On the afternoon of 2 May 1945, the German forces within the Berlin Defence Area, under the command of General Helmuth Weidling, surrendered to the Red Army.
Last night, after Joseph Goebbels committed suicide and General Hans Krebs hinted at planning to kill himself as well, Weidling was left in command and decided to end the pointless defence of the city.
At 0125 hours today, Weidling, speaking in his capacity as LVI Panzer Corps commander, contacts General Vasily Chuikov, commander of the 8th Guards Army.
Between 0600 and 0700 hours, Weidling arrives at Chuikov`s HQ to surrender the LVI Panzer Corps and Berlin.
Back in the Führerbunker, Krebs and General Burgdorf commit suicide.
The ceasefire goes into effect at 1500 hours, and the Battle of Berlin is over. It has cost the Red Army around 81,000 dead and over 280,000 wounded or sick. Between 90,000 and 100,000 German troops and 125,000 civilians are dead, another 220,000 are wounded, and 480,000 are POWs.
During the day, TASS correspondent Yevgeny Khaldei stages a photograph atop the Reichstag roof (title image of post). But why? The Red Victory Banner (Image 2) actually flew atop the Reichstag as early as 30 April, when elements of the 3rd Shock Army`s 150th Division breached the building, first planting the banner on a second-floor balcony at 1425 hours and then on the roof at 2240 hours. However, the Germans still held the building, and the flag did not survive long enough for a photograph. So today, Khaldei directs several soldiers (likely to be Sergeants Meliton Kantaria, Mikhail Yegorov, and Private Aleksei Kovalev) to hoist a large Soviet flag on the roof while he takes the picture. Seems as if this one could become quite iconic in the future.
Meanwhile, all German forces in Italy lay down their arms in accordance with the surrender signed on 29 April at the Royal Palace of Caserta. You can hear all about the secret negotiations between the Germans and the Western Allies that led to this in Astrid and Anna`s special episode of Spies and Ties on Operation Sunrise by following the link in bio.
Picture: Raising a flag over the Reichstag
Source: TASS/Yevgeny Khaldei
On 1 May 1945, the newly appointed Reichspräsident, Großadmiral Karl Dönitz, announces the death of Adolf Hitler. Meanwhile, what`s left of the German high command attempts to negotiate an armistice with the Soviets.
After Hitler shot himself, which we covered in yesterday`s post and which you can learn about in great detail from Indy and Spartacus` special weekly episode on our YouTube channel, General Helmuth Weidling, commander of the Berlin Defence Area, was summoned to the Führerbunker. He had been given permission by Hitler to break out just hours earlier, but during the meeting, Joseph Goebbels, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann and General Hans Krebs informed him of Hitler`s death and the plan to attempt to negotiate an armistice with the Soviets.
Meanwhile, above ground, Red Army troops stormed and cleared much of the Reichstag, minus the heavily defended basement. At 2230 hours, they plant the Soviet Victory Banner atop the building.
Early in the morning today, Goebbels dictates a letter containing surrender terms and hands it to Krebs. At 0350, Krebs meets General Vasily Chuikov, commander of the 8th Guards Army, to present the letter. Over the next few hours it becomes clear that an agreement cannot be reached as Goebbels did not authorize unconditional surrender, which Stalin demands unequivocally. The meeting ends at 1015 hours.
Krebs and Borman sign confirmation of Goebbels` orders to refuse unconditional surrender back at the bunker. As this arrives in Chuikov`s HQ at 1600 hours, Dönitz addresses the German people via radio broadcast from his HQ in Plön. After an announcer states that Hitler died `fighting`, Dönitz delivers a message that the fight against the Allies must continue `to save Germany from destruction by the advancing Bolshevist enemy`.
At 1830, the Red Army`s artillery and rocket barrage against Berlin resumes. Not much later, Joseph Goebbels removes himself and his orders from the equation. Around 2030 hours, he and his wife Magda, after killing their six children with cyanide, commit suicide outside the Führerbunker.
Picture: Admiral Konitz Leaving The German Headquarters In Flensburg Around 1945
Source: The National WWII Museum
On the afternoon of 30 April 1945, Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his Führerbunker in Berlin.
By the morning of 28 April, Hitler was informed that no breakout was possible from Berlin.
That evening, Hitler requested that his secretary, Traudl Junge, record his final will and testament. In it, following a deflection of any responsibility for the war with his usual accusations of a Jewish conspiracy, he named Großadmiral Karl Dönitz as President of the Reich and Joseph Goebbels as Chancellor.
Shortly after midnight, early on 29 April, Hitler married Eva Braun, then spent the rest of the night alone in his study, asking for military situation updates.
At noon yesterday, in another futile escape from reality, Hitler held a military conference despite Red Army troops having crossed the Moltke Bridge, attacking the Ministry of the Interior building, and preparing to assault the Reichstag.
At 1600 hours, Hitler tested his cyanide capsules on his dogs Blondie and Wolfie, killing them. As he decided when to end his own life, at 2300 hours, he learned of the fate of Benito Mussolini, which we covered in our 28 April post.
Early today, Red Army troops attempt a final push to the Reichstag, suffering heavy casualties. At 0400 hours, they finally capture the Ministry of the Interior building.
Hitler has his last meal at 1300 hours, after which he dismisses most of his staff. Red Army troops are now within 500 m (1,600 ft) of the Reich Chancellery.
At 1530 hours, Hitler and Eva retire to Hitler`s study. Several minutes later, Eva bites down on a cyanide capsule and dies quickly.
Hitler, paranoid to the last, takes the cyanide but shoots himself in the head before it takes effect.
Fifteen minutes later, Hitler`s staff roll the bodies into blankets and cremate them in a shallow crater outside the bunker.
Hitler is dead, and yet, thousands will die as the last pieces of his crumbling Reich come down.
For more details, check out today`s special extra weekly episode on YouTube jointly hosted by Indy and Spartacus by following the link in bio.
Picture: A bust of Adolf Hitler lies amid the ruins of the Reich Chancellery in 1945
Source: Reg Speller via Getty Images
On 29 April 1945, elements of the U.S. 3rd Army liberate the massive Dachau concentration camp complex, including over 30,000 prisoners. Upon discovering the horrors inside, some U.S. troops execute the surrendered SS guards.
Since its establishment on 22 March 1933, Dachau has grown to be the largest Nazi concentration camp complex with over 100 sub-camps through which some 206,000 prisoners have passed and been exposed to the entire gamut of Nazi brutality. Over 40,000 of them have been killed or have died.
Dachau`s location deep within Germany, about 16 km (10 mi) northwest of Munich, has meant that thousands of prisoners evacuated from other camps have been arriving even as late as 19 April, causing severe overcrowding, starvation, and disease epidemics. But as the U.S. 3rd Army advanced deeper into Bavaria, the evacuation of Dachau itself began on 24-26 April. SS guards forced 6,000-7,000 prisoners on a march south, executing along the way all those too weak walk.
On 27 April, surprising the SS with the speed of their advance, elements of the 12th Armored Division entered the first Dachau subcamp, Kaufering IV.
