enormous hatred among Soviet troops, but hatred could not justify crimes against civilians.

The Oder Appears

By the end of January and beginning of February, elements of my armies reached the Oder River. From our bridgeheads near Küstrin, Berlin was only about 40 miles away. Consider what that meant: in roughly two weeks, Soviet forces had advanced from the Vistula across much of Poland to the approaches of Germany's capital, in places covering several hundred miles. A front that Germany had expected to defend for months had been shattered in days.

My Name is General Omar Bradley: American Army Group Commander

I was an American soldier who rose from a small Missouri town to command more than a million men in the war against Nazi Germany. I was never interested in becoming the loudest general in the room. I believed an officer should understand his mission, know his men, prepare carefully, and then get the job done. During the Second World War, that responsibility carried me from North Africa to Sicily, Normandy, the liberation of France, and finally into the heart of Germany.

A Missouri Beginning

I was born on February 12, 1893, near Clark, Missouri. My father was a schoolteacher, and we lived modestly. I entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1911 and graduated in 1915 as part of the class later called "the class the stars fell on" because so many of its members became generals. One of my classmates was Dwight D. Eisenhower. I wanted to serve overseas during the First World War, but my assignments kept me in the United States. My opportunity to command in a great war would come many years later.

Learning to Command

Between the wars, I served in a variety of assignments and became an instructor at West Point and the Infantry School. I studied how armies moved, how officers made decisions, and how soldiers responded to leadership. I did not believe command required theatrics. A commander needed competence and judgment. Soldiers had to know that the man giving the orders understood what he was asking them to do. That approach eventually earned me a reputation as a quiet, practical officer.

My War Begins in North Africa

By 1943, American forces were fighting the Germans and Italians in North Africa. I became deputy commander of II Corps under George S. Patton and later replaced him as corps commander. We fought through Tunisia and helped bring the North African campaign to an end. Then came Sicily. These campaigns taught the American Army hard lessons about coordinating infantry, armor, artillery, aircraft, and supplies. We were becoming an experienced fighting force, but the greatest test was still ahead.

Preparing for France

For the invasion of Normandy, I commanded the U.S. First Army. On June 6, 1944, American troops landed at Utah and Omaha Beaches while British and Canadian forces landed farther east. Omaha became a desperate battle. German defenses, rough terrain, and heavy fire caused terrible casualties. For hours, the situation remained uncertain. But small groups of American soldiers and officers kept moving forward, breaking through defensive positions until the beachhead survived. That determination opened the road into France.

Breaking Out of Normandy

The fighting beyond the beaches became a slow struggle through Normandy's hedgerows. Then, in July, we launched Operation Cobra. American bombers struck German positions, and our ground forces broke through. Once we escaped the confined Norman countryside, American armored columns raced across France. Paris was liberated, German armies retreated toward their homeland, and Allied commanders began looking toward the German border.

Commanding an Army Group

I was given command of the 12th Army Group, eventually the largest American field command ever assembled under one general. At its peak, I was responsible for four field armies and roughly 1.3 million men. My job was no longer to watch one battlefield. I had to think across hundreds of miles—fuel, ammunition, bridges, roads, replacements, aircraft, artillery, and the movements of entire armies. Every decision on a headquarters map meant thousands of soldiers moving somewhere on the ground.

Germany Strikes Back

In December 1944, Germany launched its great counteroffensive through the Ardennes—the Battle of the Bulge. The attack surprised us and temporarily disrupted our command arrangements, but American forces held critical positions while reinforcements moved toward the battlefield. Once the German offensive was stopped, we resumed our advance. Germany had spent men, tanks, aircraft, and fuel it could no longer replace. The road into the Reich was opening.

Across the Rhine

In March 1945, American troops unexpectedly captured the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen before the Germans could destroy it completely. We poured troops across the Rhine and expanded the bridgehead. Other Allied armies crossed elsewhere, and Germany's western defenses began collapsing. We surrounded the Ruhr, Germany's great industrial region, capturing hundreds of thousands of enemy troops. Our armies then drove rapidly eastward across central Germany.

Meeting the Soviets

By April, Soviet armies were closing on Berlin from the east while we advanced from the west. Eisenhower decided that Berlin would not be our primary objective; Soviet forces were already positioned to take the city, and we had other military responsibilities farther south and east. On April 25, American and Soviet soldiers met along the Elbe River at Torgau. Germany had effectively been cut in two. Within days Hitler was dead, Berlin had fallen, and organized German resistance was collapsing.

The Western Allies Break Into Germany — Told by Omar Bradley

By early 1945, the Western Allies had reached Germany's doorstep. The Americans, British, Canadians, French, and troops from other Allied nations had fought their way from the Normandy beaches, across France and Belgium, and through the German counterattack in the Ardennes. Now we faced Germany itself. I commanded the U.S. 12th Army Group, and the task before us was straightforward to state but difficult to accomplish: break Germany's defenses, cross the Rhine, destroy the remaining German armies in the west, and keep moving east until organized resistance ended.

Recovering From the Battle of the Bulge

Hitler's December 1944 offensive in the Ardennes had temporarily interrupted our advance, but Germany could not afford the losses it suffered there. By late January 1945, the bulge had been eliminated. German forces withdrew toward their own frontier while Allied armies prepared to resume the offensive. The enemy still possessed experienced soldiers and could fight stubbornly from prepared positions, but he was losing tanks, aircraft, fuel, ammunition, and men faster than Germany could replace them.

Fighting Into the Reich

The German frontier was protected in many areas by the defenses commonly called the Siegfried Line, with bunkers, obstacles, minefields, and fortified towns. American forces had already entered Germany near Aachen in 1944, but now the invasion became much broader. To the north, British and Canadian forces attacked through the Rhineland while American armies pushed toward the Rhine farther south. French forces also advanced into southwestern Germany. This was no longer a narrow penetration of the border. Germany's entire western defensive system was beginning to give way.

