The End of the War

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War in the East

In 1943, the German renewed their offensive against the Russians focusing on the south. stalled in the city of Stalingrad and the Russians poured troops into battle, often with only one weapon between two soldiers

They

Stalin ordered the officers to shoot anyone trying to retreatthese 3/2/12 harsh measures worked

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War in the East

Russia

counterattacked and their efforts at modernizing their industry began to tell as the Germans overstretched their supply lines and lost men to the harsh winter continued their offensive through 1944 and 1945 stopping only briefly to allow supply lines to catch up with the success on 3/2/12 the front

Russia

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Winning in the West

The

Russian front was the decisive front in the war, but the invasion of France undoubtedly hastened the defeat of the Germans was June 6, 1944 and saw the Allies landing on the beaches of Normandy

D-Day

Canada took Juno Beach at the cost of 359 dead and 715 wounded 3/2/12

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Advancing through France

It

took the Allied forces weeks of constant fighting to work their way inland to gain their foothold began an eleven month campaign through France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

This

The outcome of this campaign was never really in doubt; by 1944, the American industrial production 3/2/12 outweighed anything the Germans

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Canadas role
While

the British and Americans attacked into Germany in 1945, the Canadians were detached to liberate the Netherlands

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Why the Netherlands?

In

1944, the Allies had failed to liberate the Netherlands and the Nazis had retaliated by destroying the ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam and flooding much of the countryside 1945, many Dutch people were starving
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In

The fighting
In

April 1945, the Canadians invaded and the fighting was bitter

They fought house to house and suffered many casualties (<6300)

Even

before the Germans surrendered, the Canadians airdropped food into the beleaguered cities May 4, the Canadians 3/2/12

On

Ending the War

As

the doom of the Nazis became inevitable, many high ranking Nazi officials committed suicide. the western Allies on his doorstep and the Soviets in Berlin, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 Nazis began the process of suing for peace on May 5 and on May 7, they officially 3/2/12

With

The

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Cleaning Up
As

the Allies moved through Europe, they came across two huge problems
1.

Refugees running west to escape the Soviet army Concentration Camps

2.

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Concentration Camps
The

Nazis had built dozens of camps, some of which focused on slave labour, others of which focused on liquidating subhumans (according to Hitlers racial theories all, approximately 11 million non-combatants were killed by the Nazi regime (6 million Jews)
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In

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Winning in Japan
With

the war in Europe over, all the military/industrial power of the US and Britain could focus on Japan summer 1945, the Japanese air force and navy were destroyed or crippled due to lack of fuel army was still strong and had proven repeatedly as the 3/2/12

By

Their

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Okinawa
From

April-June 1945, the Americans invaded Okinawa in the islands to the immediate south of Japan Japanese used the tactic of kamikazes (suicide planes) to attack the American naval forces participating in the assault assault was incredibly costly for such a small place (100,000 3/2/12

The

The

To Bomb or not to Bomb

Rather

than assault the Japanese home islands (which some projections believed would cost 1 million Allied casualties), the Americans decided to drop the experimental atomic bomb on Japanese cities August 6, the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima killing 70,000 3/2/12 immediately and wounding

On

Why the bomb?

The

bomb was directed as much at the Russians as the Japanese

Stalin had been becoming more and more hostile as the war had progressed and there was some thought in the American General Staff that the victorious armies in Europe should continue the war to Moscow The bomb was seen as a diplomatic trump card in the reorganizing of the 3/2/12 world that was about to take place.