Yesterday, Victor Maurer, a representative of the International Red Cross, negotiated an agreement to surrender the entire Dachau camp system to U.S. troops.
Today, the 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, commanded by Lt. Col. Felix L. Sparks, is the first to enter Dachau; they discover 39 railcars filled with over 2,000 corpses of prisoners left to die by the SS upon their arrival from other camps.
Meanwhile, Brigadier General Henning Linden of the 42nd Infantry Division meets Maurer and accepts the surrender of the camp and around 100 SS guards by SS-Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker, left in charge after his superior officer, SS-Hauptsturmführer Martin Weiss, fled the area.
In the afternoon, soldiers, most likely from the 157th IR`s Company I, execute around 20 captured SS guards in one of the camp`s coal yards. Similar reprisals take place throughout the camp, with U.S. troops possibly executing over 50 SS guards.
Picture: Photograph allegedly showing execution of SS troops in a coal yard in Dachau
Source: USHMM
On the afternoon of 28 April 1945, Italian partisans, under the command of the National Liberation Committee for Northern Italy (CLNAI), execute Benito Mussolini and Claretta Petacci, his mistress.
With the Allied armies breaking through the final German defences and the Italian Resistance taking control of several major cities in northern Italy, Mussolini left the village of Gargnano and arrived in Milan on 18 April. His plan of negotiating a peaceful surrender, with Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Schuster, as intermediary, failed on 25 April. The same day, the CLNAI issued what was essentially his death warrant via a proclamation of a general uprising and call for punishment of all fascists.
Around 2000 hours that day, Mussolini fled the city with Petacci and around fifty other fascist leaders and their families and headed north toward Lake Como. After either failing to cross the border into Switzerland or on their way to Valtellina Valley for a final stand, they joined a Luftwaffe column.
Yesterday, partisans under the command of Pier Luigi Bellini delle Stelle and Urbano Lazzaro attacked the column near the village of Dongo and took Mussolini and his entourage prisoner.
Early this morning, Walter Audisio (nom de guerre Colonello Valerio) and Aldo Lampredi, likely with explicit orders to execute Mussolini, arrive in Dongo. Several hours later, they drive Mussolini and Petacci to the Villa Belmonte, 20 km (12 mi) south in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra, where Audisio executes them with a submachine gun.
Early tomorrow, the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci, and several others executed at Dongo will be transported to Milan and left on the Piazzale Loreto, where in August 1944, fascist authorities executed 15 civilians during a reprisal and hung their bodies for public display.
In the morning, a large crowd will gather and desecrate the bodies. Finally, they will hang them by their feet from the roof of a gas station.
Around 1400 hours, U.S. military authorities will take the bodies to the Milan morgue for safekeeping and a post-mortem analysis.
Picture: The corpses of Mussolini his mistress Clara Petacci and other fascist associates
Source: IWM HU 50242
On 27 April 1945, the provisional government of Austria under Chancellor Karl Renner, backed by the Soviet Union, declares independence from Nazi Germany.
The fate of Austria after the war had been agreed upon two years ago by the Big Three at the Moscow Conference, namely that the Anschluss of 1938 would be `null and void` with the aim of returning Austria to the status of an independent, democratic, and free country.
However, under Stalin`s direction, a provisional government made up of Austrian communist exiles had been secretly set up well before Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin`s 3rd Ukrainian Front crossed the border between Hungary and Austria near Klostermarienberg on 29 March.
It quickly became clear that the Soviet plan was to advance, encircle, and capture Vienna. So, as Red Army troops approached the Austrian capital, Karl Renner contacted Tolbukhin on 3 April.
Renner has been involved in Austrian politics for decades as part of the Social Democratic Workers` Party of Austria (SDAP). He held high-level positions at several points in the late 1910s, early 1920s, and mid-1930s and introduced a slew of social reforms following the Great War. His advocacy for a German-Austria led him to support Germany`s Anschluss and actively call for votes for it in the 10 April 1938 referendum. However, he has been completely excluded from the post-Anschluss government.
Renner`s approach to Tolbukhin seems to have the Soviet plan. Stalin thus instructed Renner to form a provisional government on 20 April in Vienna, only a week after the Red Army captured the city. Significantly, Stalin did not make any agreements with Britain and the USA about this.
Today, Renner, together with Adolf Schärf (Socialist Party of Austria), Leopold Kunschak (Austria`s People`s Party [former Christian Social People`s Party]), and Johann Koplenig (Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ)) issue a Declaration of Independence of Austria that restores the Republic of Austria that will be instituted in the spirit of the Constitution of 1920.
Picture: On 29 April 1945, the Soviet occupying powers handed over the parliament to the Provisional State Government
Source: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
On the evening of 26 April 1945, former Marshal of France and former Vichy Chief of State Philippe Pétain is arrested by French authorities as he crosses the Swiss-French border.
Soon after the Germans forcibly relocated Pétain and the Vichy government to Belfort, which we covered in our 20 August post last year, they again moved them to Sigmaringen Castle (Schloss Sigmaringen) and Sigmarigen town in the Swabian Alb region of Baden-Württemberg, Germany on 8 September.
Pétain and ex-Prime Minister Pierre Laval protested their relocation out of France by refusing to participate in what became the Vichy government-in-exile.
The Germans attempted to maintain the facade of the legality of the French Vichy government at Sigmarigen, with Fernand de Brinon as president and Joseph Darnand, Jean Luchaire, Eugène Bridoux, and Marcel Déat as Ministers. They even extraterritorialized Sigmarigen to the Vichy and set up their embassy there, as well as a Japanese embassy and an Italian consulate.
The original population of the enclave of around a thousand Vichy government officials, Milice members, and collaborationst militants grew to around 6,000 late last year with the arrival of collaborationist journalists, writers, their families, 500 soldiers, 700 French SS, prisoners of war and French civilian forced labourers.
But as Germany`s defences began to crumble, residents of the enclave began to leave. The advance of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny`s 1st French Army across the Rhine on 31 March and toward Sigmarigen in the weeks since, convinced the last of the Vichy officials to leave a few days ago.
On 21 April, the handful of French still in Sigmaringen lowered the Tricolor and exited the stage, just to have de Tassigny’s army come and hoist it over the castle the next day.
Pétain had by that point crossed the border into Switzerland.
This evening, Pétain arrives at the Swiss-French border near La Ferriere sous Joigne, after choosing to return to France and face trial voluntarily. Customs officials hand him an arrest warrant immediately upon his entry into France.
Picture: French Marshal Henri Philippe Petain sits in court
Source: AP
On 25 April 1945, U.S. troops from the 69th Infantry Division and Soviet troops from the 1st Ukrainian Front meet at two points on the Elbe River.
First Lieutenant Albert Kotzebue of the 273rd Infantry Regiment, 69th Infantry Division (U.S. 1st Army), leading an eleven-man intelligence and reconnaissance patrol makes first contact with the forward elements of a Soviet Guards rifle regiment of the First Ukrainian Front, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Gordeyev around 1130 hours near the small town of Strehla 32 km (20 mi) south of Torgau.
