Encircling the Nazi War Machine & German Capitulation

Encircling the Nazi War Machine and German Capitulation. April - May 1945.

The final defeat of the enemy, which we had long calculated would be accomplished in the spring and summer campaign of 1945, was suddenly, now, just around the corner. General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

With the Bridge at Remagen, allied forces were now racing into the heart of Germany. The U.S. Ninth and British Second Armies crossed the Rhine in the North, the U.S. First Army (with the 78th Division) opened the main salient out of Remagen south of the Ruhr, while Patton's Third Army crossed near Mainz and the U.S. Seventh Army was doing the same further south., On April 1, 1945 the U.S. First and Ninth Armies met at Lippstadt, thus encircling the Ruhr Industrial Valley. Trapped inside were 300,000 SS troops, hundreds of tanks, and the key manufacturing cities of Dusseldorf, Essen, Hamm, Dortmund and Duisburg. The 78th was sent right into the middle of the Ruhr Valley, to Wuppertal, to clean out the resistance. Having cut the war-making capability from the German Armies in the field, the war was all over for Hitler., The Ruhr pocket operation took only 11 days. In less than two weeks, the 78th advanced 50 miles and took 47,581 prisoners including seven German general officers. Recognizing the end was near, on April 19, 1945, Adolph Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin. On May 7, 1945, German unconditionally surrendered. Three months later, following the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan also surrendered unconditionally, thus ending World War II.