After the Allied invasion in the western part of France, Germany gathered spare power and began a counter-offensive in the Ardennes, which petered out by January. At this time, the troops of the USSR, moving from the east came to Poland and East Prussia. In March, the Allies crossed the Rhine, capturing hundreds of thousands of German soldier of the Army Group B, and the Russian Army entered the area of Austria. Both fronts are getting closer to Berlin. Allied strategic bombing of Germany fell upon the ground, and at times the whole town disappeared from the face of the earth in a single night. In the first months of 1945, Germany has provided fierce resistance, but its troops were obliged to retreat, experiencing difficulties with supply, and had no room for maneuver. In April, the Allied forces broke through the defenses of the Germans in Italy. East met with the West on the River Elbe April 25, 1945, when the Russian and South American troops reached the Torgau. End of the Third Reich came when Russian troops occupied Berlin and Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, and German troops on all fronts undeniably surrendered on May 8. «The thousand-year Reich» of Hitler survived only 12 years, but they were extremely violent.
1. Reddish flag over the Reichstag — the most popular photo Eugene Chaldeans made May 2, 1945. Russian soldiers set the moisture of the USSR on the roof of the Reichstag building after the capture of Berlin. Conducted numerous disputes over whether the footage was staged and for the sake of his flag was raised again, and about the personalities fighter, photographer and Photoshop. (Yevgeny Khaldei / LOC)
2. The officer knows the boys from the Hitler youth how to use a gun. Germany, December 7, 1944. (AP Photo)
3. Squadron of B-24 bombers, Major General Nathan Twining of the railway station of Salzburg, Austria, December 27, 1944. (AP Photo)
4. German fighter carries boxes of ammunition during a counter-offensive on the direction of the Belgium-Luxembourg, January 2, 1945. (AP Photo)
5. Fighter 82nd Airborne Division, the U.S. does rushes under cover companion, near Bra, Belgium, December 24, 1944. (AP Photo)
6. Calculation of Russian guns crossing the river flowing along the band of the Second Belorussian Front, January 1945. Machine gun and boxes of ammunition found on small rafts. (AP Photo)
7. Transport aircraft C-47 are sent with a load of supplies to the positions surrounded by American troops in Bastogne, January 6, 1945, Belgium. In the distance can be seen the smoke from a damaged German technology, on the front plane — upcoming South American tanks. . (AP Photo)
8. 7 body of American soldier who killed an SS man shot in the head. They were identified and buried 25 January 1945. (AP Photo / Peter J. Carroll)
9. German soldiers in the street in Bastogne, Belgium, Jan. 9, 1945, after they were captured fighters 4th Armored Division of the United States. (AP Photo)
10. The refugees in the town of La Gleiz, Belgium, January 2, 1945, after his South American occupation forces after the German counteroffensive. (AP Photo / Peter J. Carroll)
11. The German soldier who was killed during the German counter-offensive in the Belgium and Luxembourg in the street in the town of Stavelot, Belgium, January 2, 1945. (AP Photo / US Army Signal Corps)
12. From left to right: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and the chairman of People’s Commissars of the USSR, Joseph Stalin at the Livadia Palace in Yalta, Crimea, February 4, 1945. Favourites meet to discuss post-war reorganization of Europe and the fate of Germany. (AP Photo / File)
13. Soldiers of the 3rd Ukrainian Front during the fighting in Budapest, February 5, 1945. (AP Photo)
14. Germany is constantly launched strikes missiles V-1 and V-2 through the English Channel. This frame was made from the roof of the structure, and indicates the V-1 rocket that falls in the center of London. Having fallen by the wayside, Drury Lane, this rocket destroyed several buildings, including the newspaper Daily Herald. Last fallen on Britain Phau exploded in Datchvorte, Hertfordshire, March 29, 1945. (AP Photo)
15. With the rise of the militia of the Volkssturm, the German command was short of equipment and clothes. To compensate for the deficiency, the authorities organized Folksopfer — a campaign to raise odezhki and shoes that civilians had to sacrifice for the militias. The inscription on the wall: «The Fuhrer relies on your donations for the army and militia. If you wish to have a walk in the form of militia, empty the closet and bring your own odezhku here.» February 12, 1945. (AP Photo)
16. Three American fighter over a number of bodies stacked in the Germans, Echternach, Luxembourg, 21 February 1945. (AP Photo)
17. Repair phone band on a flooded road half-meter water column, Feb. 22, 1945. The retreating German troops blew up the dam that caused the flood, and the supply of British troops had to carry on with the amphibious vehicle. (AP Photo)
18. Three photos showing the reaction of 16-year-old German soldier when he was captured by the Americans. Germany 1945 year. (AP Photo)
19. Gaps flak near the bomber B-17 «Flying Fortress» of Austria, March 3, 1945. (AP Photo)
20. View from the roof of the town hall of Dresden after the Allied air bombardment of the town, from 13 to 15 February 1945. About 3600 aircraft took off at 3900 tonnes city everyday and incendiary bombs. The fire destroyed about 25 square kilometers in the center of the town, killing more than 22,000 people. (Walter Hahn / AFP / Getty Images)