At Torgau, however, the initial contact between East and West starts with some misunderstandings and misidentification. This morning, Second Lieutenant William Robertson, also from the 273rd IR, is ordered to scout ahead toward Torgau. Hoping to be the first American to meet the Soviets, Robertson defies orders and drives far beyond his authorized perimeter to reach a bridge spanning the Elbe River at Torgau.
Around 1630 hours, a patrol led by Lieutenant Alexander Silvashko reaches the eastern bank of the Elbe at Torgau, where he sees a group of soldiers in strange uniforms waving a white sheet painted with red stripes and a blue smudge. He orders a few shells fired at them, fearing it is a group of Germans trying to trick him into an ambush. Robertson`s team disperses, but he soon returns and convinces Silvashko to meet them halfway across the destroyed bridge.
Silvashko and Sergeant Andreev accept Robertson`s invitation back to 69th ID headquarters. They enjoy food and drink and exchange insignia and wristwatches.
Tomorrow, the soldiers will pose for photographs at the HQ and recreate the meeting on the bridge at Torgau. Following this, Silvashko and Andreev will be returned to Red Army lines, where they will be promptly arrested and stripped of their party membership. Even Robertson will be arrested by the U.S. Army Military Police for disobeying orders; however, he will be released very quickly.
With this meeting, the Allies cut the remaining German forces and Germany herself in half.
Picture: U.S. and Soviet soldiers greet each other on the Elbe in Germany
Source: DAPD News Agency
On 24 April 1945, First Lieutenant Raymond Larry Knight, 346th Fighter Squadron, 350th Fighter Group, voluntarily leads risky low-level reconnaissance and ground-attack missions against Axis forces in Italy in the face of intense anti-aircraft fire.
For his actions, 1LT Knight will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on 24 September 1945. His citation will read:
˝On the morning of 24 April, he volunteered to lead 2 other aircraft against the strongly defended enemy airdrome at Ghedi. Ordering his fellow pilots to remain aloft, he skimmed the ground through a deadly curtain of antiaircraft fire to reconnoiter the field, locating 8 German aircraft hidden beneath heavy camouflage. He rejoined his flight, briefed them by radio, and then led them with consummate skill through the hail of enemy fire in a low-level attack, destroying 5 aircraft, while his flight accounted for 2 others. Returning to his base, he volunteered to lead 3 other aircraft in reconnaissance of Bergamo airfield, an enemy base near Ghedi and one known to be equally well defended. Again ordering his flight to remain out of range of antiaircraft fire, 1st Lt. Knight flew through an exceptionally intense barrage, which heavily damaged his Thunderbolt, to observe the field at minimum altitude... Returning alone after this strafing, he made 10 deliberate passes against the field despite being hit by antiaircraft fire twice more, destroying 6 fully loaded enemy twin-engine aircraft and 2 fighters... Early the next morning, when he again attacked Bergamo, he sighted an enemy plane on the runway. Again he led 3 other American pilots in a blistering low-level sweep through vicious antiaircraft fire that damaged his plane so severely that it was virtually nonflyable...
Realizing the critical need for aircraft in his unit, he declined to parachute to safety over friendly territory and unhesitatingly attempted to return his shattered plane to his home field. With great skill and strength, he flew homeward until caught by treacherous air conditions in the Appennines Mountains, where he crashed and was killed.˝
Picture: 345th Fighter Squadron, 350th Fighter Group, 12th Air Force
Source: U.S. Air Force
On 23 April 1945, Hermann Göring sends a telegram to Hitler requesting permission to take control of the German Reich as his designated successor.
Göring wasn`t there to hear Hitler`s admission of defeat yesterday, as he had left Berlin for his estate in Obersalzberg on 21 April. Hours after Hitler`s rageful admission of defeat yesterday, Alfred Jodl, operations chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), informed Chief of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe, Karl Koller, of the developments, adding that Hitler was going to commit suicide rather than surrender and that Göring may, in fact, be in a position to negotiate with the Western Allies.
Koller immediately flew to Obersalzberg to confer with Göring, who was taken aback by the development. His dreams of becoming the leader of Nazi Germany were finally within reach, but it seems that the fear of Hitler taking this as betrayal scared him. Nevertheless, after discussing the matter with Koller and Hans Lammers, the state secretary of the Reich Chancellery, he came up with a very carefully worded telegram requesting permission to take command.
He sends the telegram just after midnight today, adding that if he does not receive a response by 2200 hours he will assume that Hitler has lost freedom of action and will thus take control of the Reich.
The telegram arrives at the Führerbunker at 0056 hours. Martin Borman sees it first and seizes the opportunity to curry favour with Hitler by trying to convince him that this is Göring`s attempt to overthrow him. Despite an initially apathetic response to the telegram, with Goebbels joining in on the accusations, Hitler explodes into an unimaginable rage.
Hitler informs Göring via telegram that the 1941 decree is rescinded and that he is to resign from all his positions or be executed immediately.
Göring resigns. Shortly afterwards, the SS place him and his staff under house arrest.
As their beloved Reich disintegrates around them, the Nazi leadership shows their true nature - corrupt and self-centred, prepared to scheme and rip each other to shreds for a taste of power.
Picture: Hermann Göring
Source: Ullstein Bild
On 22 April 1945, Adolf Hitler seemingly admits final defeat during a military conference after his generals inform him that a counterattack by the forces under SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner did not miraculously save Berlin from Soviet encirclement.
Despite the dire situation, Hitler still had a shred of hope for Berlin and, by extension, Germany yesterday. He ordered the creation of Army Detachment Steiner consisting of the 4th SS Panzergrenadier Division Polizei, the 5th Jäger Division and the 25th Panzergrenadier Division. Their attack southward was to cut Marshal Zhukov`s 1st Belorussian Front, now enveloping Berlin from the north.
However, reality disagreed with Hitler`s desperate last grasp. Steiner assessed his ragtag forces and informed Generaloberst Gotthard Heinrici, the Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula, that his attack was not possible. The only forces available were two battalions of the 4th SS Division.
This afternoon, Hitler’s commanders inform him that the Red Army had breached Berlin`s outer defences, and, after Hitler`s request for news, Steiner`s counterattack had not happened and would not happen again.
Hitler forces all but Field Marshal Keitel and Generals Jodl, Krebs, and Burgdorf out of the room and then proceeds to scream at them about the betrayal of all his orders. Finally, he collapses into his chair and appears to weep as he says openly for the first time that the war was lost. He adds that he would rather kill himself than be captured by the enemy.
Later, he urges his two secretaries, Gerda Christian and Traudl Junge, to leave, but they refuse, much like his lover Eva Braun did. Joseph Goebbels, his wife and their six children also join the couple of dozen people left in the Führerbunker.
Above and around them, Berlin is burned and shattered to dust as services shut down. The last flight from Tempelhof Airport leaves, and by the end of the day, the Berlin Telegraph Office closes down for the first time in history. The last message received is from Tokyo, stating: “GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL.”
Picture: Situation conference at the headquarters of Army Group Vistula, 3 March 1945
Source: Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1971-033-33
On the morning of 21 April 1945, elements of the Polish II Corps enter and capture Bologna.