Closing on the Rhine

The Rhine was more than another river. It was wide, swift, and deeply connected to German history and national identity. German commanders hoped it could become a great defensive barrier. Bridges were to be destroyed before we could capture them, forcing Allied armies to conduct difficult assault crossings under fire. We expected exactly that. Engineers accumulated boats, bridging equipment, artillery, and supplies while commanders planned deliberate crossings. Then something happened at a small city called Remagen that changed our timetable.

A Bridge Still Standing

On March 7, 1945, soldiers of the U.S. 9th Armored Division reached the heights overlooking Remagen. Below them stood the Ludendorff Bridge—and astonishingly, it was still intact. German troops attempted to destroy it, and explosions damaged the structure, but the bridge remained standing. American soldiers did not wait for perfect orders or elaborate preparations. They rushed across under fire, cutting demolition wires and fighting their way onto the eastern bank. By the end of the day, we possessed something the Germans desperately wanted to deny us: a bridgehead across the Rhine.

Exploit the Opportunity

When word reached higher headquarters, there were questions about whether the bridgehead fit our existing plans. From my perspective, the opportunity was too valuable to waste. War rarely presents itself according to the timetable written at headquarters. We pushed infantry, tanks, artillery, engineers, and supplies across the river while German forces desperately tried to destroy the bridge from the air and with artillery. The Ludendorff Bridge finally collapsed on March 17, killing American engineers, but by then pontoon bridges had been constructed and the bridgehead was secure.

The Rhine Is Crossed Everywhere

Remagen was only the beginning. On the night of March 22–23, General George Patton's U.S. Third Army crossed the Rhine near Oppenheim. Farther north, British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery launched the massive Rhine crossing known as Operation Plunder on March 23–24, involving British, Canadian, and American forces and supported by a major airborne operation. The river Germany had hoped would stop us was being crossed at multiple points.

More Than a River

The Rhine crossings carried enormous psychological importance. German soldiers and civilians understood that one of their country's greatest natural defensive barriers had failed. There was no comparable obstacle between our armies and much of central Germany. For Allied soldiers, crossing the Rhine meant that the long journey from the beaches of Normandy had entered its final stage. We were no longer fighting toward Germany. We were fighting through Germany.

The Western Front Opens

Once sufficient forces crossed the Rhine, our armored columns began spreading into the German interior. The Ruhr, Germany's industrial heartland, was threatened with encirclement. German formations attempted to establish new defensive lines, but many lacked transportation, fuel, or adequate replacements. Allied aircraft attacked roads and railways, while our armies possessed a flow of supplies Germany could no longer match. The difference in resources was becoming overwhelming.

Eastward

We knew the Soviets were advancing from the opposite direction. Every mile we moved east reduced the territory remaining under German control. The enemy still fought, and there would be hard battles before surrender, but crossing the Rhine removed one of the final great barriers protecting the Reich. From Remagen and the other bridgeheads, our armies poured eastward. Somewhere beyond us, Soviet armies were coming west. Germany was now trapped between them, and the distance separating the two Allied fronts was shrinking every day.

Two Armies Close In: East Versus West — Told by Omar Bradley

By the spring of 1945, Germany was no longer fighting simply to defend its borders. It was being squeezed from both directions. My American armies were advancing from the west alongside British, Canadian, French, and other Allied forces, while the Red Army approached from the east. To the south, Allied forces were advancing through Italy and toward Austria. Every morning our maps showed the same thing: the territory controlled by Hitler's government was shrinking. Cities disappeared behind our lines, German armies were surrounded, railroads were cut, factories were captured, and the distance separating us from the Soviets grew smaller.

The Red Army From the East

The Soviet advance was enormous. After smashing through Poland during the Vistula–Oder Offensive, Marshal Georgy Zhukov's forces reached the Oder River, only about 40 miles from Berlin at their nearest bridgeheads. Other Soviet armies pushed through East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, Hungary, and eventually toward Austria and Czechoslovakia. The Germans had concentrated substantial forces against them because Berlin feared what would happen if the Red Army reached the capital. Germany had inflicted terrible destruction upon the Soviet Union, and now the war was returning to German soil.

We Came From the West

Our advance looked different but was equally relentless. After crossing the Rhine in March, American forces could move into Germany's interior. My 12th Army Group included the First, Third, Ninth, and Fifteenth Armies. British and Canadian forces drove across northern Germany, while French forces advanced farther south. We possessed enormous advantages in trucks, fuel, artillery, aircraft, and supplies. German units could still fight hard locally, but they increasingly lacked the resources necessary to rebuild a continuous defensive front.

Germany's Industrial Heart Is Surrounded

One of our greatest objectives was the Ruhr, the industrial region containing mines, factories, railroads, and cities essential to Germany's war economy. American forces swept around it from north and south and completed the encirclement near Lippstadt on April 1. Inside the Ruhr Pocket were hundreds of thousands of German troops. Fighting continued for more than two weeks, but their position was hopeless. By April 18, organized resistance there had ended, and roughly 325,000 German troops had been taken prisoner. Germany had lost both an army-sized force and much of its industrial heartland.

The Transportation System Breaks Apart

An army cannot survive on soldiers alone. It needs trains carrying ammunition, trucks carrying fuel, factories producing weapons, bridges crossing rivers, and roads connecting headquarters with the front. Allied bombing had already badly damaged Germany's transportation network. Now ground forces were capturing what remained. Rail junctions fell. Bridges were destroyed or seized. Fuel supplies disappeared. German commanders might order a division to move fifty miles, only to discover that it lacked trucks, gasoline, or an intact railway to get there.

