Remembering liberation

On April 29, 1945, US soldiers liberated the concentration camp near Munich. It wasn't until 1965 that a memorial was built on the site. Commemorating the victims of Nazi atrocities, this sculpture by Jewish artist Nandor Glid was set up in the middle of the former Appelplatz in 1968. The Holocaust survivor had also lost many family members to concentration camps.

US forces fought several fierce battles against the German Wehrmacht in Hürtigen Forest near Aachen. Lasting several months from fall 1944 until early 1945, the battles would also be remembered as some of the longest and most significant fought on German soil. Hürtigen Forest is now part of the "Liberation Route Europe," a remembrance trail along the advance of the Western Allied forces.

Surprised it was still standing, US forces captured the railway bridge at Remagen, south of Cologne, on March 7, 1945. Thousands of US soldiers were able to cross the Rhine for the first time in what became known as the "Miracle of Remagen." German bombing runs eventually led to the bridge’s collapse 10 days after it was captured. Today there is a peace museum in the remains of the bridge towers.

While the US forces generally transported their fallen soldiers back to America, the British soldiers who died found their final resting place in 15 cemeteries in Germany. The biggest of these is the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Reichswald, close to the Dutch border. Amongst the 7,654 dead there are some 4,000 pilots and crews of fighter planes, of whom many were Canadian.

In the east, the Soviet Red Army launched the last big offensive on April 16, 1945. The Battle of the Seelow Heights began at dawn with bombardments to aid the push towards Berlin. Some 900,000 Soviet soldiers faced 90,000 Wehrmacht soldiers. The largest World War II battle on German soil - as well as the thousands of dead that resulted from it - are commemorated by the memorial there today.

Soviet and US forces meet for the first time on German soil in Torgau on the Elbe River on April 25, 1945. The event effectively closed the gap between Eastern and Western fronts. The war's end moved closer and the soldiers' handshake in Torgau became an iconic image. The meeting of Allied troops is remembered every year on Elbe Day - but in 2020 that has been cancelled due the coronavirus crisis.

German armed forces signed the unconditional surrender in the night of May 8-9, 1945, in the officers' mess in Berlin-Karlhorst. Today the original Act of Surrender, which was written in English, German and Russian, is the main feature in the museum's surrender room. Another permanent exhibition focuses on the Nazi war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, which began in 1941.

The sheer size of the memorial in Treptower Park is impressive. The memorial, including the military cemetery, covers an area of some 100,000 square meters. It was built after the Second World War to commemorate the Red Army soldiers who fell in the Battle of Berlin. A pair of stylized Soviet flags made of red granite serves as the portal to the memorial.

After Nazi Germany's surrender, the heads of government from the three main Allied forces met at Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam in the summer of 1945. Joseph Stalin, Harry S. Truman and Winston Churchill led the delegations at what became known as the Potsdam Conference, called to establish post-war order in Europe. It ultimately decided on the division of Germany into four occupation zones.

Berlin was also divided into four sectors. The district Zehlendorf became the American sector. Here the former US Army cinema "Outpost" has been turned into part of the Allied Museum. It documents the political history and the military commitments of the Western Allies in Berlin - detailing the occupation of West Berlin in 1945, the airlift to the city and the withdrawal of US troops in 1994.

This Prussian Baroque palace was the location of the "Two Plus Four Agreement" talks in 1990 among both Germanys and the powers that occupied Germany at the end of the war: the USA, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. The four powers renounced all rights they held in Germany, paving the way for German Unification. Several plaques commemorate that this is where World War II finally ended.