Polish II Corps commander, General Władysław Anders, had actually requested his troops be withdrawn after finding that the Yalta Agreement handed over many parts of Poland to the Soviet Union. He and his troops remained only after British General Richard McCreery, U.S. 5th Army commander General Mark W. Clark, and British Field Marshal Harold Alexander requested him to remain as they had no units to replace the Polish troops for the upcoming offensive.
You can catch up on the offensive in detail by watching Indy`s weekly coverage on our YouTube channel. However, suffice it to say that the initial Allied assaults encountered typically heavy German defences and rugged terrain so familiar to troops on the Italian Front.
After the start of the offensive by the British 8th Army on 9 April, the Polish II Corps advanced north along the Via Emilia (Highway 9) corridor towards Castel San Pietro and Medicina in the initial attacks, reaching the Santerno River, which they managed to force by 14 April and capture Imola. Racing along Highway 9 the Poles crossed the heavily defended river Gaiano and engaged the remnants of their old foe from the Monte Cassino days, the 1. Fallschirmjäger-Division. The German paratrooper unit disintegrated under the weight of the Polish advance.
Meanwhile, the U.S. II Corps, consisting of the 34th, 88th and 91st Infantry Divisions, had been advancing up the heavily mined Highways 84 and 85 on Bologna from the south since 16 April.
Early this morning, the lead elements of the 3rd Carpathian Division enter Bologna and, by 0615, secure the city against minor German resistance. U.S. tanks and infantry, along with troops from Combat Group `Legnano` of the Italian Co-belligerent Army enter Bologna from the south around 0800 hours.
Along the rest of the front, Allied forces are sweeping away the Germans and will soon pour into the Po River Valley. It appears that the end is nigh for the bloody fight in Italy.
Picture: Soldiers of the 3rd Carpathian Infantry Division display the Polish flag
Source: National Digital Archives, Polska
On 20 April 1945, it is Adolf Hitler`s 56th birthday - much of which he spends in the dark, damp depths of the Führerbunker in Berlin, as Soviet artillery begins to rain down on the city.
The attacks launched on 16 April by Marshal Georgy Zhukov`s 1st Belorussian Front against General Theodor Busse`s German 9th Army at the Seelow Heights and by Marshal Ivan Konev`s 1st Ukrainian Front against Army Group Centre began to crack the German lines by the evening of 18 April and broke through toward Berlin by yesterday. Check out Indy`s video today on our YouTube channel to see exactly how that unfolded.
And what about the Western Front? Well, when Field Marshal Walter Model`s Army Group B surrendered en masse two days ago to the 1st and 9th U.S. Armies, covered in our 18 April post, it was all over. By today, the Allied armies are racing toward the Elbe River against scattered resistance.
This morning, Zhukov`s armour enters the northeastern suburbs of Berlin. His southern flank reaches Furstenwalde behind the German 9th Army. With Konev`s forces rapidly advancing to Zossen from the south across the 9th Army`s communication lines, it is all but encircled.
At 1100 hours, Zhukov`s artillery begins shelling Berlin.
In the Führerbunker, Hitler refuses to celebrate his birthday. Later in the day, he emerges from the bunker to award medals for courage to a group of young SS and Hitler Youth soldiers - boys who were born and have lived their entire lives knowing nothing other than the propaganda and brutality of the Nazi regime. Now, they are expected to stem the Red Army tide as the capital of that regime is blown to dust and debris around them.
Hitler appears sickly, a decade older than he actually is, with his hand tremors shaking his entire body - an image of what is happening to Germany as a result of his genocidal pursuit of power and racial purity. Shortly after returning to the bunker, he declares during a military conference that he will stay in Berlin.
The war is far from over, but it seems that we are in the endgame now.
Picture: Adolf Hitler meets a group of Hitlerjugend in the chancellery garden
Source: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek - hoff-54574
On 19 April 1945, the BBC finally airs war correspondent Richard Dimbleby`s report from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Dimbleby entered the camp shortly after the British 11th Armoured Division liberated it four days ago, which we covered in our 15 April post. However, the BBC initially neither believed his report nor did they want to release it due to its graphic nature. Today, they do so after Dimbleby threatens to resign. We bring you parts of his report:
˝I have just returned from the Belsen concentration camp...
I had waited a day before going to the camp so that I could be absolutely sure of the facts now available.
I passed through the barrier and found myself in the world of a nightmare.
Dead bodies, some of them in decay lay strewn about the road.
I’ve seen many terrible sights in the last five years but nothing, nothing approaching the dreadful interior of this hut at Belsen
The dead and the dying lay close together...
In the shade of some trees lay a great collection of bodies. I walked round them trying to count. There were perhaps a hundred and fifty flung down on each other – all naked, all so thin that their yellow skins glistened like stretched rubber on their bones...
As we went deeper into the camp and further from the main gate we saw more and more of the horrors of the place and I realised that what is so ghastly is not so much the individual acts of barbarism that take place in SS camps but the gradual breakdown of civilisation that happens when human beings are herded like animals behind barbed wire...
And back in the hut by the main gate of the camp I questioned the sergeant who’d been in charge of one of the SS squads... I asked him how many people he had killed. He looked vacant for a moment and then he replied ‘oh I don’t remember’...
Far away in a corner of Belsen camp there is a pit the size of a tennis court. It’s 15 feet deep and at one end it’s piled to the very top with naked bodies that have been tumbled in one on top of the other...˝
Picture: Bergen-Belsen 1945
Source: George Rodger, The LIFE Picture Collection
On 18 April 1945, the remaining organized units of German Army Group B trapped in the Ruhr Pocket surrender to the U.S. 1st and 9th Armies, with around 317,000 German troops becoming POWs.
Despite escape being nigh impossible by the time Lt. Gen. Hodges` 1st Army and General Simpson`s 9th Army began their advance inward to reduce the pocket, which we covered in our 3 April post, Field Marshal Walter Model`s Army Group B was prepared to fight and held up the advance of U.S. troops for several days, until 9 April, along the Dortmund-Elms Canal and the Sieg River, even launching a limited counterattack around Dortmund.
However, the cracks were starting to show. Essen fell to the 9th Army on 10 April, and by 11 April, Model`s forces were offering only scattered resistance along major roads and cities, slowly running out of ammunition.
Three days later, the 1st and 9th Army linked up on the Ruhr River near Hattingen, splitting Army Group B in two. General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen capitulated in the eastern part of the pocket with what remained of his 15th Army that same day.
The next day, 15 April, Model dissolved Army Group B, ordering his subordinates to transmit orders the best they can that once ammunition is expended, troops are to lay down their arms and surrender.
XVIII Airborne Corps commander Maj. Gen. Matthew Ridgway sent an aide to offer Model to surrender. Model refused out of pride and a sense of duty to Hitler, but told most of his troops to leave and go home.
Today, the remaining German troops in the western part of the Ruhr Pocket surrender.
Model attempts a breakout toward the Harz Mountains with a small contingent. But within the next couple of days, it will become apparent to him that this is impossible, and he will be branded a traitor alongside the entirety of Army Group B by Joseph Goebbels. He will walk off into the forest near Duisburg and commit suicide by shooting himself in the head on 21 April.
