The End of the War
The Soviet victory at Stalingrad ended Germany’s advance in eastern Europe. In the following years the Soviet army received supplies from Great Britain and the United States and started moving westward.
Soon after the Normandy invasion Stalin’s armies attacked along a 700 km front . In July 1944 Soviet troops reached Warsaw and in the following months drove the Germans out of most of eastern Europe.
The final attack on Germany began in early 1945.Soviet soldiers reached the Oder River, about 65 km east of Berlin and Allied forces set themselves up along the Rhine River by March.
By this time it was clear that Germany could not fight much longer, even though Hitler ordered his men to fight to their deaths. A large number of German soldiers surrendered to the Allies every day.
The Allied leaders– U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin—met in Russia for the Yalta conference. There they planned Germany’s defeat and the occupation of the country.
Meanwhile the Soviet army pushed on through Germany and by April 25, 1945 they had surrounded Berlin. Adolf Hitler realized that the war was over and committed suicide in his bunker on April 30.Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945.
As they marched on through Germany Allied soldiers discovered terrifying evidence of Nazi brutality. Even though they freed death camps thousands died of starvation after Germany's surrender .
World War II - Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Causes of World War II
- The Rise of Adolf Hitler and the NSdAP
- Blitzkrieg and the Battle of Britain
- Battle of the Atlantic
- The Holocaust
- Operation Barbarossa - The German Invasion of the Soviet Union
- Attack on Pearl Harbour - America Enters the War
- D-Day - Allied Invasion of Europe
- Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Japan Surrenders
- Life During World War II
- End of World War II
- Key Figures of World War II
- Results and Aftermath of World War II
Online Exercises
- Multiple Choice Exercise 1
- Multiple Choice Exercise 2
- Multiple Choice Exercise 3
- Crossword Puzzle 1
- Crossword Puzzle 2
- The Holocaust - Gap Fill Exerercise
- World War II - Gap Fill Exercise
- World War II - Name Matching Exercise
- Match the Sentence Halves 1
- Match the Sentence Halves 2
- Vocabulary Matching Exercise 1
- Vocabulary Matching Exercise 2
- World War II - What Happened When - Match the Dates
Downloadable PDF Text- and Worksheets
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The End of the War - Text (PDF - 218 KB) - The End of the War - Exercises (PDF - 61 KB)
- The End of the War - Key (PDF - 71 KB)
Words
- advance = march forward
- attack = to start fighting against an enemy with weapons
- bunker =a strong underground building that is built for soldiers and officers
- commit suicide = to kill yourself
- death camp = place where a large number of prisoners are killed or die
- defeat = overthrow; to win against someone
- evidence = facts that show that something exists or is true
- forces = soldiers
- front = line that separates you from your enemy
- meanwhile = in the time between two events
- occupation = when soldiers and other people enter a country and take control of it
- reach = get to, arrive
- realize = to find out, to see that something will happen
- receive = get
- starvation = suffer or die because you do not get any food
- supplies = food, clothes and other things you need to survive
- surrender = to give up because you see that you cannot win the war
- surround = to be around something, from all sides
- terrifying = scary, horrible
- troops = soldiers
- Yalta = city in southern Ukraine