The Difference Between East and West

The two Allied advances were not identical. Soviet armies had endured years of extraordinarily destructive warfare and often relied on massive concentrations of artillery, infantry, and armor to break German defenses. Western Allied forces enjoyed tremendous air superiority and an exceptionally powerful motorized supply system. Our armies also faced different geography and different concentrations of German resistance. But strategically, the effect was the same. Germany could not stop one front without weakening the other.

Where Should Germany Send Its Last Soldiers?

That became Hitler's impossible problem. Reinforce the Oder against Zhukov, and American and British-led forces advanced deeper from the west. Move divisions westward, and Berlin became more vulnerable. Send forces south, and another sector weakened. Even when German headquarters formed new units, many existed more convincingly on paper than on the battlefield. The Reich still issued commands as though maneuver could solve the crisis, but Germany was running out of territory in which to maneuver.

The Race Was Not Simply for Berlin

People sometimes imagine that every Allied army was racing directly toward Berlin. Our objectives were more complicated. General Eisenhower decided that the Western Allies would not make Berlin their principal target once it became clear that Soviet forces were positioned to take the city and that Berlin lay within the agreed Soviet occupation zone. We concentrated instead on destroying remaining German forces, preventing any organized resistance farther south, and meeting the Soviets across central Germany.

The Gap Becomes Miles

During April, the distance separating the Western and Soviet armies collapsed rapidly. American forces crossed the Elbe River in places while Soviet armies prepared their final offensive against Berlin. German territory was being divided into isolated pockets. Soldiers surrendered by the thousands, and many German troops attempted to move west because they preferred captivity under the Americans or British to surrendering to the Soviets.

Germany Cut in Two

On April 25, 1945, American soldiers of the 69th Infantry Division met Soviet troops near Torgau on the Elbe River. The photographs would show smiling soldiers shaking hands, but the military meaning was greater than the celebration. The Eastern and Western fronts had finally joined. Nazi Germany had effectively been cut in two. Berlin was surrounded by Soviet forces, while our armies controlled enormous portions of western and central Germany. The Reich that had once dominated much of Europe had been reduced to scattered pockets of resistance. From both east and west, the Allied armies had arrived at the same conclusion on the battlefield: Germany's ability to continue the war was almost finished.

My Name is Marta Hillers: German Journalist and Berlin Civilian

I was a German journalist, a traveler, and in the spring of 1945, one ordinary woman among millions caught inside the collapse of Nazi Germany. I did not command armies or decide where they marched. I watched what happened when those armies arrived. While generals moved colored markers across maps, I lived among Berlin's ruined buildings, crowded cellars, frightened civilians, and conquering soldiers. I wrote because writing was one way of making sense of a world that seemed to be ending around us.

A Young Woman in Germany

I was born on May 26, 1911, in Krefeld in western Germany. My generation grew up in the shadow of the First World War and the instability that followed Germany's defeat. I studied and eventually became a journalist, traveling outside Germany and learning several languages. I visited countries including the Soviet Union and developed a wider view of the world than many Germans possessed. Journalism trained me to observe carefully. Details mattered: what people said, what they feared, what they ate, and what they did when circumstances changed.

Journalism Under a Dictatorship

Germany changed dramatically after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. The Nazi government increasingly controlled newspapers, publishing, radio, and public information. Like many professionals who continued working under the regime, I participated in a media world shaped by dictatorship and propaganda, including writing material that supported aspects of the Nazi system. At the time, Germany appeared powerful and expanding. But by the later years of the war, the promises of victory were becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile with what ordinary Germans could see around them.

Berlin Under the Bombs

By 1945, Berlin was a city waiting for disaster. Allied bombing had destroyed buildings and transportation systems, and civilians spent nights listening for air-raid warnings. Food became harder to obtain. Electricity and water became unreliable. Refugees arrived from the east carrying frightening stories about the advancing Red Army. Nazi propaganda had spent years describing the Soviets as monsters, but Germans also knew that our armies had invaded the Soviet Union and inflicted enormous destruction there. Many wondered what would happen when those soldiers reached us.

The Red Army Approaches

In April 1945, the sound of artillery moved closer. It was different from aircraft overhead. The front itself was approaching Berlin. People crowded into basements and shelters with whatever possessions they could carry. Rumors traveled faster than facts: Hitler had a secret weapon, the Americans were coming, the Russians had broken through, Berlin would be relieved. Then Soviet troops surrounded the city. There would be no rescue. We were trapped inside the final battlefield.

Living Beneath the Battle

When Soviet forces entered Berlin, survival became the only sensible schedule. We searched for water, potatoes, candles, and information. Shells struck nearby streets. Buildings burned. Dead soldiers and civilians appeared in places where people had once gone shopping or walked to work. The Nazi state that had demanded obedience for twelve years seemed to disappear almost overnight. Uniforms were discarded, portraits vanished from walls, and people who had spoken confidently about final victory suddenly became very quiet.

The Women of Berlin

For many women, the arrival of Soviet troops brought another terror. Sexual violence and rape occurred on a massive scale during the conquest of Berlin and elsewhere in eastern Germany. I was among its victims. Women warned one another, hid, sought protection, and developed strategies simply to survive. I eventually sought the protection of a Soviet officer, believing that attachment to one powerful man might protect me from attacks by others. It was a terrible calculation, but Berlin in those days forced people to make calculations that would have seemed unimaginable only weeks earlier.

Watching the Victors

Because I understood some Russian, I could communicate with Soviet soldiers better than many around me. I discovered individuals rather than the single terrifying image created by propaganda. Some were brutal. Some were drunk. Some were exhausted, disciplined, humorous, generous, or grieving. Many had lost relatives or homes because of the German invasion of their country. None of that excused crimes committed against civilians, but it helped explain the extraordinary mixture of revenge, hatred, exhaustion, and relief that accompanied the Soviet victory.

