End of the conflict

By mid 1943, the tide of the war had turned against the Axis powers

What indicated this?

• Rommel’s Afrika Korps had been driven out of North Africa

• The allies had taken Sicily and began advancing through Italy

• Germans had lost initiative after the Battle of Kursk

• Allies had gained advantage in the Battle of the Atlantic

• Allied bombing devastated German industry

Despite this, the Allied knew that a victory against Germany would require an attack on German-occupied France, driving the Wehrmacht back into Germany

How did Allied leaders come to this decision?

• US General Dwight D Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Allied Commander of Operation Overlord

  • This caused mistrust between the west and the Soviets, who believed that they were happy to see the Nazis and Communists destroy each other in a war of attrition

  • When Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill met at the Tehran Conference in November 1943, western leaders promised Stalin they would open another front in France by May 1944

    • German defences were strong, and if an amphibious allied attack failed, it would take months to try again

    • Roosevelt wanted to work with Stalin for Soviet intervention against Japan in the Pacific War

    • Churchill was suspicious of Stalin and wanted an allied front in the Balkans to prevent Soviet control of Eastern Europe

    • There was also a danger that the Soviets could march into Germany alone

  • Thus, the decision to invade France in 1944 was taken because of the military position in Germany, but also preparing for the post-war situation in Europe

Why was an attack on Germany difficult?

The German position in the west was protected by the Atlantic Wall, stretching from Norway to Spain, comprised of concrete bunkers, tank traps and artillery

• The bocage vegetation in France also assisted German defences

Although the Germans knew an attack was coming, they did not know where

What were the possibilities?

• Although an attack was coming, German intelligence did not know where

  • Norway was a possibility with Allied bogus intelligence in Operation Bodyguard

  • Calais was another likely attack, only 35 kms from the British coast

  • The third possibility was Normandy, the true allied choice

    • Keeping the location secret meant that the Germans would spread their defensive forces thin

    • Hitler’s hesitancy and caution stopped him from fortifying Normandy at the expense of Calais

As a result, allied secrecy was important and had to be maintained in a variety of ways

• Allies leaked a stream of false intelligence which they knew the Germans would be able to decipher

• Allied commanders like General Montgomery were given ‘look alikes’ and would make appearances far from real locations, hoping German spies would relay this information

• Phoney armies and phoney air squadrons were gathered in locations away from real embarkation points

Secrecy was important because preparations took months

• The allies constructed giant floating harbours called ‘mullberries’ which were towed across the Channel to be used to disembark troops, tanks and supplies

• Flexible pipelines were laid beneath the Channel which would give allied forces 1.5m litres of oil a day

• March 1944 a German radar station was attacked in Belgium to assess the capabilities of allied forces, and its success gave hope for operations in France

By the middle of 1944, Britain became a giant aircraft carrier, and there were over 1.5 million US and Canadian aircraft carrier

What prevented the invasion of Normandy from going ahead? Why was this important

• Although the invasion date was set for 5 June, Group Captain Stagg, the chief allied meteorologist, warned Eisenhower of bad weather

  • The invasion was postponed until the worst of the storm was over

  • Eisenhower ordered the attack on 6 June

AJP Taylor: “In Paris Stagg’s German counterpart failed to notice the approaching improvement in the weather. On such small chances hang the fate of nations”

What happened at the Normandy invasion?

The Normandy invasion was staggering, involving over two million men, 12,000 aircraft, 139 warships, 221 smaller combat vessels, 4000 landing craft and 805 merchant ships

• Up to 100,000 members of the French resistance assisted with guerilla attacks

  • Allied troops were allocated specific landing areas divided into five sections: Sword (British), Juno (Canadian and British), Gold (British), Omaha (US) and Utah (US)

    • British and US airborne divisions launched a ferocious aerial bombardment, followed by a massive barrage of allied warships

    • The landings at Sword, June, Gold and Utah were achieved efficiently and with light casualties

      • German counter-attack between Juno and Sword was defeated and British troops moved inland

      • Omaha experienced greater difficulties as they were pinned on the foreshore

  • By nightfall, 156,000 allied troops had landed in Normandy

    • By 2 July, a million men landed in France, with only 9000 casualties

The Allies commenced their breakout from Normandy in late July

What events led to the liberation of France

within six weeks, France had been liberated and the allies arrived in Belgium

• On 25 July Operation Cobra, the allied troops began to move out of Normandy

• French resistance forces gained control of Brittany

• Canadian troops launched Operation Totalise, aiming to trap German troops near Falaise, although called off on 11 August

  • American forces moved eastwards, cornering German troops in the Falaise pocket

  • 50,000 were captured and 10,000 were killed but 30,000 escaped across the Seine

• Mid-August US and French troops invaded southern France in Operation Anvil, advancing north through the Rhone Valley

  • 15 August workers in Paris went on strike, and although Hitler ordered Paris to be levelled, the German governor, von Choltitz refused

  • Paris was liberated, and retribution was carried out against the French who collaborated with the Germans, around 10,000 were executed

  • By October, de Gaulle restored order and replaced Vichy representatives with Resistance leaders, merging the Resistance with the French army

