DZ Season 064 Part 1. End the War in 44 – The German Army is Kaput – The Problems of Too Much Success.

World War 2 in Europe ended with the surrender of Nazi Germany to the Western Allies on 7 May 1945 and to the Soviet Union on 8 May 1945. In the last year of the war, 1945, about 2.6 million military personnel died in Europe. The number of civilian casualties were also considerable. After the Allied breakout from Normandy in August 1944 there seemed to have been a chance to end the war in Europe before Christmas – that often heard refrain in World War I and World War II, although after the war this one isn’t brought to mind as much as it should be. Was there any truth to that rumour about World War II in Europe ending in 1944? I’m going to explore that in this series of programmes.

Tag words: World War 2; Nazi Germany; Normandy; Lieutenant-General JCH Lee; General Eisenhower; General Montgomery; Field Marshall Montgomery; General Omar N Bradley; General George S Patton Jr; 21st Army Group; 12th Army Group; 3rd US Army; Shellburst; Anvil; General Marshall; D-Day; Nigel Hamilton; Monty – The Battles of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery; Operation Cobra; Carlo d’Este; Overlord; US Army; Flavius Renatus Vegetius; De Re Militari; Scipio; golden bridge; Argentan; Falaise Gap; Hitler; Mortain; Seventh Army; Fifth Panzer Army; Carlo d’Este; Eisenhower: Decision in Normandy; 12th SS Panzer Division; Martin Blumenson; Breakout and Pursuit;