The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

By the end of August 1944, the Soviet Red Army was advancing through Poland and Eastern Europe, and the Allies had liberated Paris. Hitler refused to permit talk of surrender. Throughout the fall of 1944 he gathered his few remaining resources for one last offensive in the West. On December 16, German forces launched a surprise attack through the Ardennes Forest. The Nazis scored initial victories in the Battle of the Bulge, but the American defense of Bastogne halted the German advance. When the weather cleared two days before Christmas, the Allied air forces took aim at vulnerable German supply lines. Notwithstanding the early surprise, the Battle of the Bulge proved costly for Hitler, who could not replace the 120,000 troops killed, wounded, or captured in the month-long campaign. Henceforth, the Allies steadily advanced deep into Germany. On April 25, 1945, American and Soviet troops met at Torgau, 75 miles south of Berlin, where the Fuehrer, holed up in his bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery, where he would spend his final days.

From January 1945 through the bitter end four months later, Hitler remained in his Berlin bunker. His paranoia deepened, and visitors noted his physical deterioration. Goebbels looked to astrology for signs of the Reich’s salvation and believed he found one in the death of President Roosevelt on April 12.