End of the Conflict (HSC SSCE Modern History): Revision Notes

End of the Conflict

D-Day and the liberation of France

Operation Overlord

In May 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt set 1 May 1944 as the date for a cross-Channel invasion of France. By early 1944, preparations for this massive operation, known as Operation Overlord, were well underway.

Key leadership decisions:

• President Roosevelt chose General Dwight Eisenhower as Supreme Commander
• British General Bernard Montgomery was selected as ground commander, responsible for operational planning
• General Omar Bradley would lead the American forces

Why Normandy?

The Allies had to make difficult strategic choices about where to land. Although Calais offered the shortest route to the Ruhr (Germany's industrial heartland), the Allies chose Normandy because:

• The Normandy ports could better accommodate the massive invasion force
• It would allow American forces under Bradley to land on the eastern end and advance on Cherbourg
• British forces could simultaneously seize the town of Caen

D-Day: 6 June 1944

German commander Erwin Rommel understood that defeating the Allies at the beaches was crucial. He called it 'the longest day', predicting the first 24 hours would be decisive.

The airborne assault:

Allied paratroopers dropped into France during the night of 5 June. These troops faced enormous challenges:

• They carried heavy equipment
• Most pilots were going into combat for the first time
• Their C-47 transport planes were neither armoured nor armed
• Around 80% of the 101st Airborne were expected to become casualties

The paratroopers' drops were chaotic. Few landed where intended - some dropped at sea, some at too-low altitudes, and some drowned in flooded fields. However, this dispersal inadvertently helped the invasion because:

• Germans received reports of invading paratroopers from across Normandy
• The French Resistance cut German communications
• Both factors slowed German response

The beach landings:

The seaborne invasion force landed early on 6 June. The Allies achieved strategic surprise due to:

• Poor weather (the Germans didn't expect an attack)
• Continued German belief that Normandy was a diversion and the main attack would come at Calais
• Delayed German response because Hitler wasn't awakened immediately with the news
• French Resistance actions disrupting German communications

Results of D-Day:

• Landings at Juno, Sword, Gold and Utah beaches were successful
• US troops at Omaha Beach were pinned down for hours before breaking out late in the day
• The Normandy landings were merely the beginning of a protracted and deadly campaign

The liberation of France

Following the success of D-Day, the question became whether the Allies could liberate the rest of France. By 1 July, almost 1 million Allied troops had landed at Normandy.

The breakout:

The Allied advance from Normandy was initially slow:

• Difficult terrain, including impenetrable hedgerows (trees and bushes), made fighting particularly challenging
• Montgomery was slowed by determined German defences at Caen, which didn't fall until 18 July
• General Patton's Third Army broke out in July, allowing Allied forces to push deeper into France

Operation Cobra (25 July):

This operation aimed to:

• Take advantage of German distractions at Caen
• Break through German defences
• Allow rapid advance into France

French Resistance groups gained control of the Brittany peninsula, while Allied forces trapped an entire German Army group in the Falaise Pocket, where fighting and destruction were particularly intense.

The liberation of Paris:

In mid-August 1944, a debate arose among Allied commanders about Paris:

• Eisenhower wanted to bypass Paris because it had little strategic importance and would slow the Allied advance
• Charles de Gaulle wanted his Free French forces to liberate Paris before the communist Parisian Resistance did

After French workers and police revolted against German occupiers on 15 August, Eisenhower ordered French General Leclerc to advance on Paris on 22 August. The city surrendered on 25 August, with de Gaulle arriving on 26 August.

Speed and cost of the French campaign:

Within six weeks of pushing out of Normandy in late July:

• Paris had been liberated
• Allies had reached Belgium
• By September 1944, Allied armies were advancing on Germany

Russian counter-offensives, 1944

The certainty of German defeat on the Eastern Front became clear as German forces crumbled before three great waves of Soviet advances. In summer and autumn 1944, the southern sector of the Eastern Front witnessed catastrophic collapse. The Soviet Army liberated:

• Romania (August)
• Bulgaria (September)
• Yugoslavia (October)
• Hungary (early 1945)

Operation Bagration

Operation Bagration was a vital Soviet offensive that destroyed the German Army Group Centre. Launched just after D-Day in June 1944, it doesn't receive the same attention as D-Day, but the scope of fighting was much larger.

