As the Allies advanced into Germany, they were ready for a hard battle. However, after they crossed the Rhine, the German resistance was completely broken down only a few weeks later. The city of Berlin was soon occupied by soviet troops.
After the Allied defeat in the autumn of 1944 and the hard fighting at the Battle of the Salient the following year, the Allies did not consider it easy to win the offensive against Germany. Even ready to fight the Germans to the end. However, the facts were unexpected by the Allied generals.
British and Canadian forces launched their first offensive at the northern end of the front in early February and advanced through the Reichwald Forest in a precarious battle to the Rhine region. The U.S. Ninth Army, on their southern flank, was also ready to join the offensive shortly thereafter, but it was delayed by the flooding, which was deliberately created by the Germans. By early March, the NINTH Army had begun to move and joined the U.S. First and Third Armies, thus advancing deep into the south.
Within days, Allied forces had reached various areas of the Rhine region north of Cologne, and by March 7, the U.S. First Army had reached the Remagen region in the south. The Americans seized the railway bridge over the Rhine before the Germans destroyed it, and immediately let the troops cross it. The last Allied forces, the U.S. Seventh Army and the French First Army, had almost control of the remaining German territory west of the river in mid-March.
Since the evening of the 23rd, Montgomery's British forces have begun to carry out their long-planned assault across the Rhine in the area around Weatherall, and they have encountered much less trouble than originally expected. This was originally considered the main Allied offensive action, but the crossing through the Remagen area was supported by another force on the 22nd, the Third Army south of the Mainz region. A few days earlier, Eisenhower had already made a decision to change the Allied plan of operations, that is, to intensify the offensive south of the Ruhr.
Surround the Ruhr
Hitler was still giving the order to fight resolutely to the end without retreat. However, the reality was that more and more German troops were now eager to surrender to the Allies, so at this time the morale of the German troops had begun to waver, and the people's hearts and minds did not want to continue to resist the Allies. At the end of March, a new Allied offensive began to encircle the entire Ruhr region, and more than 300,000 troops there surrendered in mid-April.
By this time, Soviet troops had reached the Oder region, which was only 65 kilometers from Berlin. In mid-March, however, Eisenhower decided that instead of marching toward Berlin, his forces would concentrate further south to confront a frightening so-called "national fortress," a fortification built by the Nazis for the last resistance in southern Germany.
In fact, the Anglo-American forces were now advancing at full speed along the front lines of the battle, and the Soviet army was not ready for their final campaign to Berlin. In mid-April, U.S. troops arrived in the Elbe region west of Berlin and were stationed there.
The last battle in Italy
In 1944, after the occupation of Rome, Allied forces withdrew from Italy and began to capture the southern part of France. In April 1945, the Allies won a victory in the south of France. German forces in Italy surrendered on 2 May 1945, and on 4 May allied forces joined the U.S. Seventh Army crossing Bavaria at the Browner Pass. At the same time, German forces in northern France surrendered to Montgomery on this day.