Spring 1945: The Second World War was in its final phase. The Nazis were still pursuing their delusional goal of ultimate victory, unscrupulously sending the youngest of conscripts to the front. But the end of the war was already in sight.
Adolf Hitler's suicide on April 30, 1945 ended "the thousand-year Reich." The Nazi regime was finished. In early May 1945, the German armed forces, the Wehr-macht, signed an unconditional surrender, leaving Germany under Allied control. While the war in Europe was over, the conflict in the Pacific raged on until a new weapon changed everything.