Scale of Operation Bagration:

• Three times as many Germans defended against the Soviet advance as defended Normandy and northern France
• Ten times as many Russians were involved in Operation Bagration as Allied troops who landed on D-Day
• The German Army Group Centre was the anchor for the German front
• Russian victory secured the shortest path to Berlin

Key dates in Operation Bagration:

Date	Event
19 June 1944	Red Army partisan units operated behind German lines, attacking Wehrmacht supply lines and transport
21 June 1944	Soviets launched massive air attacks
23 June 1944	Soviet technique of 'maskirovka' employed - Red Army caught Germans by surprise, moving forward under cover of darkness
3 July 1944	Hitler made the disastrous decision to order Army Group Centre soldiers to stand firm and not change positions despite Soviet advances. This proved fatal as Soviets left enemy units isolated behind them while pushing forward in powerful spearheads. Hitler's orders reflected poor leadership and distrust of German general staff

Results of Operation Bagration:

Operation Bagration proved an extraordinary victory for the Red Army:

• Minsk, capital of Belorussia (gained by Germans three years earlier), was captured by Soviet forces
• By end of July, Red Army had moved into Polish territory, taking Lvow (major cultural centre of eastern Poland)
• Military successes emboldened Stalin - expansive land gained through counter-offensives would not be easily relinquished at war's conclusion

The Warsaw uprising

On 1 August 1944, the Polish resistance planned an uprising to take control of Warsaw. If Warsaw could be liberated by Poles rather than by Stalin or his protégés, Poland's independence could not be denied to the victors.

Soviet advance continues:

As the Red Army pushed into Finland in September 1944, Germany's satellite states began deserting the Axis. Hitler refused requests to withdraw German troops from Baltic states and form a new defensive line. In January 1945, Soviets moved from Poland, heavily outmatching German forces. By February, the Red Army was just 65 miles from Berlin.

Final defeat 1944-45

Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge

After the fall of Paris in August 1944, the Allies were poised for their final assault on Germany. However, they debated the best way to break into Germany:

• Montgomery urged a single-thrust strategy aimed at taking the Ruhr
• Eisenhower advocated a broad-front strategy

Allied challenges in late 1944:

1. Troop shortage: British were at the limit of their manpower reserves, and United States was stretched by demands of a two-theatre war
2. Overconfidence and faulty intelligence: Allies were convinced Germany was on the brink of defeat, but Allied intelligence underestimated German strength in the west
3. Logistical problems: Advancing troops were outrunning their supplies. A port closer to the front (Antwerp) was desperately needed, but Hitler controlled the Scheldt estuary, making the port useless

Operation Market Garden (September 1944):

Montgomery advanced a daring plan to jump the Rhine in Holland, thereby outflanking the Siegfried Line (also known as the West Wall - a defensive system of pillboxes and strongpoints built along Germany's western frontier in the 1930s).

Goals of the operation:

• Cross the last river barrier guarding Germany
• Outflank the northernmost fortifications of the West Wall
• Threaten Germany's V-2 rocket launching sites in Holland (the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile, developed by Nazis to attack Allied cities)

Why Market Garden failed:

• Allies had to cross numerous rivers and canals and seize many bridges
• They suffered from overconfidence, expecting to easily brush aside two defending German armoured divisions
• Allied forces moved very slowly

The defeat meant no Rhine crossing in 1944. Meanwhile, Patton and the Americans were bogged down in Lorraine. Though First Army took Aachen on 21 October, Allied progress was slow in late 1944 and victory remained elusive.

Battle of the Bulge (December 1944):

Hitler struck back with the Ardennes offensive in December 1944. He hoped one last dramatic stroke would:

• Split the Allies between Montgomery in the north and Americans further south
• Drive a wedge between Allied armies and destroy them piecemeal
• Reach Antwerp through a massive armoured drive

The German High Command worried that Hitler's plan would:

• Weaken Germany's position in the east
• Consume its last troop reserves

Why the Allies were caught off guard:

• Allies assumed the Ardennes was impenetrable, especially in winter
• German radio silence meant Ultra intelligence was of little use
• Despite tell-tale German troop movements, Allies exhibited fatal overconfidence

Hitler's Operation Autumn Fog (16 December 1944):

• Caught outmatched Americans completely by surprise and unprepared
• Allied air power neutralised by bad weather for over a week
• German drive created huge bulge in American lines
• American prisoners were massacred at Malmedy
• Despite being surrounded, isolated American units held out at key road junctions of Saint Vith and Bastogne
• Patton's Army broke the Siege of Bastogne on 26 December
• When weather cleared, Americans rallied air power and halted German offensive by end of January

The race to Berlin

British and American forces drove towards Germany from the west. The invasion of Germany began when Anglo-American forces crossed the Rhine.