• The campaign to retake France took around seven weeks, and the losses on both sides were considerable: 400,000 Germans and 200,000 allied soldiers dead

D-Day and the liberation of France

Basil Liddell Hart

R W Thompson

Andrew Roberts

• “The very toughness of the resistance that so much delayed the allies’ break-out ensured them a clear path through France once they broke out”

• “Uncertainty inhibited the violent counterblows which alone could have driven the British amd Americans back into the sea…Had Rommel’s divisions been there, the Omaha beach-head must have been smashed”

• “It is more doubtful that an invasion in 1943 could have succeeded, and the delay of ‘Overlord’ was arguably - after stiffening Britain’s resolve in 1940-41 - Churchill’s most important single contribution to the allied victory”

From Kursk to the end of the war, the war in the east was the story of the Russian ‘sledgehammer’ as Zhukov referred to his forces

What were Soviet offensives from January-December 1944

• On 5 January 1944, General Konev began the Soviet offensive to recapture the western Ukraine and the Crimea

• The siege of Leningrad was broken on 27 January

• By the end of February, Germany’s Army Group North had been routed

• Throughout April, the Red Army fought to free the Crimean Peninsula of Axis forces

  • General Tolbulkin had almost half a million men, while German and Romanian forces were down to 200,000 men

  • German losses exceeded 100,000 when the Crimean port of Sebastopol was taken

• In early June, the Soviets attacked Finnish forces

  • Finnish forces under Marshal von Mannerheim held off Soviet forces, and made peace on September 2

    • Agreement was extremely moderate and allowed Finland to remain independent and capitalist

• 22 June 1944, General Zhukov commenced Operation Bagration

  • A massive assault on Hitler’s strongest eastern forces, Army Group Centre, moving towards Poland, comprised over one million people

  • The Soviets were ruthless as the Germans lost 300,000 men, the same amount lost at Stalingrad

• Soviet forces began a campaign to drive the Germans out of the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, threatening supply links to Sweden and Finland

  • German losses exceeded 100,000

• 17 July, Soviet forces entered Poland, and alongside Polish resistance forces, rose up against the Germans

• 12 August a coup against the pro-German government in Romania led to their surrender to the Soviets

• Early September Soviet forces invaded Bulgaria and Slovakia

• By the end of 1944, Hitler’s empire in central and eastern Europe was diminished to western Poland, Czechoslovakia, western Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and northern Italy

What was the Warsaw Uprising from August-October 1944

• Although Polish resistance forces were equal to the Germans in numbers, the latter had an advantage in tanks and air support

  • Polish resistance was supported by the Polish government in exile in London

• By late August, German air and artillery superiority was proving too much for the Poles, and Stalin stopped his forces to allow the battle to occur

  • By allowing the Germans to defeat Polish resistance, Stalin would move in on the weak Germans, having total Soviet domination over Poland

• The Warsaw uprising came to an end in early October, as the last Polish fighters surrendered

  • Germans evacuated the city, sending over 200,000 Poles into concentration camps

Russian Counter-offensives

M L Altgovzen

Jonathon J Jordan

• “Polish reactionary circles irresponsibly encouraged the inhabitants of (Warsaw) to launch an ill-prepared uprising without prior agreement with the Soviet military command. The result was the killing by the Germans of many thousands of people and the complete destruction of Warsaw”

• “Many German and Soviet accounts agree that Operation Bagration was Hitler’s worst military setback of the war. But the offensive lacked a single, dramatic focal point, such as Stalingrad…Nevertheless, Bragration dramatically turned the tide of the war against the Third Reich”

By the autumn of 1944, there was tremendous confidence amongst Allied leaders that the

war was close to ending

What happened in the war in the west from September - December 1944

• On 17 September, General Montgomery launched Operation Market Garden, aiming to outflank the German defences in the Netherlands by seizing the bridgeheads over the Rhine behind the old Siegfried Line

• Hopes for Market Garden were too optimistic

  • Allied intelligence was poor, as the British could not use the Enigma machine to decipher German communications as this region used different radio frequencies

  • Maps were outdated and there was no provisions for reinforcements or evacuation

• While the campaign initially went well, but divisions were dropped kilometres away from their targets and were unable to battle their way through German resistance

  • The German forces at Arnhem were supposed to hold out for two days, not ten

    • Due to poor weather, unexpectedly strong German forces, the inability to reinforce supplies and troops and the German discovery of Allied plans turned Montgomery’s operation into a fiasco

• 2200 men were evacuated, 18,000 casualties and the Germans took revenge on the local Dutch population

• By the end of 1944, the final defeat of Germany seemed a matter of time, fighting a three-front war and running short of resources

  • However, the allies were not united in their aims

    • Stalin mistrusted the west and vice versa, particularly after the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939

    • Relations between Allied commanders were strained, as Patton and Bradley disagreed with Montgomery frequently

• Against this background Hitler took the offensive for one last time with operation ‘Watch on the Rhine’, renamed Autumn Mist, the Ardennes offensive

  • Western countries refer to this as the Battle of the Bulge

    • Hitler’s aim was to split allied forces and capture Antwerp, whose capture would cripple allied supply bases

