Finland sued for peace on September 2, and during the following month the Baltic States were occupied and reabsorbed into the Soviet Union bloc.įarther south, the Red Army made rapid progress after the destruction of German Army Group Center. In the East, Soviet Union troops reached the German border on August 17. German resistance stiffened in immediate defense of the home territory. But General Montgomery's airborne assault on the Dutch city of Arnhem in the middle of September (to make it possible to cross the Rhine River) was bloodily repulsed. The Western Allies grew hopeful that Nazi Germany might be defeated before the onset of winter. On August 25, Paris was liberated, partly by the approaching armies and partly by the French Resistance, which staged a final revolt against German occupation.Ī second landing in southern France began on August 15, and within two weeks the enemy was cleared from the rest of France, meaning the Allies stood on the frontiers of Nazi Germany. The line was broken open, and Bradley - supported by notoriously belligerent general George Patton - drove the German army back toward Paris in a matter of weeks. For the first time, Western forces were able to develop real mobility. general Omar Bradley launched Operation Cobra on July 25. The effort denuded German troops and tanks from other parts of the front, which allowed American commanders to plan a breakout through the German line.Īfter weeks of preparation and with overwhelming air support, U.S. Again and again, the Germans struggled to repulse the British effort to capture the French city of Caen.

Until late July, the front in Normandy had held, though at high cost. The assassination attempt coincided with a sudden crisis in the German war effort. Several thousand suspects were arrested and about 200 were executed in the weeks that followed. Stauffenberg was executed that night in Berlin. The blast killed four of those present, but Hitler was shielded by the heavy table. A few minutes later, the bomb exploded - but not before another officer, finding it in his way, had kicked the case farther under the table. He left the case under the heavy oak table at which Hitler was standing and found an excuse to leave. On July 20, 1944, young German colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, a wounded veteran of the Tunisian campaign of World War II, attended Hitler's morning briefing at the Rastenberg headquarters in East Prussia while carrying a time bomb in a briefcase. halftrack during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. German soldiers advance past a knocked-out U.S.

Greatest tank battles bulge