Crossing the Rhine:

The Allied plan called for a three-pronged advance to clear the Rhineland:

• British and Canadian forces proceeded slowly against bitter German resistance, not reaching Rhine until 21 February 1945
• Montgomery understood his troops would have priority to cross the Rhine first
• Cologne fell to US First Army on 5 March
• Two days later, US Third Army crossed the Rhine at Remagen
• On 23 March, Montgomery launched what was to have been the main offensive across the Rhine
• By 25 March, all organised resistance west of Rhine had ceased
• By 27 March, all seven Allied armies had crossed the Rhine

The advance towards Berlin:

Anglo-American forces then raced towards Berlin:

• Next objective was the Ruhr, which was encircled by April
• German forces resisted fiercely, even though they had effectively lost the war
• On 11 April, Simpson's 9th Army reached the Elbe, where Eisenhower ordered him to halt (Simpson was overextended and short of supplies)

The final Soviet drive for Berlin (16 April 1945):

• Soviets unleashed huge artillery barrage against the city
• Russian units linked up west of Berlin on 25 April, invading the city
• Hitler committed suicide in his bunker on 30 April
• VE Day (Victory in Europe) was declared in the West on 8 May 1945

The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials

In the closing stages of war, people gathered thoughts on international efforts that might assure human rights and ground hopes for peace. The United Nations was held up as one such international institution, a successor to the League of Nations.

Another question needed answering: what should be done with defeated Nazi Germany and the crimes committed by the regime?

The disappearance of Nazis:

Contemporary observers such as Hannah Arendt documented a bizarre phenomenon when travelling in post-war Germany: it seemed all the Nazis had disappeared. People now presented themselves as either having been active resistors or passive inward objectors to the Nazi regime. It was difficult to find publicly professed Nazis in the war's aftermath. The regime's collapse had been total, and its ideology discredited.

The trials:

In Nuremberg, southern Germany, from 1945 to 1947, prominent Nazi leaders were tried by Allied judges for 'crimes against humanity'. This term was significant because it emphasised new stress on human rights at the forefront of people's minds in the immediate post-war period.

Katyn Massacre: A series of mass executions of Polish nationals carried out by Soviet security agency NKVD in April and May 1940.

The Nuremberg sentences

Name	Position	Sentence
Martin Bormann	Hitler's Secretary (tried in absentia)	Death
Karl Doenitz	Admiral and Hitler's successor	10 years' imprisonment
Herman Goering	Head of Luftwaffe (committed suicide in his cell)	Death
Wilhelm Keitel	Chief of Wehrmacht	Death
Joachim von Ribbentrop	Foreign minister	Death
Hans Frank	Governor of occupied territories	Death
Wilhelm Frick	Author of Nuremberg Laws	Death
Julius Streicher	Regional leader, publisher of virulent anti-Semitic literature	Death
Alfred Jodl	Hitler's chief military adviser	Death
Ernst Kaltenbrunner	SS commander, deputy to Himmler	Death
Rudolf Hess	Hitler's former deputy	Life imprisonment
Baldur von Schirach	Head of Hitler Youth	20 years' imprisonment
Alfred Rosenberg	Governor of occupied territories	Death
Fritz Sauckel	Organiser of forced labour	Death
Arthur Seyss-Inquart	Governor of occupied territories	Death
Franz von Papen	Former Chancellor and Nazi diplomat	Acquitted
Walther Func	Economics minister	Life imprisonment
Hjalmar Schacht	Former banker to the Nazi regime	Acquitted
Erich Raeder	Head of navy	Life imprisonment
Hans Fritzsche	Former Army High Command	Acquitted
Albert Speer	Armaments minister	20 years' imprisonment
Constantin von Neurath	Former foreign minister	15 years' imprisonment

Reasons for the Allied victory

The dynamic nature and sheer scale of conflict in Europe make it hard to identify singular reasons for Allied victory. A combination of key factors accounts for the most rational explanation.

Prior to his execution at Nuremberg, Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop identified three primary factors in Allied victory:

1. The unexpected resistance of the Red Army
2. The extensive resources of the United States
3. Allied dominance in the air war

US economist John Galbraith highlighted that Allied strengths were further accentuated by:

• Political shortcomings of the Nazi regime
• Economic shortcomings of the Nazi regime

While Allied strength in key areas accounted for victory to an extent, these strengths were enhanced through the incompetency of the Nazi regime itself.