21. The burning of corpses in Dresden after the Allied air raids from 13 to 15 February 1945. After the war, the bombing was subjected to merciless criticism because the strike were not industrial areas and the historic center, who had no military significance. (Deutsches Bundesarchiv / German Federal Archive)
22. Soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Army in Koblenz, Germany, 18 March 1945. (AP Photo / Byron H. Rollins)
23. The soldiers of the 7th U.S. Army rush into the breach in the Strip Siegfried on the way to Karlsruhe, March 27, 1945. (AP Photo)
24. Private First Class Abraham Mirmelshteyn holds sacred Torah scroll, and Captain Manuel Polyakov and Corporal Martin Willen read prayers in Schloss Reydt, the residence of Dr. Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister. Monchengladbach, Germany, March 18, 1945. The service was the first Jewish church service to the east of the Ruhr in memory of the fallen soldiers of the 29th Division of the 9th U.S. Army. (AP Photo)
25. South American fighters in the assault boat crossing the Rhine under fire of German troops in March 1945. (AP Photo)
26. Unbeknownst to the South American soldier, killed a German sniper in Koblenz in March 1945. (AP Photo / Byron H. Rollins)
27. Cologne Cathedral in the center of the ruined town on the west bank of the Rhine, April 24, 1945. Station and the Hohenzollern Bridge (right) were absolutely destroyed in the three years bombing. (AP Photo)
28. General Volkssturm, the last militia forces of Germany, next to a portrait of Hitler, Leipzig, April 19, 1945. He made a suicide, that would not be taken prisoner by South American troops. (AP Photo / US Army Signal Corps, JM Heslop)
29. South American fighter of the 12th Armored Division, next to a group of Germans captured somewhere in a forest in Germany in April 1945. (AP Photo)
30. Adolf Hitler rewards members of the youth organization of the Nazi Hitler-Jugend front of the bunker Reich Chancellery in Berlin, April 25 1945 year. The picture is made in the four day or before Hitler’s suicide. (AP Photo)
31. Assembly line fighter Heinkel He-162 at the underground plant Tartune Junkers in Germany, beginning in April 1945. Large halls of the former salt mine were found 1st U.S. Army during the coming to Magdeburg. (AP Photo)
32. Russian officers and soldiers of the South American meeting on the Elbe River in April 1945. (Waralbum.ru)
33. Land for Germans surrounded and captured the 7th U.S. Army during its coming to Heidelberg, April 4, 1945. (AP Photo)
34. South American soldier at a monument to the Battle of Nations in Leipzig, April 18, 1945. It is here, at the monument erected to commemorate the victory over Napoleon in 1813, was the last center of defense in the town. 50 SS men who possessed enough food and ammunition to keep about 3 months old, entrenched here with the intention to fight to the last. After all, being under heavy fire of the American artillery, they gave up. (Eric Schwab / AFP / Getty Images)
35. Russian soldiers are fighting in the suburbs of Konigsberg, East Prussia, in April 1945. (Dmitry Chernov / Waralbum.ru)
36. German officer eats canned food in the devastated Saarbrucken, early spring 1945. (AP Photo)
37. Czech lady kisses Russian soldier-liberator, Prague, May 5, 1945. (AP Photo)
38. New York subway in rush hour 1 May 1945 froze: received announcements about the death of Hitler. Favourite Nazi Germany killed himself in a bunker in Berlin April 30, 1945. His successor, Karl Doenitz, announced on the radio that Hitler had died the death of t he brave, and the war against the Allies should continue. (AP Photo)
39. British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (right) reads the pact of surrender in the presence of German officers (left to right): Major Friedel, Admiral Wagner and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg headquarters tent in the 21st Army Group, the Lüneburg Heath, May 4 1945 year. Pact foresaw the end of hostilities on the fronts in the north of Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands at 8 am on May 5. German forces in Italy surrendered earlier, on April 29, and the remnants of the army in Western Europe — May 7, on the Eastern Front — 8th. The five-year war in the spaces of Europe was over. (AP Photo)
40. Tremendous mass of people in central London on May 8, a day of victory in Europe, listening ad premiered on unquestioning surrender of Germany. On the streets of London on the day it was about a million people. (AP Photo)
41. Times Square in New York City is filled with people celebrating the victory over Germany, May 7, 1945. (AP Photo / Tom Fitzsimmons)
42. Celebrating the victory on Red Square in Moscow. Fireworks, artillery salute and illuminations May 9, 1945. (Sergei Loskutov / Waralbum.ru)
43. The Reichstag building in Berlin at the end of the second world war. (AP Photo)
44. Russian Il-2 over Berlin, 1945. (Waralbum.ru)
45. Color photo of the destroyed bombing of Nuremberg, in June 1945. At Nuremberg, the Congress of the NSDAP from 1927 to 1938. Last scheduled congress in 1939 was canceled due to the invasion of German troops in Poland for a day before. There also have been written by the Nuremberg Laws — draconian anti-Semitic laws of Nazi Germany. Allied bombing from 1943 to 1945 year killed more than 90% of the buildings in the center of town. Killed more than 6,000 inhabitants. Soon Nuremberg glorified again, now, thanks to the trial of the survivors of the Third Reich’s favorites. In the middle of their crimes — the murder of over 10 million people, including 6 million Jews, atrocities against the population. Will be devoted to the subsequent genocide, 18th part retrospective. (NARA)