Though the West Wall defenses along Germany’s western border were not enough to hold back the swell of Allied troops in early 1945, the meandering Rhine River, slicing across western Germany, continued to pose a daunting obstacle. In the wake of German demolition teams destroying key bridges, Allied engineers began building temporary crossings suitable for armor and infantry.

In early March, a small American force made a startling discovery – the Germans had failed to bring down a railway bridge near the town of Remagen. The Americans seized the opportunity, putting five full divisions across the river before the bridge collapsed days later. Those divisions would soon be joined by others as the engineers completed their work.

The Americans pushed into the German interior, converging on the Ruhr Valley, a hub of coal mining and steel production still fueling German war industries and defended by one of Adolf Hitler’s largest remaining armies. With few tanks and trucks left, the Germans lacked mobility and were soon encircled by the fast-moving American forces. The surrender of 317,000 German soldiers in the Ruhr Pocket, including two dozen generals, marked the greatest US triumph of the war.

The Allied push across Germany continued, liberating concentration camps and millions of slave laborers as American and British-led armies drove toward Berlin. In a surprise to his subordinates, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, halted the advance at the Elbe River, just a short distance from the capital. Aware the fight for Berlin would be a savage contest, Eisenhower had little interest in sacrificing so many of his men when final victory was so close.

That decision was welcomed by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. His forces had pushed across Poland and to the German border, eager for vengeance and retribution after countless Nazi atrocities on Soviet soil. As the Red Army began spilling into German communities, the Soviets spared no one. Executions and beatings were common, and women and girls of all ages were assaulted and raped, often repeatedly. Roads became clogged with panicked Germans fleeing west, hoping for protection from the Americans and British.

When Stalin’s armies reached the outskirts of Berlin, they were met in the streets by a motley collection of civilian conscripts, remnants of the Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht, and even teenaged Hitler Youth armed with antitank weapons. Hitler and his inner circle of worshipers barricaded themselves in a subterranean bunker complex, but by late April, with Soviet forces closing in, Hitler took his own life with a single gunshot to the head. His corpse was doused with gasoline and burned by his staff.

On May 2, the last pockets of resistance in the city finally surrendered. An estimated 120,000 German soldiers and civilians were killed in the Battle for Berlin, while the Soviets lost three times that number. Other forces holding out across Germany began laying down their arms, and on May 8, one day after the Germans surrendered unconditionally, the war in Europe finally came to an end.