The two U.S. armies suffered only 2,000 dead and missing and 8,000 wounded for the capitulation of an entire army group and 317,000 German troops.
Picture: German prisoners of war on the motorway north of Frankfurt, March 1945
Source: U.S.
On 17 April 1945, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill addresses Parliament with a eulogy for the late U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
We deliver you a part of his speech:
˝My friendship with the great man to whose work and fame we pay our tribute today began and ripened during this war...
When I became Prime Minister, and the war broke out in all its hideous fury, when our own life and survival hung in the balance, I was already in a position to telegraph to the President on terms of an association which had become most intimate and, to me, most agreeable. This continued through all the ups and downs of the world struggle until Thursday last, when I received my last messages from him...
I conceived an admiration for him as a statesman, a man of affairs, and a war leader... His love of his own country, his respect for its constitution, his power of gauging the tides and currents of its mobile public opinion, were always evident, but, added to these, were the beatings of that generous heart... It is, indeed, a loss, a bitter loss to humanity that those heart-beats are stilled for ever...
Not one man in ten millions, stricken and crippled as he was, would have attempted to plunge into a life of physical and mental exertion and of hard, ceaseless political controversy. Not one in ten millions would have tried, not one in a generation would have succeeded, not only in entering this sphere, not only in acting vehemently in it, but in becoming indisputable master of the scene...
In war he had raised the strength, might and glory of the great Republic to a height never attained by any nation in history. With her left hand she was leading the advance of the conquering Allied Armies into the heart of Germany and with her right, on the other side of the globe, she was irresistibly and swiftly breaking up the power of Japan...
For us, it remains only to say that in Franklin Roosevelt there died the greatest American friend we have ever known and the greatest champion of freedom who has ever brought help and comfort from the new world to the old.˝
Picture: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Churchill in Casablanca, 18 January 1943
Source: U.S. National Archives
On the night of 16/17 April 1945, Soviet submarine L-3 torpedoes and sinks the MV Goya, carrying thousands of German troops and civilian evacuees back to Germany.
Initially built in 1940 as a 146 m (475 ft) long merchant vessel with a gross register tonnage of 5,230 and a capacity for up to 850 crew and passengers, the Goya was seized by the Germans in 1942 once they occupied Norway.
Since then, she has been used by the Kriegsmarine for various purposes, ranging from a supply and depot ship for U-boats to a torpedo target practice vessel. By 1944, the ship was based on Memel.
Much like the MV Wilhelm Gustloff and SS General von Steuben, the catastrophic sinkings of which we covered in our 30 January and 10 February posts, respectively, the Goya was pressed into service as a hospital and evacuation ship by the Kriegsmarine when Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz launched the evacuations of German troops and civilians under Operation Hannibal on 23 January this year.
Again, repeating the pattern of the previous two tragedies, the Goya sets out today from the Gotenhafen on the way back to Kiel in Germany. Aboard are a registered 6,100 civilians, German troops, and wounded military personnel. However, in the chaos of the evacuation, perhaps over 7,000 people made it aboard.
Under armed escort by minesweepers M-256 and M-328, the Goya, the smaller Kronenfels, and the steam tug Aegir round the Hel Peninsula and leave Danzig (Gdańsk) Bay, when Soviet submarine L-3, commanded by Captain Vladimir Konovalov spots them just north of Cape Rixhöft (Cape Rozewie).
Kronenfels slows because of engine problems, giving L-3 just enough time to catch up. At 2352 hours, Konovalol orders his crew to fire a spread of four torpedoes.
Two strike the Goya, amidships and in the stern. She breaks apart almost immediately and sinks just four minutes later. Somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 drown or succumb to hypothermia in the icy Baltic Sea. The two minesweepers only manage to pick up some 170-180 survivors.
Picture: Soviet submarine L-4 "Garibaldiets", 1933
Source: Submarines: history of development by V. P. Vlasov
On 15 April 1945, the British 11th Armoured Division liberates Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
The massive Bergen-Belsen camp complex initially housed Polish POWs but has since grown into one of the Wehrmacht`s largest POW camps, holding some 95,000 POWs of all nationalities. Soviet POWs have suffered particularly badly, with almost 50,000 dying in the various camps since June 1941.
In April 1943, the SS Economic-Administration Main Office (SS Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt; WVHA) took control of part of the camp complex, designating it the Aufenthaltslager (holding camp) to avoid international inspections.
The population of the concentration camp increased significantly with further expansions, from 7,300 in July 1944 to 15,000 by December 1944, but exploded in April this year to around 60,000 as Jews and other prisoners evacuated by the Germans from other camps arrived. Some 35,000 have died since the concentration camp was established.
Overcrowding caused a series of epidemics to break out, with the typhus epidemic reaching such severity that the Germans created an exclusion zone around the complex in the past few weeks. Thus, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler ordered on 11 April to surrender the camp to the advancing British forces without resistance.
Around 1300 hours on 13 April, Wehrmacht representatives signed a temporary truce with commanders of the British VIII Corps, creating a 48 square km (19 square mi) neutral zone. Only camp commandant SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Kramer and a few SS personnel remained, ostensibly to maintain order. In reality, they have been destroying the camp`s records.
This afternoon, elements of the 11th Armoured Division arrive. They find some 60,000 sick and malnourished prisoners, as well as some 13,000 unburied bodies.
British troops and relief personnel will transport the prisoners to a newly set up displaced persons camp nearby in the following weeks. Unfortunately, another 14,000 of the former prisoners will fail to recover and die by the end of June.
Picture: Women inmates are helped aboard a truck which will transport them to their new temporary home
Source: IWM BU 5469
On 14 April 1945, Private First Class John David Magrath, Company G, 2nd Battalion, 85th Infantry, 10th Mountain Division, leads an assault on multiple German positions near Castel d`Aiano, Italy, despite intense machine gun and artillery fire.
For his actions, PFC Magrath will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on 17 July 1946. His citation will read:
˝He displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty when his company was pinned down by heavy artillery, mortar, and small arms fire, near Castel d`Aiano, Italy. Volunteering to act as a scout, armed with only a rifle, he charged headlong into withering fire, killing 2 Germans and wounding 3 in order to capture a machinegun. Carrying this enemy weapon across an open field through heavy fire, he neutralized 2 more machinegun nests; he then circled behind 4 other Germans, killing them with a burst as they were firing on his company. Spotting another dangerous enemy position to this right, he knelt with the machinegun in his arms and exchanged fire with the Germans until he had killed 2 and wounded 3. The enemy now poured increased mortar and artillery fire on the company`s newly won position. Pfc. Magrath fearlessly volunteered again to brave the shelling in order to collect a report of casualties. Heroically carrying out this task, he made the supreme sacrifice—a climax to the valor and courage that are in keeping with highest traditions of the military service.˝
Picture: Infantrymen of Co. "I", 3rd Bn., 85th Regt., 10th Mtn. Div., entruck to move to more forward positions. 17 April, 1945.
Source: Signal Corps Archives SC 270869
On 13 April 1945, SS troops and concentration camp guards burn to death 1,016 slave labourers from the Mittelbau-Dora camp in a barn in the town of Gardelegen.
