Curated playlist
April 1945 in Europe
- Battle of Nuremberg (1945)Nuremberg fell to US troops on Adolf Hitler's 56th birthday. The city had hosted his grandest Nazi rallies.
- East Prussian offensiveSome German units kept fighting in East Prussia until the whole country surrendered. That was May 9, 1945.
- Spring 1945 offensive in ItalyItalian partisans liberated Milan on the 25th of April 1945, before Allied troops entered.
- East Pomeranian offensiveSoviet forces paused before Berlin in 1945 to clear Pomerania first. Generals still debate that delay.
- Ruhr pocketField Marshal Walter Model dissolved his army group in April 1945 rather than surrender.
- Death of Adolf HitlerA skull fragment long thought to be Hitler's turned out to belong to a woman. DNA testing settled it in 2009.
- Death of Benito MussoliniThe partisan who shot Mussolini in 1945 borrowed a submachine gun because his own weapon had jammed.
- Vienna offensiveThe Vienna offensive of 1945 reached a city that had already endured continuous bombardment for a full year. Many of its buildings and facilities were damaged or destroyed before a single Soviet soldier arrived. The assault was carried out…
- Western Allied invasion of GermanySeven German soldiers surrendered at Nierstein, then paddled themselves back across the Rhine.
- Battle of KönigsbergKönigsberg, a fortress city built to resist huge siege guns, fell in four days in April 1945.
- Elbe DayElbe Day began when four American soldiers paddled a small boat across a river in Germany.
- Battle of BerlinThe famous photo of Soviet soldiers planting a flag on the Reichstag was a re-enactment.
- Capture of HamburgThe Capture of Hamburg was one of the last battles fought on the Western Front of the Second World War. It unfolded in Lower Saxony between the 18th of April and the 3rd of May 1945. By then the Red Army was besieging Berlin, and the war…