Part 28: 1944-1945 (The Defeat of Germany and Japan)
As the summer of 1944 draws to a close, the Axis powers find themselves in a very poor strategic position. Germany continues to pour men and material into the back and forth fighting in Russia (even though there had been more back than forth in recent months) and the Allied advances in Italy and France continue to push toward the Fatherland. Japan discovers her shipping and naval power have ground to a halt as the American Navy destroys Japanese ships far faster than they can be replaced. Guam and Saipan also fall and the Chinese are beginning to counterattack.
By September of 1944, Paris is liberated, as has Italy as far north as Florence, but Hitler refuse to transfer more than a trickle of soldiers from the Eastern Front to the Western. As long as Stalin and the USSR live, he still sees them as the far greater threat. German generals and admirals try to talk him out of it, but those who disagreed find themselves dismissed, or worse, eliminated. An assassination attempt on Hitler while visiting the Eastern Front in early 1944 only strengthens his resolve to defeat Stalin first, despite the fact that it is later revealed to have been perpetrated by dissenting German officers. The purge that follows the attempt does little but eliminate the few remaining competent military strategists in the country.
Hitler surrounds himself with yes-men and completely ignores the fact that his armies are being ground to powder in Russia while the Allies close in on the Rhine. By winter, the Allies liberate much of Belgium and stand on the German border. When this news reaches Hitler, his position finally becomes clear. In a flurry of activity, whole armies are withdrawn from the Russian front, essentially abandoning the siege of Leningrad and leaving some 150,000 troops encircled in the city of Stalingrad (By this point, piles of rubble are all that mark where Moscow once stood). While this troop movement allows for a brief counterattack against the Allies in the Ardennes during the winter of 1944-45, the German soldiers arriving on the Western Front are utterly exhausted. On several occasions, these troops simply surrender to the first Allied unit they encounter, trusting that nothing could be worse than the camps that they would have been sent to in the Soviet Union (or Germany for that matter).
As the Germans withdraw, Stalin smells victory and orders the attack against the Germans to be redoubled. His troops are just as fatigued as the Germans however, and though they often met only token resistance as they head west, the Russian officers find it impossible to move their troops forward at more than a snail’s pace. This is exacerbated by an extreme wariness in the highest echelons of the Army, as no Soviet general wants to fall into a German trap and lose a battle, no matter how insignificant it may be in the long run. Losing generals all too often find themselves in a work camp in the Urals, or “forced into retirement” with the help of their own service revolver.
In early 1945, American and British forces finally cross the Rhine. As soon as they enter German territory, the Western Allies encounter a much stiffer resistance. Though comprised in roughly equal parts of soldiers and men too old or young to join the army, they are now fighting for their homes. The main advantage the Allies have is a superiority of arms, as the Nazi war machine has been sending the vast majority of its supplies to the Eastern Front, many of which are simply abandoned and destroyed when the Germans start to fall back. It is not uncommon for American soldiers to capture German units only to find them armed with First Great War era weaponry and in one instance a town is captured only to find that its defenders are armed with antique muskets. As the Allies push west, they continue to make landings along the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts, liberating large chunks of Greece, Dalmatia, and the city of Odessa and multiplying the number of fronts on which the Germans are threatened. The Soviets push slowly west, but are still many miles away from their pre-war border while the Allies are crossing the Elbe and liberating Prague.
In the Pacific, the US Navy’s island hopping campaign has proven remarkably successful and the Japanese home islands are now being bombed around the clock. Though remaining wary of Stalin, President Kolchak decides to quietly support the Americans against Japan, assisting with the occupation of some of the Kuril Islands and providing airstrips for US bombers to attack Manchuria, Sakhalin, and Hokkaido.
Siberia still will not risk entering the war with Germany (though given the distance, it is debatable if they would have made any impact if they had) or committing any sizeable amount of Siberian soldiers to the fight, because in late 1944, Stalin throws out the provision in the treaty signed by Wilson and Lenin that states no troops are allowed within 50 miles of the Russian-Siberian border. No direct moves across the boundary are made, but the sudden appearance of Russian garrisons and tanks at border checkpoints is incredibly threatening. Siberia responds by constructing defensive positions and requesting American help, hopeful that a US presence on the border will make Stalin think twice. FDR remains concerned about upsetting Stalin by seeming to challenge Russia on its eastern border, but he reaffirms the Treaty of Assistance and stations a few American units in eastern Siberia. This buildup along the Siberian border, as well as opposite Finland and Karelia is a major factor in hampering the USSR’s advance against the Germans. Stalin proves just as stubborn as Hitler, sending more and more troops to garrison duty on the border even as he struggles to defeat what little German resistance remains. He refuses to see that Germany poses the greatest threat and that America, Finland, Karelia, and Siberia have no reason to attack the Soviets.
