Victory and Tragedy in Europe

Turning the Tide in Europe

• Operation Torch – Nov. 8, 1942: British & American forces under command of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower attack German forces in North Africa

• Battle of the Kasserine Pass – German counter offensive

• Axis forces surrendered North Africa in May of 1943

• July – August 1943: British and American armies attacked Sicily, Italy

Turning the Tide in Europe

• Italian King & army forced Mussolini from power & negotiated peace with allies

• Germany occupied most of Italy while allied forces landed in Southern Italy

• Bitter fighting lasted until the surrender of Germany in 1945.

• Eastern Front: German offensive stopped at the Battle of Kursk in the Soviet Union

Operation Overload

• D-Day: June 6, 1944 – major amphibious invasion at Normandy, France

• Allied forces landed 500,000 men and 100,000 vehicles within 2 weeks

• Break-through of the German line at St. Lo• This led to the encirclement of German army

at Falaise

Operation Overload

• Germans lost 250,000 men• Allies liberated Paris on August 25th • Eastern Front: by end of 1944 – Red Army

entered the Balkans & reached central Poland

Operation Overload

• Russians suffered over 20 million casualties (6000 Vista Murrietas, 195 Murrietas)

• Equivalent to the deaths of everyone in Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming

Victory & Tragedy in Europe

• Allied air strikes – by end of 1944, bombing raids crippled German war production, transportation, and its economy

• Dresden – allied air raid using fire bombs destroyed the undefended city killing over 50,000 civilians

• Battle of the Bulge: Dec. 16, 1944 – Hitler attempted to break British and American lines by capturing the port city of Antwerp

A pile of bodies awaits cremation after the firebombing of Dresden, February 1945

City of Dresden, Germany, after an Allied bombing, February 1945

Victory & Tragedy in Europe

• German offensive ran out of gas before it could reach the allied fuel supplies

• Collapse of German forces – allied armies crossed the Rhine River in March capturing the industrial center of Germany

• On April 25, 1945 – American and Soviet troops met at the Elba River

• On April 30 – Hitler committed suicide (Yay! Though 20 years too late.)

Victory & Tragedy in Europe

• Berlin surrendered to the Soviets on May 2• VE Day (Victory in Europe Day) – May 8th:

Nazi state formally capitulated (unconditional surrender = no “stab in the back” myth)

Holocaust

• “Final solution” to what Hitler saw as “the Jewish problem” – starting in 1942, Hitler’s SS began a campaign of genocide which focused on the elimination of the Jewish population in Europe.

• Death camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka were used to murder over 6 million Jews and 1 million Poles, Gypsies, and others deemed inferior by the Nazis

Berga Concentration Camp Survivors, 1945

A pile of human remains at the site of Nazi concentration camp Majdanek, 1944, Lublin

Corpses at Buchenwald, April 1945

Corpses at Buchenwald, April 1945

Einsatzgruppe A members shoot Jews on the outskirts of Kovno, 1941-1942

Executions of Kiev Jews by German army mobile killing units, 1942

Eyeglasses from Auschwitz prisoners, 1945

German SS guards executed after the liberation of Dachau by Allied forces, 1945

German woman forced to see death camps, 1945

Mass Grave Bergen Belsen, May 1945

Members of the Sonderkommando burning corpses on fires in pits at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, 1944

Rows of bodies of dead inmates fill the yard of Lager Nordhausen, a Gestapo concentration camp, 1945

Senator Alben W. Barkley views the evidence at first hand at Buchenwald concentration camp, April 1945

The last Jew in Vinnitsa, 1941

Three emaciated survivors liberated from Buchenwald, April 1945

Ustaše militia execute prisoners at Jasenovac concentration camp

Young German boy walks beside corpses of hundreds of prisoners from Bergen Belsen, April 20 1945

Wedding Rings stolen From Buchenwald Inmates, May 5, 1945