Germany Has Lost

Hitler killed himself on April 30. Berlin surrendered on May 2, and Germany followed days later. There was no dramatic moment when ordinary life simply returned. We emerged into streets filled with rubble and began looking for food, relatives, shelter, and news. The Third Reich, which had once claimed it would last a thousand years, had collapsed after twelve. For those of us standing among the ruins, grand political slogans suddenly seemed absurd beside the practical questions of where to sleep and what we would eat tomorrow.

The Diary I Hid Behind Anonymity

I preserved my experiences in notes that eventually became the book later known as A Woman in Berlin. It was first published anonymously outside Germany in the 1950s. When a German edition appeared, some readers reacted negatively to its portrayal of German civilians, Soviet soldiers, sexual violence, and the behavior people adopted to survive. I did not permit another German edition during my lifetime. Only after my death in 2001 was the book republished under circumstances that eventually revealed my identity as its author.

What the Ruins Taught Me

I spent my later life largely outside the public attention that eventually surrounded my wartime diary. Looking backward, I cannot separate what happened to Berlin from what Germany had already done across Europe. That does not excuse crimes committed against German civilians, nor does one victim's suffering cancel another's. I had lived and worked within a dictatorship whose propaganda and institutions contributed to catastrophe, and I had participated professionally in parts of that system. The lesson I carried from the ruins was uncomfortable but necessary: nations may speak of glory, revenge, and victory, but war eventually reaches ordinary people—and they are often the ones forced to pay for decisions they did not make.

Why German Civilians Feared the Soviets — Told by Marta Hillers

By the spring of 1945, fear traveled through Germany faster than the armies themselves. I was living in Berlin, where every day brought new rumors about the Red Army advancing from the east. Some stories were inventions, others exaggerations, and still others horrifyingly true. To understand why so many Germans feared the Soviets more than the Americans or British, you must understand that several fears had become tangled together: years of Nazi propaganda, knowledge of what Germany had done in the Soviet Union, accounts from refugees, and genuine reports of revenge and violence committed as Soviet forces entered German territory.

Years of Propaganda

The Nazi government had spent years portraying the Soviet Union as a civilization of enemies and the Red Army as something less than human. Newspapers, radio broadcasts, posters, and speeches repeated terrifying images of what would happen if Soviet soldiers entered Germany. As defeat approached, propaganda became even more desperate. Germans were told that surrender in the east meant destruction. The regime wanted civilians and soldiers to continue resisting, and fear was one of the last weapons it possessed.

But We Knew What Germany Had Done

Propaganda alone cannot explain the panic. German armies had invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 and fought a war of extraordinary brutality there. Millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians had died through combat, deliberate killings, starvation, forced labor, massacres, and German occupation policies. Entire communities had been destroyed. By 1945, Germans understood at least part of what their country had done in the east. Soldiers returned with stories. Families received letters. Foreign laborers lived among us. There was a terrible question beneath the fear: what would happen when the people whose homeland Germany had devastated reached German soil?

The Refugees Come West

Then we began seeing the people who had already encountered the Soviet advance. Refugees streamed westward from East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, and other eastern regions. They arrived exhausted, cold, hungry, and frightened. Some had traveled in horse-drawn wagons through winter weather. Others crowded onto trains or walked for miles. They brought accounts of looting, killings, destruction, and rape. Every new story spread quickly through cities such as Berlin. Whether every rumor was accurate hardly mattered anymore. Enough were true to make the fear real.

Violence Accompanies the Advance

As Soviet troops entered German territory, serious crimes against civilians occurred. Homes were looted, civilians were assaulted or killed, and sexual violence became widespread. Historians cannot establish an exact number of rape victims, but estimates run into the hundreds of thousands across Germany, with very large numbers in Berlin alone. Women and girls were especially vulnerable, although victims included people of different ages. Alcohol, collapsing military discipline in some units, revenge, and years of brutal warfare all contributed to the violence. Soviet authorities sometimes punished such behavior, but enforcement was inconsistent and did not prevent widespread abuse.

Revenge After a War of Annihilation

Many Soviet soldiers had seen their own towns burned and had lost parents, wives, husbands, children, or friends during the German invasion. When they entered Germany, they encountered the country they had been fighting for almost four years. Some arrived wanting revenge. That explains part of what happened, but explanation is not justification. A German civilian who had committed no crime could not be made personally responsible for everything the Nazi regime and German armed forces had done in the Soviet Union. The crimes of one army did not make crimes against another population acceptable.

Why the West Looked Different

The Americans and British were enemies too, and German civilians had suffered terribly from Western Allied bombing. Yet by 1945, many Germans believed occupation by the Western Allies offered better prospects than occupation by the Soviets. Reports from areas already captured in the west generally suggested stricter discipline toward civilians and less fear of retaliatory violence. German soldiers understood the difference as well. Increasing numbers attempted to move westward so they could surrender to American or British forces rather than become Soviet prisoners.

A Nation Moving West

This created extraordinary scenes during Germany's final collapse. Roads became filled with civilians, wounded soldiers, military vehicles, carts, bicycles, and people carrying suitcases. Some refugees had already traveled hundreds of miles. Others began moving only when artillery could be heard in the distance. The movement itself could be deadly. Winter weather, hunger, Soviet attacks, fighting, and the chaos of evacuation killed many. The sinking of evacuation ships in the Baltic, including the Wilhelm Gustloff in January 1945, demonstrated how dangerous escape could become.

Waiting in Berlin

Those of us in Berlin eventually had nowhere farther to run. By late April, Soviet armies surrounded the city. We listened to artillery, watched buildings collapse, and gathered in cellars. Women exchanged warnings and advice. People discussed which soldiers appeared safer, where water could still be found, and which buildings had already been searched. The great questions of politics and military strategy became very small beside the immediate questions of survival.

