Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943. Large-scale aerial bombing of Germany escalated in 1944, and the Axis powers were pushed back in Eastern and Southern Europe. Following the Allied invasion of France, Germany was conquered by the Soviet Union from the east and the other Allied powers from the west and capitulated within a year.
On June 6, 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces established a western front with the D-Day landings in Normandy. On July 20, 1944, Hitler narrowly survived a bomb attack. He ordered savage reprisals, resulting in 7,000 arrests and the execution of more than 4,900 people. The failed Ardennes Offensive (December 16, 1944 – January 25, 1945) was the last major German campaign of the war. Soviet forces entered Germany on January 27. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat and his repeated insistence that the war be fought to the last man led to unnecessary death and destruction in the closing months of the war. Through his Justice Minister, Otto Georg Thierack, he ordered that anyone who was not prepared to fight should be summarily court-martialed. Thousands of people were put to death. In many areas, people looked for ways to surrender to the approaching Allies, in spite of exhortations of local leaders to continue the struggle. Hitler also ordered the intentional destruction of transport, bridges, industries, and other infrastructure—a scorched earth decree—but Armaments Minister Albert Speer was able to keep this order from being fully carried out.
BATTLE OF BERLIN
Starting on January 12, 1945, the Red Army began the Vistula–Oder Offensive across the Narew River; and, from Warsaw, a three-day operation on a broad front, which incorporated four army Fronts. On the fourth day, the Red Army broke out and started moving west, up to 30 to 40 km (19 to 25 mi) per day, taking East Prussia, Danzig, and Poznań, drawing up on a line 60 km (37 mi) east of Berlin along the Oder River.
The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European theater. Following the Vistula–Oder Offensive of January–February 1945, the Red Army had temporarily halted on a line 60 km (37 mi) east of Berlin. When the offensive resumed on April 16, two Soviet fronts (army groups) attacked Berlin from the east and south, while a third overran German forces positioned north of Berlin.
The first defensive preparations at the outskirts of Berlin were made on March 20, under the newly appointed commander of Army Group Vistula, General Gotthard Heinrici. Before the main battle in Berlin commenced, the Red Army encircled the city after successful battles of the Seelow Heights and Halbe. During April 20, 1945, the 1st Belorussian Front led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov started shelling Berlin's city center, while Marshal Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front had pushed from the south through the last formations of Army Group Center. The German defenses were mainly led by Helmuth Weidling. The units consisted of several depleted, disorganized Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS divisions, along with poorly trained Volkssturm and Hitler Youth members. Within the next few days, the Red Army reached the city center where close-quarters combat raged.
Before the battle was over, German Führer Adolf Hitler and some of his followers committed suicide. The city's defenders surrendered on May 2, but fighting continued to the north-west, west, and south-west of the city until the end of the war in Europe on May 8 (May 9, in the Soviet Union) as German units fought westward so that they could surrender to the Western Allies rather than to the Soviets.
A devastated street in the center of Berlin, just off the Unter den Linden, July 3, 1945.
The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European theater.
THE FALL OF FASCIST ITALY
The Western Allies' invasion of Sicily launched on July 9 of 1943, combined with previous Italian failures, resulted in the ousting and arrest of Benito Mussolini later that month. On September 3, 1943, the Western Allies invaded the Italian mainland, following Italy's armistice with the Allies. Germany responded by disarming Italian forces, seizing military control of Italian areas, and creating a series of defensive lines. German special forces then rescued Mussolini, who then soon established a new client state in German occupied Italy named the Italian Social Republic, causing an Italian civil war.
In 1944, Mussolini urged Hitler to focus on destroying Britain, rather than the Soviet Union, as Mussolini claimed that it was Britain which had turned the conflict into a world war and that the British Empire must be destroyed in order for peace to come in Europe. As the situation became desperate with Allied forces in control of most of Italy, and from February 1945 resumed to pushing the Axis forces to North of Gothic Line, Mussolini declared that "he would fight to the last Italian" and spoke of turning Milan into the "Stalingrad of Italy," where Fascism would make its last glorious fight. Around April 25, 1945, Mussolini's republic came to an end (Liberation Day). On this day, a general partisan uprising alongside the efforts of Allied forces, during their final offensive in Italy, managed to oust the Germans from Italy almost entirely. On April 27, partisans caught Mussolini, his mistress (Clara Petacci), several RSI ministers, and several other Italian Fascists while they were attempting to flee. On April 28, the partisans shot Mussolini and most of the other captives. The RSI Minister of Defense, Rodolfo Graziani, surrendered what was left of the RSI on May 2, when the German forces in Italy capitulated; this put a definitive end to the Italian Social Republic.
Mussolini rescued by German troops from his prison in Campo Imperatore on 12 September 1943.
In 1943, Mussolini established a new client state in German occupied Italy named the Italian Social Republic, causing an Italian civil war.