Author Description

This WWII pictorial history vividly captures the Allied liberation of Europe from Normandy to Berlin through rare wartime photographs. With this volume in the Images of War series, readers witness the intensity of the fighting as Allied forces make their way from the beaches of Normandy through France and the Low Countries and finally into Germany itself. Despite demoralizing withdrawals and reversals, the German military forces—including the Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS, Hitlerjugend, and Volkssturm—continued to inflict significant losses on their superior enemies. But when the Allies crossed the Rhine in early 1945 with the Russians closing on Berlin from the East, the shattered remnants of Hitler’s once all-conquering forces had nowhere to go. Though fanatical elements of Nazi guerrillas continued to fight to the death, most of the survivors accepted surrender. The graphic images in this volume capture the drama of that historic period.