Allied troops reach the concentration camps during their April, 1945 push towards Berlin, liberating Buchenwald, Belsen and the extermination center, Dachau.

At Belsen, the Allies find 40,000 emaciated, barely-living inmates amid 10,000 unburied corpses.

On April 12, 1945, American troops reach the Elbe at a crossing only 60 miles (96 kilometers) from Berlin, at which point Eisenhower informs Stalin that he is leaving the German capital to the Red Army.

The Luftwaffe, with no intact airfields, few pilots, and virtually no fuel, is unable to protect the city from systematic pounding by England-based Allied bombing runs and Soviet artillery that turn Berlin’s buildings into ruined shells.

Zhukov launches his final assault on Berlin on April 16, 1945.

The Red Army penetrates to the city’s center as westward-fleeing German soldiers and civilians rush to surrender to the Americans and British in hopes of receiving better treatment from them than from the presumably vengeful Soviets.

The Red Army, now encircling Berlin meets the Americans at Torgau on the Elbe on April 25, 1945.

Hitler appoints Admiral Karl Doenitz as his successor, marries his long-time paramour Eva Braun, and reportedly commits suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945.

By some accounts, Hitler allegedly escapes from Berlin after arranging for the fake suicide cover story.

The Allies anounce Hitler's death.

Nazi leader Martin Bormann escapes without a trace from Berlin after supervising Hitler's suicide.

Admiral Doenitz takes command; submarines U-530, U-977 and others begin a secret journey from Norway soon after Quisling allegedly refuses Hitler's offer to take him aboard a submarine to a safe refuge.

General Gehlen, the head of Nazi Intelligence, is captured by the US Army and flown to Washington in 1945.

The Soviets liberate Prague in May 1945, returning Benes to the presidency.

Doenitz orders the surrender of the Third Reich on May 7, 1945.

The Berlin government issues its formal statement of unconditional surrender the following day.

Two months after Germany surrenders, submarines U-530 and U-977 give themselves up in Mar del Plata, Argentina, after allegedly being lost from the submarine convoy taking Hitler and others to their hideout in Antarctica.

From July 17 to August 2, 1945, the Allies hold the Potsdam Conference, in which Stalin, Truman (who has replaced the late Roosevelt) and Churchill, replaced as prime minister during the conference by Clement Atlee, confirm the Yalta plan and agree on plans for Germany’s de-Nazification, demilitarization and democratization.

A mechanism is established to try Nazi leaders and their supporters for war crimes or atrocities.Truman tells Stalin that the atomic bomb recently tested by the US could be used against Japan.

On July 26, Truman, Churchill and Jiang Jeishei call for the unconditional surrender of Japan without mentioning the bomb; Japan does not surrender.

The US and Britain refuse to recognize Poland’s Soviet-installed provisional government as they do not consider it to be based in democatic principles.

The two allies also reject the pro-Soviet puppet regimes in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania and call for free elections; Stalin demands that the Western Allies recognize the regimes as legitimate governments.

The Allies also disagree over German war reparations and other matters.

The USSR declares war on Japan on August 8, 1945, two days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Beginning in November 1945, the Allies prosecute war criminals in the Nuremburg Trials at the site of the Nazi party rallies.

Twenty-eight year old Henry Ford II, Edsel’s son, is released from the navy and made executive vice-president, then president of Ford Motor Company in 1945.

He begins to effect a sweeping reorganization of the shaky automotive giant.