American bombers, now flying from Kamchatka, Omsk, and Saipan, devastate the Japanese forces in China and Southeast Asia as well as on the Home Islands, forcing the Empire to withdraw on every front. This withdrawal will cause later problems in Asia, as in southern China the territory is retaken by nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek, while in Manchuria the Japanese are succeeded by communist forces under Mao Zedong. Landings occur in the Philippines and the retaking of those islands is set in motion, but the Japanese, to a man, fight to the death. Surrender is seen as unacceptable and the Americans have extreme difficulty in rooting them out of all their tunnels and bunkers.
On April 4th, 1945, the America, British, and Free French forces (along with soldiers from the liberated countries that join as the Allies pass through) occupy Berlin. After years of bombing and more recent artillery bombardment there is little left of the once great city, but the sight of the four Allied flags flying from the ruins of the Reichstag (a Soviet flag is included as a gesture of good faith alongside those of the US, UK, and France, even though no Russian forces are present) shows all those in attendance that the war is nearly over. In the week before, Hitler is finally convinced to abandon Berlin and move the capital to Rastenburg in East Prussia, but as he attempts to flee, his convoy is spotted by American planes and strafed. According to the official report submitted by the pilots, they have no idea of the importance of that convoy, though they do recommend a follow up by ground forces.
A British unit soon catches up with those trucks which had avoided the planes and when they realize they have captured Josef Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler, an exhaustive search is made of the wreckage of the other cars. Using dental records, the body of Adolf Hitler is identified some weeks later and his remains are sent back to Berlin. The other members of the convoy are all sent to Kassel to await trial for war crimes (Goering had been captured a few days before and most of the other Nazi leaders have already begun to flee Europe, many heading to South America).
On May 12th, the Allies reach what had once been the Polish-Soviet and Ukrainian-Soviet border and stop. This involves crossing into the part of Poland which had been annexed by Stalin, but the Allies do not recognize this action and continue to the pre-1939 border. Had there been any Soviet troops in the area, it might have caused a problem. Though there remain German units in the USSR, President Truman and Prime Minister Churchill (FDR dies suddenly on April 16th) had been told explicitly by Stalin that Western troops on Soviet soil would be an act of war, regardless of the fact that they were allies (May 12th is still celebrated throughout much of Eastern Europe as Freedom from Tyrants Day, showing the lack of distinction held between Stalin and Hitler).
Stalin’s paranoia and anger have only grown in the last few months, fueled by the idea that the Western Allies wanted this to happen, wanted the Nazis and Soviets to bleed each other dry. Though he had met with Churchill and Roosevelt in Tehran in 1943, he has since refused to meet, feeling betrayed that America had taken so long to open up another front in the west. In Tehran, few details of the actions to be taken after the war are discussed, but it is generally accepted that each major power would be placed in charge of occupying a different region of Germany. As the Allies mop up the rest of Europe, defeating the remaining Nazi forces in the Balkans and liberating the Baltic States, the Red Army pushes west. After the fall of Berlin, most of the remaining German units in Russia are simply trying to flee the USSR, wanting to surrender to the Americans rather than the Soviets. Many succeed, throwing up their arms as soon as they reached a border where Western troops wait, but others are overtaken and sent to camps in the Urals. The titular German President, Carl Dönitz, attempts to surrender to the British and American forces on April 10th, but though a cease fire is accepted, it is decided that the formal surrender could not come without the presence of the Soviets, something else Stalin had insisted on in Tehran.
Though Stalin refused all invitations to high-level meetings after 1943, Churchill and Roosevelt (and later Truman) meet a number of times throughout the war, usually alternating between Iceland and Scotland and later on the Continent. In their meetings from 1944 onwards, they attempt to devise a strategy for the end of the war, but without Soviet input it is difficult to determine what Stalin would accept. In Tehran, Stalin had demanded that the Red Army be allowed to take Berlin, but as the Allies reached the outskirts of that city in 1945, they had no intention of waiting for Russia to arrive.
