The background

By 1944, almost five years after its invasion of Poland had triggered the second world war, 1944 Nazi Germany was under increasing pressure on two fronts. Its former ally, Italy, had surrendered and switched sides, and the armies of the Western Alliance were forcing their way up through northern Italy. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was inflicting huge losses on the German forces as the Red Army advanced steadily into eastern Europe. The last thing Hitler's Reich wanted was a third offensive coming from the Atlantic coast.

The pressure was also on the Western Allies. The Soviets were themselves suffering extremely high losses in their relentless push west and Stalin was eager for an offensive on France to relieve the pressure on the Red Army. The build up of troops and equipment in Britain in preparation for the coming invasion had continued through the spring. Everyone, including the Germans, knew the big offensive was going to happen soon.

The German Army of 1944 was not the highly mobile offensive force of 1939-41, which had ripped through Europe with such success. By 1944, with pressure building on each frontier, the Germans' military resources were stretched ever thinner. The Axis forces had been forced to change tactics to become a more defensive army.

And their fundamental problem was that they had conquered more than they could defend.

The German Army at this point of the war was also less well-trained and equipped than previously – and was often made up of less well committed troops. An increasing number of German soldiers were being replaced by Axis (or Axis-sympathetic) troops of other nationalities so that German soldiers could be redirected to the eastern front. By 1944 the German Army contained soldiers from more than 15 countries.

While Germany's factories struggled to maintain output in the face of daily bombing raids, the might of American manufacturing industry, safe on the other side of the Atlantic, piled massive quantities of arms and equipment into the Allied war effort. The British Army, having rebuilt itself after the Dunkirk debacle and proved its mettle in Africa and the Mediterranean, was once again a formidable force. Both the Royal Air Force and United States Air Force had developed massive fighter and bomber capabilities. The Royal Navy had virtual control of the war at sea. And though many of the American, Canadian, British and other Commonwealth troops preparing to fight the Germans were not battle tested, they were some of the best prepared of any invasion force ever known.

After all the preparations, Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, was to lead to the liberation of western Europe. Within a year, attacked by armies from both east and west, Nazi Germany would be no more.

Text only