The Soviet Army destroys the last pocket of organized German resistance in Bohemia.
Four years of brutal fighting had finally come to an end. During the various campaigns Germany, one of Europe's foremost military powers, had been absolutely destroyed and the Soviet Union, a fledgling military state in 1941, had risen to be a world super-power.
It can reasonably be argued that the campaign in Russia was the most decisive campaign of the Second World War. In losses alone the scale of the conflict is overwhelming. Germany lost 1,001,000 killed, 1,287,000 missing and 3,968,000 wounded while 1,500,000 surrendered to the Red Army at the end. Some 98 German divisions were wiped out during the fighting 56 surrendered between 1941 and 1944 and 93 at the close of hostilities. Germany's allies suffered equally severe casualties, the Hungarian military losing 136,000 killed and 250,000 wounded, while 300,000 civilians lost their lives. Rumania lost 71,000 killed, 310,000 missing and 243,000 wounded fighting alongside the Ostheer and another 170,000 killed, wounded and missing fighting for the Soviets. More than 340,000 Rumanian civilians lost their lives. Bulgaria suffered 32,000 military and 50,000 civilian casualties.
The Soviet Union suffered by far the greatest lost of any combatant, 13,500,000 military personnel being killed or captured. Of 6,000,000 captured a fraction survivied. Ever after liberation their ordeal was not over, many being imprisoned by Stalin for surrendering to the Germans. Another 18,000 were wounded while the civil population lost more than 10,000,000. The successful Soviet campaigns during the late stages of the war still cost the Red Army dear. More than a million men were killed or wounded, 140,000 losing their lives in Hungary, 70,000 in Rumania, 140,000 in Czechoslovakia, 26,000 in Austria, 102,000 in Berlin and 10,000 in Yugoslavia. The Polish 1st and 2nd Armies lost 40,000 men fighting alongside the Russians.
Any number of theories on the causes of the German defeat, the manner in which the conflict was fought and the other aspects of the war have been promoted. This book does not seek to deliver any conclusions, but to record the sacfifices and the daily military history of the war, to give the reader the knowledge of the battles so that with that knowledge, history will not be repeated.