April 1945

Eastern Front

Russian forces in Berlin break through the German defenses in the city center and cross the Königsplatz to enter the Reichstag. Furious battles erupt as SS troops hold up the 3rd Shock Army, inflicting heavy losses. Sheer firepower swings the balance of the battle, Soviet troops breaking into the ground floor and battling their way into the heavily defended rooms. The Germans refuse to give any quarter and fight for each room, bitter battles raging across corridors and through broken walls.

Hitler bids farewell to his staff and Parth colleagues in the bunker and retires to his private quarters. There, at approximately 1530 hours, he and Eva Braun commit suicide, Hitler shooting himself in the head with a pistol and Eva Braun taking poison. Their bodies are carried up the stairs into the cratered Chancellery garden and are incinerated. Fritz Linge, Hitler's personal bodyguard, burns the corpses and buries the ashes and bones in a crater to prevent their capture by the Russians. His efforts will prove to be in vain as Soviet secret operations personnel locate them after the battle. After 12 years in power, the man who had dragged Europe into its most bloody war and sent millions to their deaths in the concentration camps and gas chambers, is dead.

In Mecklenberg the 2nd Belorussian Front advances rapidly, the 2nd Shock Army closing upon Stralsund, the 70th on Waren and the 49th upon Wittenberge. To the south, in Bohemia, Moravska Ostrava falls to the 38th Army and 1st Guards Army.

With the Reich in ruins or occupied, German industrial capability collapses. During the first 4 months of 1945 it has produced 3,935 panzers and assault guns, 9,318 motor vehicles and 7,544 aircraft.