The SS administration and guards of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp and V-weapon production facilities began evacuating around 4,000 prisoners and slave labourers on 3 and 4 April to Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück or Neuengamme concentration camps. However, when they reached Gardelegen on 9 April, air raid damage to the tracks prevented the trains from moving further. The SS guards sought assistance from local Hitler Youth, Volkssturm, and Luftwaffe auxiliaries to guard the prisoners.
Meanwhile, on 11 April, the U.S. 3rd Armored Division and 104th Infantry Division reached Mittelbau-Dora, which you can read about in our post from that day.
With U.S. troops continuing their advance, the SS guards and local Nazi administration decided to force the prisoners to continue on foot.
Today, the SS and their local accomplices force 1,027 prisoners too weak or sick to walk, mainly Poles and some Soviet and French, into a barn on the Isenschnibbe estate. They burn the barn and shoot those who try to escape. Somehow, eleven men, seven Poles, three Russians and a Frenchman, manage to escape.
Early morning tomorrow, the SS guards will attempt to hide the evidence by burying the bodies in a trench nearby, but the U.S. troops` arrival will force them to flee before they destroy all the evidence.
A few hours later, Company F, 2nd Battalion, 405th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 102nd Infantry Division, will enter Gardelegen and discover the burned, unburied corpses and the surviving 11 prisoners.
Meanwhile, at Mittelbau-Dora, U.S. commanders will order the German residents of Nordhausen to dig graves and bury the 5,000 or so dead concentration camp prisoners found after being shocked by their claims of not knowing what was going on in the camp. The 102nd ID commander will order the residents of Gardelegen to do the same with the bodies found in the barn on 21 April.
Picture: American soldiers stand among the bodies of prisoners killed by the SS in a barn outside the town of Gardelegen
Source: USHMM
On the afternoon of 12 April 1945, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passes away at the age of 63.
Roosevelt`s role as America`s leader throughout the war, now serving an unprecedented fourth term as President, cannot be overstated. However, it has been clear for at least the past year that his health, if not his ability to lead, has been in severe decline.
Even his paralysis resulting from polio has been at least partially hidden from the American public, until a recent address to Congress, which we covered in our 1 March post.
And that address, in which he acknowledged his health issues were a result of an even more significant decline since the start of 1944. Shortly after his 62nd birthday, in March 1944, doctors diagnosed him with hypertension, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease causing angina pectoris, and congestive heart failure.
It appears that the stresses of long meetings and difficult military and political decisions, coupled with travelling all the way to Yalta, have caused President Roosevelt`s health to reach a critical point, with him resting at the `Little White House` in Warm Springs, Georgia, where he spent a considerable time recovering from the initial onset of polio symptoms back in the 1920s.
Around noon today, the well-known portrait painter Elizabeth Shoumatoff arrives to continue work on her portrait of the President. However, Roosevelt appears particularly weak and soon starts complaining of an intense headache.
At 1315 hours, Roosevelt loses consciousness and collapses. His cardiologist diagnoses a massive brain hemorrhage, and just over two hours later, at 1535 hours, pronounces President Roosevelt dead.
At 1737, the White House issues a radio notice of the President`s death. Shortly afterwards, Harry S. Truman is inaugurated as the President of the U.S.A. He issues his first statement at 2000 hours, saying: ˝The world may be sure that we will prosecute this war on both fronts, east and west, with all the vigor we possess, to a successful conclusion.˝
Picture: The last photograph of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, taken at Warm Springs, GA. 11 April 1945
Source: FDR Presidential Library & Museum
On 11 April 1945, elements of the U.S. 3rd Armored Division and 104th Infantry Division liberate the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp and discover the V-1 and V-2 production facilities dug into the Kohnstein Hill nearby.
After the RAF raid on the A4/V-2 missile research and production facilities at Peenemünde on 18 August 1943, Hitler ordered Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler on 22 August to move production to a secure facility and begin employing concentration camp slave labourers to speed up production.
The first prisoners arrived at the former gypsum mine in Kohnstein Hill on the southern border of the Harz mountains, close to Nordhausen, from the Buchenwald concentration camp on 28 August to begin the heavy construction and transport work. Officially, Arbeitslager Dora became a subcamp of Buchenwald.
By January 1944, when V-2 production in the facility began, the camp`s population rose to 12,000, with further increases up to 33,000 after Mittelbau-Dora became a separate camp and subcamp system in September, and prisoners began arriving from Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, and other camps the Nazis evacuated ahead of the advancing Red Army. Overall, some 60,000 have passed through Mittelbau-Dora, of whom around 20,000 died.
A few days ago, the SS forced the remaining prisoners to march to Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps ahead of the arrival of the U.S. 3rd Armored Division, which had been rapidly driving east toward Nordhausen after meeting up with the 2nd AD on 1 April and closing the Ruhr Pocket.
Early this morning, the 3rd AD`s Combat Command B (CCB) and elements of the 104th ID quickly defeat the few disorganized German troops still present in the camp and Nordhausen.
As they push through the camp, they are shocked by the sight of several hundred starving and sick prisoners and almost 5,000 dead bodies scattered around the camp or partially cremated.
They also secure hundreds of completed or partially assembled V-1 rockets and V-2 missiles.
Picture: American medics remove survivors from Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp after liberation.
Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
On the morning of 10 April 1945, troops from the 1st Free French Division assault German and Italian Social Republic (RSI) positions on the Authion massif on the Southern Alps along the French-Italian border.
British Field Marshal Harold Alexander, commander of the Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ), authorized an operation on the French-Italian border to divert attention from the main Allied offensives into the Po River Valley and allow France to retake some territories lost to Italy in 1940.
This assault, by the 30,000-strong 1st Free French Division and 3e régiment d`infanterie (3e RI), is to secure the Authion massif, towering 2,080 m (6,820 ft) above the Alpine Valleys of Cairos, and the key fortifications at the Forts of Forca and Milles Fourche. Some 5,200 troops from the German 34th Infantry Division and 4,800 from the Italian Social Republic`s 2nd Division "Littorio" hold these positions.
At 0915 hours today, French artillery begins firing on Forca, to little effect, however. Two companies of the Bataillon d`Infanterie de Marine du Pacifique (BIMP) attack the spur between Forca and the peak of Authion. However, they take heavy casualties from mortars and German armoured turrets.
By 1730, another battalion destroys the turret and passes along a road between the Forca and Milles Fourche with the support of light tanks.
To the north, scout skiers from the 3e RI capture the fortifications at Col de Rauss. To the south, other elements of the 1st FFD capture some minor positions, but progress proves slow.
Early afternoon tomorrow, a French assault group, heavily armed with flamethrowers, submachine guns, bazookas, and mortars, will capture Fort Milles Fourche.
By the evening, French and U.S. troops will breach the German-Italian lines at multiple points and occupy much of the massif. At 2030 hours, the German garrison at the old French fort of Redoute des Trois Communes will surrender after being subjected to heavy artillery fire and surprised by the presence of Allied tanks.
On 12 April, the offensive will end, reaching the Italian border.
