Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Western Allied invasion of Germany east of the Rhine began on the 22nd of March 1945, when elements of the U.S. XII Corps' 5th Infantry Division crossed the river at Nierstein and Oppenheim under cover of darkness.
Eisenhower concluded that Soviet forces were already within 30 miles of Berlin while Allied armies on the Rhine were more than 300 miles away. He also calculated, with Bradley's warning that a battle for the city could cost 100,000 casualties, that Berlin had been assigned to the Soviet occupation zone at the Yalta Conference and any territory captured there would be relinquished to the Soviets after the war.
The final prisoner count from the Ruhr Pocket reached 325,000, far beyond what American commanders had anticipated. Army Group B commander Field Marshal Walter Model, who had been encircled with his forces, committed suicide on the 21st of April 1945.
On the 25th of April 1945, a patrol from the U.S. 69th Infantry Division made first contact with a Soviet horseman in the village of Leckwitz. The first official link-up ceremony took place the following day at Torgau, where Major General Emil F. Reinhardt met Major General Vladimir Rusakov of the Soviet 58th Guards Rifle Division.
Germany surrendered unconditionally on the 8th of May 1945. After Hitler committed suicide on the 30th of April, his successor Grand Admiral Karl Donitz authorized his representative Alfred Jodl to sign surrender documents on the 7th of May, which took effect the following day.
Operation Plunder was Field Marshal Montgomery's 21st Army Group crossing of the Rhine on the night of the 23rd of March 1945, comparable in scale to the Normandy invasion. It involved more than 1,250,000 men across thirty divisions, preceded by approximately 11,000 air sorties in the three preceding days, and included a supporting airborne assault known as Operation Varsity.