Fear, Guilt, and Reality

When I later wrote about those days, I tried to describe people as they actually behaved rather than as propaganda portrayed them. Some Soviet soldiers committed terrible crimes. Others behaved with discipline or even kindness. Germans, too, were not simply innocent victims suddenly dropped into history in 1945. Our country had begun a catastrophic war in the east and committed enormous crimes there. Yet German civilians were still human beings, and crimes against them remained crimes. That is what makes the final months of the war so difficult to understand through simple categories of heroes and villains. Germany's defeat brought liberation from a murderous dictatorship, but for millions caught between the armies, liberation, revenge, fear, guilt, and survival could exist at the same time.

The Battle of the Seelow Heights: Berlin's Final Barrier — Told by Georgy Zhukov

On April 16, 1945, Berlin stood less than 50 miles beyond my front. I commanded the 1st Belorussian Front, positioned along the Oder River east of the German capital. Everyone understood that Germany was approaching defeat, but no experienced soldier mistakes inevitable victory for easy victory. Between my armies and Berlin stood the Seelow Heights, where German forces had prepared one of the capital's last major defensive barriers. If we wanted Berlin, we first had to break through them.

The Road to Berlin

For weeks we had prepared for the final offensive. My forces occupied bridgeheads west of the Oder, while Marshal Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front prepared to attack farther south. To the north, Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front would join the wider operation. We concentrated enormous quantities of artillery, ammunition, tanks, aircraft, bridging equipment, and soldiers. The plan was to crush the German defenses, advance rapidly, surround Berlin, and destroy the remaining forces defending Hitler's capital.

A Fortress of Hills and Marshes

The Seelow Heights were not mountains, but they dominated the flat Oderbruch below. General Gotthard Heinrici, commander of Germany's Army Group Vistula, understood the terrain well. His forces prepared several defensive belts with trenches, bunkers, artillery positions, antitank weapons, and minefields. Heinrici also anticipated that our offensive would begin with a tremendous artillery bombardment. Shortly before it started, he pulled many of his forward troops away from the positions we were about to strike. Our shells therefore hit some trenches that had already been largely abandoned.

The Guns of April 16

Before dawn on April 16, thousands of Soviet guns and rocket launchers opened fire. The night seemed to explode. When the bombardment ended, our infantry and tanks moved forward. Powerful searchlights were also aimed toward the German lines, intended partly to illuminate the battlefield and disorient the defenders. Their effectiveness proved limited; smoke, dust, and battlefield conditions reduced their usefulness. The Germans recovered quickly and opened fire.

The Advance Slows

Our first attacks did not achieve the breakthrough I expected. The terrain below the heights was difficult, German defenses were stronger than anticipated, and roads became congested with advancing troops and vehicles. Tanks struggled in places while German artillery and antitank guns fired from elevated positions. I became increasingly impatient. Berlin was close, and I knew Konev's forces were making progress farther south. Stalin had deliberately encouraged competition among his commanders, and none of us wanted another front to reach Berlin first.

Throwing in the Tank Armies

I committed major armored forces earlier than originally intended, including the 1st Guards Tank Army and 2nd Guards Tank Army. Instead of racing through a clean breakthrough, however, they encountered infantry, vehicles, artillery, and supply columns already crowding the available routes. The battlefield became congested. We possessed overwhelming strength, but strength had to be brought against the enemy effectively. The Germans continued resisting from one defensive position after another.

The Heights Begin to Break

On April 17 and 18, Soviet pressure increased. Artillery hammered German positions while infantry and tanks forced their way through defensive belts. German soldiers fought stubbornly, but they had few reserves and little ability to replace their losses. Konev's breakthrough to the south also threatened their position. By April 19, the Seelow defensive system had effectively been broken. The last major prepared barrier directly east of Berlin had failed.

The Price of the Breakthrough

Victory at Seelow was costly. Exact casualty figures for the battle itself vary because it formed part of the much larger Berlin offensive, but Soviet and Polish forces suffered tens of thousands of casualties during the fighting in the Seelow sector and surrounding operations. Tanks and other armored vehicles were also lost. German forces suffered heavily as well, and thousands were captured. The battle demonstrated something important about Germany's final weeks: the outcome of the war was no longer seriously in doubt, but German soldiers could still make every mile expensive.

Berlin Lies Ahead

Once the Seelow Heights were penetrated, the strategic situation changed rapidly. German formations retreated toward Berlin while Soviet armored forces pushed into the open country beyond the defensive lines. Konev's armies were advancing from the south, threatening to encircle the capital, while my forces approached from the east and northeast. There would be no stable German front behind Seelow capable of stopping us.

The Battle of Berlin Begins — Told by Georgy Zhukov

After we broke through the Seelow Heights in April 1945, Berlin lay directly ahead. I commanded the 1st Belorussian Front advancing from the east and northeast, while Marshal Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front swept toward the city from the south. Hitler's armies had been shattered across Europe, but Berlin still contained soldiers, weapons, barricades, government buildings, and a leadership demanding resistance. We were not approaching an undefended capital. We were approaching a city that Hitler intended to turn into a fortress.

The Ring Closes

Our forces moved rapidly after Seelow. On April 21, Soviet artillery began shelling central Berlin, and Soviet troops reached the city's outskirts. Konev's armies approached from the south while my formations pressed from the east and north. On April 25, Soviet forces completed the encirclement of Berlin. On that same day, American and Soviet troops met at the Elbe near Torgau, cutting Nazi Germany apart. Berlin was now isolated from any realistic possibility of rescue.

A City Turned Into a Battlefield

Berlin was enormous, and urban warfare favored defenders in ways open ground did not. Streets could become firing lanes. Apartment buildings became strongpoints. Rubble created barricades and obstacles. Bridges, railway embankments, canals, subway tunnels, and massive stone buildings divided the battlefield into countless smaller fights. German troops placed machine guns and antitank weapons wherever they could delay us. A Soviet unit might capture one intersection only to encounter another defensive position a few hundred yards farther ahead.