Picture: 1st Regiment of Naval Fusiliers (1er RFM) advance during the Battle of Authion
Source: Musée de l`Armée
On 9 April 1945, Private First Class Edward J. Moskala, Company C, 383rd Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division, destroys two Japanese machine gun positions, and covers the withdrawal of his unit during a counterattack on Okinawa.
For his actions, PFC Moskala will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. His citation will read:
˝He was the leading element when grenade explosions and concentrated machinegun and mortar fire halted the unit`s attack on Kakazu Ridge, Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands. With utter disregard for his personal safety, he charged 40 yards through withering, grazing fire and wiped out 2 machinegun nests with well-aimed grenades and deadly accurate fire from his automatic rifle. When strong counterattacks and fierce enemy resistance from other positions forced his company to withdraw, he voluntarily remained behind with 8 others to cover the maneuver. Fighting from a critically dangerous position for 3 hours, he killed more than 25 Japanese before following his surviving companions through screening smoke down the face of the ridge to a gorge where it was discovered that one of the group had been left behind, wounded. Unhesitatingly, Pvt. Moskala climbed the bullet-swept slope to assist in the rescue, and, returning to lower ground, volunteered to protect other wounded while the bulk of the troops quickly took up more favorable positions. He had saved another casualty and killed 4 enemy infiltrators when he was struck and mortally wounded himself while aiding still another disabled soldier. With gallant initiative, unfaltering courage, and heroic determination to destroy the enemy, Pvt. Moskala gave his life in his complete devotion to his company`s mission and his comrades` well-being. His intrepid conduct provided a lasting inspiration for those with whom he served.˝
Picture: Japanese strongpoint is assaulted.
Source: Signal Corps Archives SC 270794
Early on 8 April 1945, U.S. troops open a vault containing Nazi Germany`s monetary and gold reserves in the Merkers salt mine.
After the largest USAAF raid on Berlin, covered in our 3 February post, destroyed the Reichsbank, including its printing presses, Walter Funk, president of the Reichsbank and Reich minister of economics, decided to send most of the gold and monetary reserves to a special vault area designated Room No. 8 in the Merkers salt, about 321 km (200 mi) southwest of Berlin, on 11 February. These reserves also included jewellery and gold seized by the SS from concentration camp prisoners and the proceeds from selling these in a proxy account belonging to Himmler and the SS under the name `Max Heiliger`, as well as thousands of art pieces owned or stolen by Nazi Germany shipped there between 16 and 30 March. The SS property arrived under the direction of Albert Thoms, head of the Reichsbank`s Precious Metals Department, on 18 March.
Despite German attempts to move all these reserves and possessions back to Berlin before the arrival of U.S. forces, Gen. Patton`s 3rd Army`s speed of advance prevented them from doing so.
U.S. troops of the 90th Infantry Division arrived on 4 April but assumed the work was part of regular mine operations. They did, however, capture Thoms. Director Frommknicht, who had the vault key, slipped away. Lt. Col. Russell, 90th IDs assistant commander, discovered the mine`s importance on 6 April from two French women forced to work nearby by the Germans.
Yesterday at 1000 hours, Russell and German mining officials entered the mine and found some of the money but were stopped by the vault door.
Early today, engineers blast through the wall surrounding the door, and Gen. Eddy (90th ID commander), Russell, photographers, and reporters enter the 23 m (75 ft) wide and 46 m (150 ft) long vault. They find bags containing billions of Reichsmarks, gold, silver, and foreign currencies, the stolen art, as well as 18 bags and 189 suitcases, trunks, and boxes containing the stolen SS loot.
Picture: `Wintergarden` by the French Impressionist Edouard Manet, discovered in the vault at Merkers.
Source: U.S. National Archives 5757184
On 7 April 1945, hundreds of U.S. Navy carrier-launched aircraft attack and sink the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) battleship Yamato.
Vice-Admiral Seiichi Itō, ordered to lead Operation Ten Go, sailed the 72,000-ton, 18.1 inch (460 mm) gun-armed battleship, the light cruiser Yahagi, and eight destroyers from Kure to Tokoyuma on 29 March in preparation for the mission. But he rejected actually carrying it out on the grounds of it being a waste of fuel and manpower to charge the U.S. fleet at Okinawa and then beach the ship to act as a shore battery. Only after the IJN`s leadership convinced him of the emperor`s supposed insistence on the mission did he relent.
Itō`s ships sailed out at 1600 hours yesterday and were detected immediately by two U.S. submarines.
Early this morning, Admiral Spruance, U.S. 5th Fleet commander, receives the submarines` reports. He orders Rear Admiral Deyo`s Task Force 54 of older but modernized battleships to intercept Itō. However, Vice Admiral Mitscher, commanding the powerful Fast Carrier Task Force 58, preempts this by launching a 386-plane air group at 1000 hours without even informing Spruance.
At 1234, Yamato begins firing anti-aircraft shells from her massive main guns as the planes approach.
The first attack wave hit the destroyer Yahagi at 1246, sinking her by 1405. They then hit Yamato with two armour-piercing bombs and one torpedo.
Between 1320 and 1415 hours, with Yamato`s non-radar-guided anti-aircraft guns ineffective, the second wave scores 15 bomb hits and at least 8 torpedo hits.
By 1402, Itō orders the crew to abandon ship. He and his officers remain aboard.
At 1420, Yamato capsizes and sinks.
But she doesn`t go down quietly. At 1423, her magazines detonate, sending a mushroom-shaped plume of water and smoke 6.1 km (3.8 mi) into the air, knocking several U.S. planes out of the air.
For a loss of only ten aircraft, the U.S. Navy also sinks Asashimo, Isokaze, Hamakaze, and Kasumi. Between 3,700 and 4,250 IJN sailors perish today.
A poetic end to the battleship era, with even the mighty Yamato taken down by air power.
Picture: Yamato under attack by U.S. Navy carrier aircraft on 7 April 1945
Source: U.S. Navy
On 6 April 1945, the Yugoslav National Liberation Army liberates Sarajevo.
The German defence plans for Sarajevo were completed early-mid February under Hitler`s orders to hold the city at all costs. Three defensive rings were formed (See Map 1 and Legend), manned by 38,000 troops of Gen. Ernst von Leyser`s XXI Mountain Corps, including the German 181. and 117. Infantry Divisions, 964. Fortress Division, and as of March, the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen", and remnants of the 369. (Croat) Infantry Division and 9th Mountain Ustashe-Home Guard Division, both undermanned after losses at Mostar, holding the key mountain pass Ivan Sedlo to the south.
However, the situation deteriorated after Yugoslav forces captured Mostar, which we covered on 15 February, and resistance and intelligence forces in Sarajevo, led by Vladimir Perić `Valter`, secured the detailed defence plans.
By mid-March, command of the 2nd (3rd, 29th, 37th Divisions), 3rd (27th and 38th Div), and 5th Corps (4th and 10th Div) was unified under Col. Gen. Radovan Vukanović in preparation for an offensive.
On 20 March, Hitler permitted the evacuation of forces from Sarajevo.
At 0400 hours on 28 March, the Yugoslav 3rd Corps began their assault on Sarajevo, aiming for a double envelopment. Four hours later, the 29th Division began its attack on Ivan Sedlo, which stalled until Yugoslav forces flanked the 369. CID in early April.
