Countdown to Surrender: Last 100 Days

The final act of World War II is its most costly episode. More than one million German soldiers die in 1945 alone. Before peace comes in May, liberators and the liberated alike must suffer the unimaginable. The last three months of dictatorship and war bring fanaticism and flight, murder and civil courage, delusion, struggle and collapse. The last rebellion of the murderous regime.

April 16, 1945. The Red Army begins its Berlin offensive. The generals are willing to incur heavy losses. On the Western Front, the first concentration camps have been liberated by British and US forces. They discovered emaciated prisoners and mounds of corpses. Hundreds of thousands of Wehrmacht soldiers surrender. Churchill doesn't want to leave Berlin to Stalin, but Eisenhower has other concerns. He is afraid of German units forming a national redoubt in the Alps. Hitler finally realizes that the war is a lost cause. Only Goebbels and his family remain in the Fuhrer's bunker. Hitler and his wife Eva Braun commit suicide on April 30. Nor do the Goebbels family survive the downfall. It is left to administrators under Grand Admiral Doenitz to declare unconditional surrender. On May 8, World War II comes to an end in Europe.

March 6, 1945. Cologne is the first major city to fall to the Allies. Shortly after, US troops occupy the only surviving bridge over the Rhine in Remagen. Stalin orders planning for his offensive on Berlin to start immediately. He wants to avoid Berlin falling into the hands of his allies. Goebbels does everything to encourage the Germans - the final 'Wochenschau' newsreels in German cinemas stoke up fear of the Red Army. Hitler no longer leaves his Reich Chancellery. He has hundreds of opponents of the regime murdered, and orders the destruction of industrial sites and infrastructure in embattled areas. Only a few fanatical Nazis comply. The British and Americans successfully cross the Rhine. It's the turning point on the Western Front. The Red Army conquers the 'fortresses' of Poznan and Konigsberg. Their next objective is Berlin.