Germany's Last Defenders

Berlin's defenders were a mixture of forces. There were regular German Army units, Waffen-SS troops, police, sailors, and foreign SS volunteers, along with members of the Volkssturm—the militia Hitler's government had created from men who were often too old or otherwise unsuitable for regular military service. Hitler Youth members were also used in combat roles, including some teenagers armed with Panzerfaust antitank weapons. Some fought with determination. Others surrendered, deserted, or simply tried to disappear. Germany was sending the remnants of its population into a battle it could no longer win.

Artillery Against the Capital

We possessed an overwhelming advantage in artillery. Soviet guns, mortars, and rocket launchers fired into German positions as our infantry moved forward. Tanks and self-propelled guns accompanied assault groups through the streets. But Berlin could not simply be flattened from a distance and declared captured. German defenders occupied cellars, upper floors, courtyards, ruins, and fortified government buildings. Our infantry had to enter those places and remove them.

Block by Block

Urban combat required different tactics from the great armored offensives that had carried us across Poland. Soviet assault groups combined infantry, engineers, flamethrowers, artillery, and armored vehicles. Engineers blasted openings through walls so soldiers could move between buildings without exposing themselves in the streets. Tanks fired directly into fortified positions at short range. German Panzerfaust teams hid among the ruins, waiting for Soviet armor to pass within range. Every block could become its own battlefield.

Civilians Beneath Our Feet

Hundreds of thousands of civilians remained trapped inside Berlin. Many crowded into cellars, subway stations, and air-raid shelters while artillery struck above them. Food and clean water became increasingly difficult to obtain. Hospitals overflowed. Fires burned through damaged neighborhoods. Some civilians attempted to flee between the lines, while others remained underground waiting for whichever army reached their street first. Soviet soldiers had seen their own cities destroyed by Germany, but Berlin's civilians were now experiencing what modern war meant when the front arrived at their homes.

Toward the Center

Our objective was increasingly clear: the government district in central Berlin. Soviet formations pushed toward the Reichstag, the Reich Chancellery, and the area containing Hitler's underground bunker. Fighting intensified as the distance narrowed. German commanders attempted to organize counterattacks and hold corridors through the city, but their forces were being divided into isolated groups. Ammunition, communications, and mobility were disappearing.

The Reichstag Ahead

The Reichstag had not been the functioning center of Hitler's government, but to Soviet soldiers it carried enormous symbolic importance. It represented the German state and stood close to the heart of the Nazi regime. Stalin wanted Berlin captured quickly, and our soldiers understood what raising the Soviet flag over that building would mean after nearly four years of war against Germany. By April 29, Soviet units were fighting through the government district and approaching the Reichstag itself.

Inside Berlin: Civilians Trapped in the Final Battle — Told by Marta Hillers

The generals could look at maps and see arrows moving toward Berlin. We civilians saw something different. We saw broken windows, burning buildings, empty shelves, wounded neighbors, buckets waiting for water, and mattresses carried into cellars. By late April 1945, the Soviet armies were entering the city and Berlin was becoming a battlefield street by street. I was thirty-three years old, living among people who no longer asked whether Germany would win. Our questions were much smaller now: Where can we find water? Is there bread? Which street is still safe? Will we survive until morning?

The Cellar Becomes Our World

As artillery fire grew heavier, basements and air-raid shelters became our homes. Neighbors who had barely spoken before now slept beside one another. We learned to recognize different sounds—the distant thunder of artillery, the crash of a nearby shell, the rattle of gunfire in the streets. People carried blankets, candles, containers, and whatever food remained downstairs. Sleep came in fragments. Each explosion brought the same moment of silence afterward as everyone waited to discover whether our building had been hit.

Searching for Water

Water became one of our greatest concerns. Bombing and fighting damaged Berlin's utilities, and electricity, gas, and water service became unreliable or disappeared in many areas. People emerged from shelter carrying buckets, pots, bottles, and anything capable of holding liquid. Pumps and wells became gathering places. Going outside could mean crossing streets under artillery or small-arms fire, but remaining underground without water was impossible. War had reduced a modern European capital to one of humanity's oldest problems: finding enough water to remain alive.

Food Becomes Treasure

Food was equally precious. Germany's rationing system had existed throughout the war, but now transportation and distribution were collapsing. Shops were empty or destroyed. People searched damaged buildings, abandoned military stores, warehouses, gardens, and whatever other sources remained. Potatoes, bread, flour, canned goods, and even small amounts of sugar became valuable. Hunger changed people's standards quickly. Nobody cared about a fine meal. We cared about whether there would be another meal.

Rumors Instead of News

For years the Nazi government had controlled what Germans heard through newspapers and radio. Now even that system was collapsing. We heard rumors constantly. Hitler had a new weapon. General Wenck's army was coming to save Berlin. The Americans would reach us before the Soviets. Hitler had left the city. Hitler was dead. Some people continued believing official announcements; others laughed bitterly at them. As telephone lines failed and government offices disappeared, reliable information became almost impossible to obtain. We often knew more from the direction of artillery fire than from any announcement.

The Government Disappears

The Nazi state had once seemed to be everywhere—uniforms, flags, officials, police, posters, regulations. Then suddenly much of that authority vanished. Local officials disappeared or became powerless. Some Nazi Party members removed insignia and attempted to blend into the population. German soldiers passed through neighborhoods alone or in small groups. Others continued fighting from barricades and buildings. There was no single moment when government ended. Instead, authority seemed to dissolve street by street.

The Red Army Arrives

Then Soviet soldiers entered our neighborhoods. For many Berliners, this was the moment they had feared most. Some soldiers searched apartments for German troops, weapons, alcohol, watches, or valuables. Some behaved correctly; others looted. There were also killings and widespread sexual violence. Women warned one another and tried to hide. Some disguised themselves, stayed close to relatives, or sought the protection of individual Soviet soldiers or officers. I myself became a victim of rape and later sought the protection of a Soviet officer as a means of reducing the danger from other men.