    • Capturing allied forces on the coast could lead to a negotiated peace

  • The German offensive began 16 December surprised allied troops

    • German forces pushed through the lightly defended Ardennes region, but failed to make it to the Meuse River, creating a ‘bulge’ in the American line

    • American reinforcements were diverted to deal with this attack, and as the weather improved, the Germans were overcome

  • The Ardennes offensive was extremely costly for both sides, and while it delayed allied invasion of Germany, it greatly weakened Germany

    • The US could replace their losses, Hitler could not

  • AJP Taylor: “This was Hitler’s last gamble - brilliant in conception, impossible to execute. The God of War does not love cleverness; he loves the Big Battalions”

What happened in the war in the west from January-May 1945

• The march into Germany through the early months of 1945 went fairly smoothly, despite German efforts at resistance

  • German units surrendered in Italy, Holland and France, and Germany agreed to an unconditional surrender on 7 May

  • By midnight 8 May, the war in Europe was over

What happened in the war in the east from January - May 1945

• The final Russian offensive was brought forward to 12 January, after Churchill’s pleas to relieve the pressure German offensive action in the west

  • Russian forces struck on several fronts across a distance of 1200 kms, from the Baltic in the north to the Carpathian mountains in the south

  • The Germans were overwhelmed and retreated apart from odd pockets of resistance

  • The Soviet attack reached its climax in April at Berlin

    • Led by Zhukov, Konev and Rokossovsky with 2.5 million men, 6000 tanks, 7500 aircraft and 42,000 artillery guns

    • The German defence was led by the old men and fourteen year-old boys of the German Home Guard called the Volkssturm

    • 1 May the Red Flag flew over the Reichstag building, and surrender on 8 May

The Battle of the Bulge

Hugh Coles

• “There is a strong possibility that Hitler…was motivated by the same impulse which triggered so many of the bloody offensives of World War I - to seize the initiative for its own sake without a viable strategic objective view”

The allied leaders agreed on the idea of war trials at the Tehran conference of November 1943, and would operate under the terms agreed in the London Charter of August 1945

• The concept of war crime trials was not new but was needed to make an example of the Nazi leaders for several reasons

• Atrocities occur in all wars, and no nation can claim that its soldiers have not committed acts which would bring disgrace to that nation, but atrocities of the Germans were a part of government policy

• Necessary to ensure that the German people realised what had happened and that they had enabled this to happen

• Idealistic hope that after such an example, similar acts would not occur, strengthening the United Nations as a body willing to ensure peace

What were the defendants charged with?

• Conspiracy

• Crimes against humanity

• War crimes

• Crimes against peace

24 leading Nazis were to be tried but only 21 would eventually stand trial

Who escaped trial?

• German Labour Front leader Robert ley committed suicide

• Gustav Krupp was too ill to stand trial

• Martin Bormann was never captured and was tried in absentia

• Heinrich Himmler committed suicide while in British suicide

• Josef Goebbels committed suicide in Hitler’s bunker

Leading Nazis who were tried, their position and their sentence

The Person Charged	Position in the Third Reich	Sentence and Fate
Hans Frank	Governor of German occupied Poland	Death by hanging
Hermann Goering	Head of the Luftwaffe	Sentenced to death, but committed suicide two hours before
Joachim von Ribbentrop	Foreign Minister	Death by hanging
Martin Bormann	Head of Reich Chancellery	Sentenced to death in absentia
Rudolf Hess	Deputy Fuhrer	Life imprisonment Died in 1987
Franz von Papen	Vice-Chancellor under Hitler	Acquitted; died in 1969
Albert Speer	Armaments Minister 1942-45	20 years imprisonment; released 1966; died 1981

The trial of Nazi war criminals continued decades after as former Nazis, concentration camp guards and SS officers were tracked down and brought to justice

For example?

• Adolf Eichmann had been tracked down by Mossad in Argentina and was kidnapped, put on trial, and executed in 1962

Nuremberg War Crime Trials

John Toland

John Man

• “He never put the blame on others or hid behind the figure of Hitler. He took charge of the prisoner’s dock, aggressively dictating a concerted strategy of defence. Back in the cell block, he would call himself captain of the first-string team”

• “Only the victors possess the means of bringing criminals such as Goering to justice. But it does not in any way diminish the crimes of the vanquished, nor the need to punish them”

Reasons for the Allied victory

• Greater allied production of war materials

• Germany’s overextended lines of communication

• Germany’s empire was simply too big to control

• The hostility of people in the occupied territories

• The allies gained the moral high ground

• Germany’s failure to take advantage of the unpopularity of Stalin’s regime amongst the nationalities

• The liability of Italy as an ally

• Superior allied political and military leadership

• Superior allied intelligence

• Failure to knock Britain out of the war in 1940

• Failure to take Moscow in 1941

• Becoming bogged down on the Eastern Front

• Defeat at Stalingrad was a turning point

• Failure to gain control of North Africa, Suez Canal and Middle East oil

• Allied control of the seas and the allied victory in the Battle for the Atlantic

• Allied bombing of Germany

• Allied control of the air

• Germany’s inefficient economy