Despite slow early progress, the German defences were crumbling by 4 April, with the 29th Div and 5th Corps forces threatening the evacuation routes via Kiseljak and Blažuj. In the city, resistance forces began attacking German units.
Yesterday, around 1500 hours, the 16th Muslim Brigade, 27th Div, broke into Sarajevo from the east via Vratnik. By 1730 hours, they cleared Baščaršija (Old Town), captured the City Hall, and linked up with the 18th Croat Brigade.
Early today, the 3rd and 4th Sandžak Brigades enter Sarajevo from the south. The 14. Regiment of the 7th SS rapidly retreats west, and the city is declared secure early afternoon.
Picture: 3rd Yugoslav Corps units enter Sarajevo
Source: Museum of the History of Yugoslavia, 15721
On the night of 5/6 April 1945, Georgian soldiers of the Wehrmacht 822nd Infantry Battalion Königin Tamara (Queen Tamar) stage an uprising on Texel Island.
The 822nd was formed in Poland in mid-1943 from ethnic Georgians who volunteered to escape the conditions facing them after they were captured while serving in the Red Army, with an original strength of 1,200 troops, 800 Georgians and 400 Germans, under the command of Major Klaus Breitner. However, as Hitler`s mistrust toward the Georgians and Osttruppen grew, the 822nd was moved first to Zandvoort, Netherlands, and then, on 6 February, to Texel Island.
At today`s unit headcount (756 Georgians and 246 Germans), Breitner informs former Soviet Captain, now Leutnant (second lieutenant), Sjalva (Sjaliko) Georgiëvitsj Loladze, to prepare the unit for departure to the front against British and Canadian troops at 0700 tomorrow.
Wanting to avoid becoming casualties or repatriation to the Soviet Union as POWs, which would result in their treatment as traitors, Loladze organizes his men to stage an uprising.
At 0100 hours on 6 April, the Georgians kill around 200 Germans from the unit. They capture much of the island but fail to secure the southern coastal battery, allowing Breitner to call for assistance.
Already at 0900, the South Battery shells the town of Den Burg, and Breitner`s forces counterattack, supported by the arrival of 600 troops of the 163rd Marine-Schützen-Regiment.
On 7 April, 200 more troops from the 163rd will arrive on Texel. At the same time, Loladze will convince some of the Dutch resistance and civilians on the island to help him. Several of his men will travel across the North Sea to England to seek Allied assistance, to no avail, due to a lack of resources available for an assault on the island.
By 20 April, with over 2,000 troops on Texel, the Germans will defeat Loladze`s forces. Over 800 German troops will be killed. 565 Georgians will be killed in combat or executed, including Loladze. However, around 200 will continue to fight while hiding amongst the civilian population for several weeks.
Picture: Soldiers of the Georgian Legion during the Texel uprising
Source: Bundesarchiv
At noon on 4 April 1945, Germans defending the city of Kassel surrender to elements of the U.S. 3rd Army.
While Lt. Gen. Hodges` 1st Army was encircling German Army Group B in the Ruhr, which we covered in yesterday`s post, Lt. Gen. Patton`s 3rd Army was advancing on their right flank.
By 26 March, Maj. Gen. Eddy`s XXI Corps captured Frankfurt. Then, Maj. Gen. Walker’s XX Corps spearheaded the move further east-northeast to Kassel, which they reached on 30 March after advancing some 220 km (140 mi).
In Kassel, Generalmajor Johannes Erxleben commands around 6,000 troops of the 510th and 511th Heavy Tank Battalions, a Reich Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst; RAD) 88 mm anti-aircraft battery, and remnants of other units which have retreated into what is left of the city after 40 Allied air raids. The two tank battalions have, however, been reinforced with 13 Tiger II tanks completed in the last days of March at the Henschel factory in Kassel.
These tanks met the lead elements of XX Corps on 30 March south of Kassel. They disabled several U.S. tank destroyers, but artillery fire forced them to retreat, allowing Maj. Gen. McBride`s 80th Infantry Division to reach the outskirts of Kassel by 1 April.
Even though the RAD battery delayed the 80th ID`s advance for a day, by 2 April, overwhelming U.S. artillery fire prevailed. A battalion of the 318th Infantry Regiment moved west of Kassel, while the 319th crossed the Fulda River and attempted to envelop the city from the north.
A German counterattack supported by 15 half-tracks and 12 tanks against the 1/318th IR destroyed six U.S. tank destroyers. However, U.S. artillery once again struck the Tiger IIs, destroying two and forcing the rest to retreat. The fighting soon moved into the city.
This morning, around 0900 hours, elements of the 318th IR approach Erxleben`s command post. As negotiations are underway, the 319th`s tanks cross the Fulda and enter Kassel from the east. At 1200 hours, Erxleben and 1,325 of his men surrender without a prior ceasefire.
Picture: 6th Armored Division, 3rd U.S. Army, advance cautiously to take Oberdorla, Germany. 4 April, 1945
Source: Signal Corps Archives SC 335616
On 3 April 1945, the U.S. 1st and 9th Armies begin their attacks on German Army Group B trapped in the Ruhr Pocket.
General Eisenhower`s plan has long been the encirclement and destruction of German forces of Field Marshal Walter Model`s Army Group B in the Ruhr. He was, however, caught between focusing his forces on this or making a mad dash for Berlin, which he decided on and informed Stalin on 28 March (which we covered in our post on that day). According to Eisenhower`s plan, Lt. Gen. Hodges` 1st Army was to push hard east out of their bridgehead to parallel the advance of General Simpson`s 9th Army east from Wessel, where they crossed along with the rest of Field Marshal Montgomery`s forces during Operation Plunder.
They are facing some 370,000 German troops of the 15th Army, 5th Panzer Army, two corps of the 1st Parachute Army, and thousands of Luftwaffe air defence crews, Hitler Jugend and Volkssturm troops.
So when the U.S. 9th Army began to push east, the 8th and 2nd Armored Divisions initially struggled to find a break in the German lines and then were slowed down by the marshy terrain. Meanwhile, the 1st Army`s VII, III, and V Corps abreast. After they broke out of their bridgehead on 25 March, they began a relentless advance, reaching Giessen and Marburg, some 129 km (80 mi) east of the Rhine, by 28 march with III Corps alone taking 17,000 German prisoners.
Gen. Rose, 3rd AD commander, ordered Task Force Richardson to drive immediately 96 km (60 mi) north toward Paderborn. They covered 72 km (45 mi) by the end of the day. On 29 March, though, they encountered strong resistance from an ad hoc SS battalion supported by 60 tanks at Brilon, 24 km (15 mi) south of Paderborn.
On 1 April, the VII Corps linked up with the lead elements of the 9th Army at Lippstadt, completing the encirclement of Army Group B, including Model and 26 German generals in a pocket measuring 48 km (30 mi) by 120 km (75 mi).
After consolidating, the U.S. 1st and 9th Army begin their simultaneous push into the Ruhr Pocket today.
Picture: Infantrymen crouch close to buildings as tanks go down the streets of Konigshoffen. 8 April 1945.
Source: Signal Corps Archives SC 335303