Not One Kind of Soldier

Because I knew some Russian, I spoke with Soviet soldiers and discovered how misleading it was to imagine them as a single type of person. Some frightened us. Some helped civilians. Some were disciplined; others were drunk or violent. Many had lost family members during Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. Their country had endured burned villages, massacres, starvation, and millions of deaths. Understanding where their anger came from did not excuse crimes against German civilians, but it reminded me that the soldiers entering Berlin carried their own memories of suffering.

Hospitals Without Enough of Anything

The wounded filled hospitals and improvised medical stations. Doctors and nurses worked under conditions that grew worse each day. Medicine, clean water, electricity, bandages, and food were limited. Soldiers and civilians arrived with terrible injuries from artillery, bullets, burns, and collapsing buildings. Medical workers continued because there was nothing else to do. The battle outside was measured in captured streets. Inside hospitals, it was measured in beds, dressings, amputations, and lives that could or could not be saved.

Survival Replaces Politics

By the final days of April, the grand language of the Third Reich seemed almost grotesque. Hitler had promised a thousand-year empire; we were boiling water and searching ruins for potatoes. The government had demanded sacrifice until victory; now boys and old men were being sent against Soviet tanks. On April 30, Hitler killed himself in his bunker. Most Berliners did not know immediately. The battle continued around us because armies do not stop fighting the instant a dictator dies.

Hitler's Death and Germany's Military Collapse — Told by Alfred Jodl

By the final days of April 1945, the maps at German headquarters no longer showed a front in the traditional sense. They showed fragments. Soviet armies had surrounded Berlin. American and Soviet troops had met on the Elbe. The Ruhr had been lost, Allied forces were advancing through southern Germany, and German formations were being separated into isolated pockets. As Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command, I continued receiving reports and issuing orders. But increasingly we were commanding forces that could no longer reach one another, reinforce one another, or change the outcome of the war.

Berlin Is Surrounded

Hitler remained in the Führerbunker beneath Berlin while Soviet troops fought their way toward the government district. He continued demanding counterattacks. General Walther Wenck's Twelfth Army was ordered toward Berlin from the west, while other formations were expected to attack the Soviet encirclement. On maps, such movements could still be drawn with arrows. In reality, the forces available were too weak, too scattered, or already engaged elsewhere. The armies that Hitler imagined rescuing Berlin simply did not possess the strength to accomplish it.

Orders From a Dying Government

Communication with Berlin became increasingly difficult. Reports arrived late or contradicted one another. Units disappeared from contact. Commanders sometimes received orders that battlefield conditions made impossible to execute. Hitler had long demanded that strategically important positions be held rather than abandoned, and now this tendency reached its final extreme. Even with Soviet soldiers fighting inside Berlin, orders continued to speak of counterattacks and relief forces. The machinery of command remained in motion after the military structure supporting it had largely collapsed.

Hitler Is Dead

On April 30, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker, one day after marrying Eva Braun, who died with him. Before his death, Hitler had named Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as President of the Reich and Joseph Goebbels as Chancellor. The news reached Dönitz's headquarters at Flensburg in northern Germany. Hitler's death did not immediately end the war. German forces still existed in Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Austria, northern Germany, and other areas. Someone now had to decide what those forces would do.

Berlin Surrenders

Inside Berlin, organized resistance could not continue much longer. General Helmuth Weidling, commander of the city's defense, authorized surrender on May 2. Soviet forces took control of the ruined capital. Thousands of German soldiers became prisoners, while others had already attempted to escape through Soviet lines. The city from which Hitler had directed much of the war was lost. But outside Berlin, German armies were still fighting.

The New Objective: Reach the West

Dönitz and the remaining German leadership understood that complete victory was impossible. Their immediate objective became different: surrender as many German soldiers and civilians as possible to the Americans and British rather than to the Soviets. Fear of Soviet captivity was widespread, especially among troops who had fought on the Eastern Front. German forces and refugees moved west wherever routes remained open. Every additional day, Dönitz hoped, might allow more people to cross into areas controlled by the Western Allies.

Surrenders Begin Piece by Piece

German forces began surrendering in separate regions. In Italy, German forces had already agreed to surrender effective May 2. On May 4, Field Marshal Montgomery accepted the surrender of German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark, and northwestern Germany. Other formations attempted similar arrangements. From our perspective, these partial capitulations served a purpose: they ended hopeless fighting in the west while leaving time for troops farther east to move toward Western Allied lines.

The Allies Refuse Our Strategy

The Western Allies understood what we were attempting. General Eisenhower's headquarters insisted that Germany could not surrender only in the west while continuing to fight the Soviet Union. The demand was unconditional surrender on all fronts. If we refused, Eisenhower threatened to close Western Allied lines to German soldiers attempting to surrender from the east. That changed the calculation immediately. Continuing negotiations risked trapping precisely the men and refugees Dönitz hoped to move west.

I Am Sent to Reims

I arrived at Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims, France, on May 6. I initially attempted to negotiate terms that would allow additional time for German troops to move westward. The Allied position remained firm. There would be no separate peace. Germany had to surrender simultaneously to the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. I communicated with Dönitz and waited for authorization. There was little left to negotiate.

The War Has Reached Its End

By then the truth could no longer be concealed behind military terminology. Hitler was dead. Berlin had fallen. German armies were surrendering by the hundreds of thousands. Transportation and communications had collapsed, Allied armies occupied much of the country, and the Soviets controlled the capital. The question facing us was no longer whether Germany could continue the war in any meaningful strategic sense. It was how many more people would die before we admitted that it could not.

One Signature Remained

Late on May 6, authorization finally arrived for me to accept unconditional surrender. Shortly after midnight, I entered the room at Reims where Allied representatives waited. The Germany that had invaded Poland less than six years earlier had conquered much of Europe and then been driven back into its own territory. Now its government possessed neither the armies nor the land necessary to continue. My next duty would require no battle plan and no operational map. It required a signature—and with it, the European war would come to an end.

