How World War II Ended in Europe

The Greatest Generation Live Podcast

Glenn Flickinger welcomes David W. Hogan, Jr., former Director of Histories at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, to talk about the end of World War II in Europe.

Russ Freeburg also joins us too share this story and insights. Russ served in the 8th Armored Division, 9th Army and is a retired journalist and author of "Oil & War: How the Deadly Struggle for Fuel in WWII Meant Victory or Defeat."

The book is a detailed historical analysis of how access to oil determined the strategies, movements, and ultimate outcomes of World War II. The book argues that the global conflict was as much about securing fuel as it was about defeating enemy forces, showing how Germany, Japan, and the Allies made crucial decisions—such as Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union and Japan’s push toward Southeast Asia—based on the need for oil. Drawing on military records and firsthand accounts, the authors reveal how fuel shortages crippled the Axis powers and gave the Allies a decisive advantage.

The final stage of World War II in Europe unfolded rapidly between April and May 1945. On April 12, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia, after leading the United States through most of the war. His death shocked the Allied world, but leadership transferred smoothly to Vice President Harry S. Truman, who committed to following Roosevelt’s strategy of unconditional German surrender.

In the meantime, Allied forces were closing in on Nazi Germany from both east and west. The Western Allies, including U.S. and British troops, advanced through western Germany, liberating cities and uncovering the horrors of Nazi concentration and extermination camps—among them Buchenwald, Dora-Mittelbau, and Dachau. These discoveries brought the full extent of the Holocaust into public view, revealing mass killings, forced labor, and the systematic extermination of millions.

To the east, Soviet forces under Marshal Georgy Zhukov pushed toward Berlin in a final, brutal assault. Although the Western Allies had the capability to push into Berlin, a decision was made—agreed upon at the Yalta Conference and reaffirmed in April 1945—not to contest the Soviets for the German capital. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, instead focused on southern Germany and Austria to eliminate remaining German resistance and avoid unnecessary casualties in a race to Berlin.

On April 25, 1945, American and Soviet troops met at the Elbe River near Torgau, Germany. The historic link-up symbolized the effective splitting of Nazi Germany and was a powerful moment of Allied unity. Meanwhile, Berlin was encircled and under heavy bombardment.

As the Red Army closed in, Adolf Hitler took refuge in his Führerbunker beneath the Reich Chancellery. On April 30, 1945, with Soviet troops just blocks away, Hitler committed suicide alongside his companion Eva Braun, whom he had married the day before. His death marked the symbolic collapse of the Nazi regime.

Following Hitler’s death, Admiral Karl Dönitz briefly assumed leadership of a crumbling German government. With most of Germany occupied and its military disintegrating, Dönitz authorized General Alfred Jodl to sign an unconditional surrender. On May 7, 1945, in Reims, France, Jodl signed the surrender to the Western Allies, which took effect at 11:01 p.m. on May 8—celebrated as Victory in Europe (V-E) Day. A separate, formal surrender to the Soviets was signed on May 8 in Berlin by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel.

With the surrender, the war in Europe ended after nearly six years of unprecedented destruction and loss of life. The continent lay in ruins, but the defeat of Nazi Germany opened the path to reconstruction, occupation, and a new geopolitical order defined by the Cold War.

David Hogan is author of A Command Post at War: First Army HQ in Europe, 1943-1945; Centuries of Service: The U.S. Army, 1775-2005; and Raiders or Elite Infantry? The U.S. Army Rangers from Dieppe to Grenada. He is currently working on a biography of General of the Army Omar N. Bradley.

We’re grateful to UPMC for Life for sponsoring this event!