In anticipation of his new book, Red Army Into The Reich, author and historian Simon Forty gives us an in-depth, visual tour of the last days of WWII on the Eastern Front – a perspective often overlooked today.
On September 2, 1945, the formal documents of the surrender of the Japanese were signed on USS Missouri. World War II was officially over…Well, it was for some.
In Europe the fighting hadn’t stopped immediately on May 8—although many of the belligerents laid down their arms, some battles continued. But even after the final battle had been fought, the dying continued. In the liberated concentration camps disease, malnutrition, and hunger continued to kill thousands. Political retribution against those who fought for Nazi Germany—whether voluntarily or not—was rife. And then there were the repatriations agreed at Yalta: the British returned 40,000 Cossacks, many of whom had fought on the German side, to Russia with their wives and children—straight to execution or the gulags; Croats and Slovenes were returned to Yugoslavia and death.
The final organization of the zones of occupation saw territory changes and political pragmatism at work. The Western powers don’t like to talk about it, but they were partners in awful crimes that were perpetrated on a range of peoples post-war. Poland had lost a fifth of its population (half of this Jews; many of the others killed by Stalin or ethnic cleansing in Ukraine). Its exiles had fought with distinction in the skies and on land for the Allies. Stalin kept the parts of Poland he had annexed in 1939 and the borders were shifted westward to the Oder–Neisse line in compensation, reducing the country’s size by 20 percent and displacing millions who, in their turn, turfed out the ethnic Germans who were sent westward or used as forced labour. The Nazis had resettled 1.3 million Germans in Poland. By 1950 the expulsion of Germans from Poland was over 3 million and some 400,000 died. The Polish government in exile was ignored and a Soviet puppet government emplaced. Elsewhere, the Saar became a French protectorate until a referendum saw it re-join the then West Germany in 1956. Austria was also divided into zones until 1955.
Europe was teeming with people who were miles from home—if they still had one—displaced by the fighting, by ethnic cleansing, and by changes to the government and political leanings of their original countries. Many were ill with rickets, dysentery, intestinal and chest infections, tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhus and skin infections; all needed to be fed, clothed, and housed until they could be returned or found a home. This process took a decade; the rebuilding much longer. In Germany where up to half the homes in over sixty cities had been destroyed, much of the initial work fell to women, the so-called Trümmerfrauen (rubble women).
The perpetrators of the Final Solution and all the abominations of the Nazi regime were prosecuted—but not many went to trial on November 20, 1945, at Nuremberg. And anyway, within five years many of those imprisoned were free as the Western Allies found it easier to run the country using the experienced administrators of the Nazi regime. Denazification and non-fraternization were the order of the day, but the catastrophic destruction meant that short cuts were imperative.
The political map of Europe was set for fifty years by the position of the Allies’ front lines in May 1945. As agreed at Yalta, in the west the Elbe was where the advance stopped—with the final dash to the Baltic “saving” Denmark from the possibility of Soviet occupation. The east disappeared behind the Iron Curtain other than Yugoslavia that managed to remain unaligned. Germany itself and Berlin were divided into four zones, each coming under one of the main Allies. The war had ended with a new political order, two superpowers vying against each other, and as the new war—the Cold War—started, so the border would become an area of friction.
The Allies had given the Nazis notice that they would be tried for war crimes in the November 1, 1943, Declaration on German Atrocities in Occupied Europe. The International Military Tribunal sat in Nürnberg (Nuremberg) November 20, 1945–October 1, 1946. The first, and major, trial was of 24 individuals and seven organizations:
1 Left to Right front row: Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Walther Funk, and Hjalmar Schacht.
2 Left to Right back row: Karl Dönitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Franz von Papen, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Albert Speer, Konstantin von Neurath, Hans Fritzsche.
Three of the accused were absent: Gustav Krupp was too senile; Robert Ley committed suicide before trial; and Bormann had been killed in Berlin. The organizations tried included the leadership of the Nazi Party, the SS, SD, Gestapo, SA, and the General Staff and High Command. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death. Some have debated the legitimacy of the trials but it’s hard to argue against some form of judicial response to the genocide and illegalities of Hitler’s regime.
The pragmatism of the Allies is well shown by the treatment of the proprietor of the Krupp organization. Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to twelve years imprisonment and forfeiture of property. U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, John J. McCloy, reversed the latter and pardoned him after three years.
Relations between the wartime allies broke down soon after the war. One immediate result was the blockade of Berlin and the Allied Airlift to keep it going (this is a USAF Douglas C-54E-1-DO Skymaster used in 1948–49 now preserved at the Command Museum, Dover AFB).
Red Army Into The Reich
By Simon Forty and Nik Cornish
The last year of the war saw Russian offensives that cleared the Germans out of their final strongholds in Finland and the Baltic states, before advancing into Finnmark in Norway and the east European states that bordered Germany: Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. By spring 1945 the Red Army had reached to Vienna and the Balkans, and had thrust deep into Germany where they met American, French and British troops advancing from the west. The final days of the Third Reich were at hand.
Simon Forty has worked in military and history publishing as editor and author for over 40 years. Following in his father’s footsteps he concentrates on highly illustrated books that combine historic material with modern photography, much of it by long-time collaborator Leo Marriott.
Nik Cornish is a former head teacher who has been supplying top class Eastern Front photographs since his first visit to the USSR in 1985. His knowledge of Russian sources and the battles of the Eastern Front have seen him produce books for Osprey and Pen & Sword as well as titles on the Russian Revolution.
Casemate UK | 9781636240220 | September 2021 | Hardback | £30.00
Special Offer: £24.00
Available to pre-order through Casemate UK
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