Germany Surrenders: Victory in Europe — Told by Jodl, Hillers, and Bradley

The War Could No Longer Continue

Alfred Jodl: By May 1945, there was no longer a military solution available to Germany. Hitler was dead, Berlin had fallen, the Ruhr had been destroyed as a fighting force, and German armies were surrendering across Europe. Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz's government still hoped to surrender as many forces as possible to the Americans and British while allowing soldiers and civilians in the east time to escape the Soviets. I was sent to General Eisenhower's headquarters at Reims, France, hoping to gain that time. The Allies understood precisely what we were attempting.

Omar Bradley: We had no intention of allowing Germany to surrender selectively. Our armies had fought alongside the Soviet Union against the same enemy, and Eisenhower insisted upon unconditional surrender on every front. By then American soldiers were meeting Soviet soldiers along the Elbe while German units were trying desperately to move west. We understood why many feared Soviet captivity, but Germany was not going to be permitted to continue fighting in the east while surrendering to us in the west.

The Signature at Reims

Alfred Jodl: In the early hours of May 7, I entered the Allied headquarters at Reims. At 2:41 a.m., I signed the instrument of unconditional surrender of Germany's armed forces. General Walter Bedell Smith signed for the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, General Ivan Susloparov signed for the Soviet High Command, and French General François Sevez signed as witness. The surrender was to take effect at 11:01 p.m. Central European Time on May 8. Germany had less than two days to order its remaining forces to stop fighting.

Omar Bradley: For us, that document meant that the enormous military machine we had been fighting since America entered the European war was finally being ordered to lay down its weapons. But surrender is not as simple as signing a sheet of paper. Orders had to reach German formations scattered across Europe. Prisoners had to be processed. Weapons had to be collected. Cities had to be occupied. Millions of soldiers and civilians were suddenly moving through a continent whose roads, railways, bridges, and governments had been shattered.

Berlin Signs Again

Alfred Jodl: The Soviets wanted the surrender formally confirmed in Berlin, the capital their armies had captured after such costly fighting. On the night of May 8 into May 9, another ceremony took place at Karlshorst in Berlin. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel represented the German High Command. Marshal Georgy Zhukov represented the Soviet Supreme High Command, while Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder represented Eisenhower. American General Carl Spaatz and French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny signed as witnesses. There could now be no misunderstanding. Germany's armed forces had surrendered.

What Victory Looked Like in Berlin

Marta Hillers: You speak of surrender documents. In Berlin, we experienced surrender differently. The artillery finally stopped. That silence was itself remarkable. After days of explosions, gunfire, burning buildings, and people hiding underground, suddenly we could hear ordinary sounds again. We emerged into streets filled with rubble. The Third Reich was gone, but there was no normal Germany waiting underneath it. We needed food, water, housing, medical care, and information about relatives who had disappeared.

Omar Bradley: That difference mattered. In London, Paris, New York, and other Allied cities, people could celebrate victory. In Germany, defeat meant occupation and uncertainty. Allied armies divided the country into occupation zones. Our responsibility changed almost overnight from destroying German military resistance to controlling territory filled with civilians, prisoners, refugees, former forced laborers, concentration camp survivors, and defeated soldiers.

Europe Begins Moving

Marta Hillers: People seemed to be everywhere. Refugees had fled west before the Soviet advance. Former prisoners and forced laborers wanted to return home. Soldiers searched for their units or families. Families searched for missing soldiers. Some people discovered that the homes they had left no longer existed. Others learned that the borders of Europe itself would change. The war had ended, but millions remained displaced, and returning "home" could be a journey of hundreds or thousands of miles—or impossible altogether.

Alfred Jodl: For Germany, surrender meant complete military defeat and Allied occupation. The government under Dönitz continued briefly, but its authority was disappearing, and its members were arrested later in May. German armed forces were disarmed. The nation that had begun the European war with the invasion of Poland in September 1939 now lay occupied by the powers it had fought.

Victory in Europe

Omar Bradley: May 8 became Victory in Europe Day—V-E Day—for the Western Allies. Crowds filled streets across Britain, the United States, France, and other Allied nations. In Moscow, because the final Berlin surrender occurred after midnight Moscow time, Victory Day was celebrated on May 9. After nearly six years of European war, Nazi Germany had been defeated. Millions who had wondered whether they would live to see that day finally knew the fighting in Europe was over.

Marta Hillers: But victory and defeat looked very different depending upon where you stood. For someone celebrating in London, May 1945 meant liberation and survival. For concentration camp survivors, liberation came after unimaginable suffering. For Soviet families, victory came after staggering losses. For Germans standing among destroyed cities, it meant defeat, occupation, hunger, reckoning, and uncertainty. The same date could carry many different memories.

The World War Was Not Finished

Omar Bradley: And there was one fact nobody could forget: V-E Day did not mean World War II was over. American, British, Australian, Chinese, Soviet, and other Allied leaders still faced the war against Japan, though the Soviet Union had not yet entered that conflict against Japan. American forces were fighting on Okinawa when Germany surrendered, and preparations were underway for possible future operations against the Japanese home islands. Thousands of servicemen who had survived Germany wondered whether they might now be sent to the Pacific.

Alfred Jodl: Germany's war had ended with unconditional surrender. The consequences of the decisions made during the previous years would continue long afterward.

Marta Hillers: And for those of us among the ruins, history did not end when the shooting stopped. We simply entered its next chapter.

Omar Bradley: Europe had been liberated from Nazi domination, but victory had left a continent filled with graves, ruins, displaced people, and difficult questions about what should come next. On May 8, 1945, one enormous part of the Second World War ended. The task now was to build something from what remained—and to finish a war that was still being fought on the other side of the world.