As the Allies sweep across Europe, they discover camps full of political prisoners, Jews, Gypsies, and other peoples that the Nazis had termed “undesirables.” Often starving and worked to the bone, the prisoners greet the Allies as liberators and saviors. Further investigation often reveals mass graves surrounding the camps and as they were reported back to the public, the people are appalled. Reports of “death camps” had been leaking out of Europe for years, primarily by Jewish refugees, but were not usually taken seriously by the press, while the leaders and generals who know the truth didn’t know what could be done in the short term (Do you bomb a camp where the enemy is systematically murdering people? Is killing those in the camp, prisoner and guard, more ethical than allowing more trains of prisoners to arrive?). This all changes in the closing years of the war, particularly after the discovery of Dachau, the first extermination camp to be liberated, in late March of 1945. Huge ovens had been built for the destruction of bodies that had been killed, industrial operations which striped the people of their valuables (even to pulling out their teeth for the fillings) and pushed them into shower rooms where they were suffocated with poison gas. Five other extermination camps would be liberated, along with dozens of concentration camps scattered across Europe. It is believed that over six million Jews were killed by Germany, along with millions more Roma, Slavs, homosexuals, the retarded and disfigured, Soviet POWs, political prisoners, and anyone who opposed the Nazi state. It is these discoveries that pave the way for the war crimes trials in Kassel, trials which bring to light the genocide that had been perpetrated by the Nazis.
The Allies sit at the border until June 5th, awaiting the arrival of the Soviet armies. Though the time is primarily spent resting, celebrating the end of the war in Europe, and processing German prisoners, the Allies also build some minor fortifications (nothing more complex than earthworks to shield Western soldiers) at important crossings, largely against the event that Germans could try to break through without surrendering. When Stalin finally agrees to meet his counterparts in Czechowice on the outskirts of Warsaw on May 23rd to discuss the future of Europe, he arrives with a list of demands that shock his fellow leaders. It is now believed that Stalin thought he could ride roughshod over Churchill and Truman, particularly since, after the death of Roosevelt, Truman had far less experience and thus would give in to the Soviet demands.
The nations east of Germany are claimed as a Soviet sphere of influence and territorial concessions are demanded not just from Germany, but also Ukraine, Karelia, and Finland, along with an acknowledgement of the 1939 division of Poland with Germany. Stalin even goes beyond Europe, presenting an ultimatum to the United States that it must force Siberia to retreat to the edge of the demilitarized zone of its border (something the Soviets will not have to do) and evacuate all American personnel from Siberia (this was widely seen as paving the way for a later Soviet invasion). Truman and Churchill don’t know how to react and in the end the meeting is suspended with plans to resume a week later. As Stalin flies over the border though, he notices the “capitalist fortifications” and immediately takes them to be preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union. The second meeting is cancelled and when Stalin refuses to respond to any attempts at communication, the US and UK, bewildered, accept the formal German surrender on May 25th.
Across the world (with the notable exception of Japan) the victory in Europe was celebrated (Technically, the USSR still considers itself to be at war with the Nazi state, even though this entity had ceased to exist outside of the minds of the Soviet leaders). The United States begin making plans to transfer large segments of its army to the Pacific, where the war with Japan is nearing a close as well. As early as mid-May, this process has already begun, as the liberated nations of Europe start taking responsibility for capturing what few Axis units remain in their territory. This allows significant groups of American soldiers to be transferred to Vladivostok and the Ryuku and Philippines Islands, in preparation for a possible invasion of the Japanese Home Islands.
The Philippines have been almost completely retaken, bombing of Japan and Manchuria have devastated any remaining Japanese industry, and Okinawa, the first of the Japanese home islands to be invaded, has been subdued. The end is in sight, but the Americans dread the thought of having to invade the major islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku. Intense fighting, with resistance forces often consisting of women and children, has been bitterly waged against the Americans the closer they come to Japan herself and shows the Allies what could be ahead if a landing is attempted on any of the main islands. The United States though has been working on a secret weapon for years. Developed by such leading minds as Fermi, Oppenheimer, and Einstein, the atom bomb can obliterate a city. On August 7th and 10th of 1945, the United States drop these weapons on Hiroshima and Kokura, causing massive damage and effectively eliminating those cities. Japan announces its surrender on August 16th, and though there is celebration, the eyes of the world have returned to Europe.
