The German Question, Part One Hundred Fifty

Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Four/A
"The End Draws Near"

While Germany was under heavy aerial bombardment and its military was in retreat in much of Russia by mid 1944,* the fact is, Hitler still controlled much of Europe, but that was about to change. The Allies captured Rome on June 4, 1944 and the Germans retreated to northern Italy where they again dug in and held the Allies back until near the end of the war.**

Along the coast of western Europe the Germans awaited the Allied invasion. In early June, terrible weather conditions stretching from Britain and into northwestern France convinced German leaders that the Allies could not launch an invasion at that moment. In a daring decision during a respite in the bad weather, General Eisenhower, the overall head of Allied military forces, gave the order for the invasion to proceed. On June 6, 1944 Allied forces landed in the Normandy area of France. Field Marshal Rommel, the German commander in that area, away in Germany for his wife's birthday, a decision taken because of the bad weather, rushed back to France to lead the German defense, but any chance of preventing the Allies from gaining a major foothold had already been lost, and the Germans shifted plans to trying to contain the Allied invasion. After nearly two months of bloody fighting, the Allied armies broke out of Normandy and headed for the German and Belgian borders. Paris fell to the Allies in late August. Meanwhile in southern France, the Allies carried out a second landing and, facing much less determined resistance than in Normandy, advanced northward toward Germany.

In Russia, just a couple of weeks after the Allied invasion of France, the Soviets launched a massive offensive against German forces located primarily in White Russia (Belorussia, now largely Belarus). The Soviets overwhelmed the badly outnumbered Germans and raced for Poland. By the time the offensive halted, the Red Army stood just outside of Warsaw, and the Germans had suffered somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 killed, wounded or captured. In Warsaw, Polish freedom fighters rose against the German occupation, expecting help from the nearby Red Army, but the Soviets did nothing, and the Germans ruthlessly crushed the uprising.***

Further, the Red Army broke into Rumania (also spelled "Romania"), a German ally, and that country surrendered in August, and then declared war on Germany. Finland, another German ally, signed an armistice in September. Bulgaria, another German ally, also declared war on Germany under Soviet pressure.****

Back in western Europe, the Allied drive toward Germany began to sputter, as supply lines lengthened and German resistance stiffened. In an attempt to bring the war to a conclusion before winter, the Allies tried a daring operation in mid September. They carried out large paratroop operations in the Netherlands (still German occupied), dropping thousands of paratroops behind German lines near the Dutch-German border. A ground offensive was launched in conjunction with these airborne operations in the hope of gaining a quick and easier route into Germany's Ruhr industrial region. The idea was, with the Ruhr captured, the German war machine could not function effectively. The operation failed, as the Germans reacted quickly and decisively, and the Allies suffered thousands of casualties. While fighting elsewhere along the German border areas continued, there was a bit of a lull as winter approached. That would soon change, as Hitler had plans.

Next... "German Heroes: The Plot Against Hitler"

* The siege of Leningrad had been broken by Soviet forces in January, 1944.

** After his rescue by the Germans in September 1943, Mussolini was put in charge of the German occupied part of Italy, which was called "The Italian Social Republic." He raised his own military forces, used primarily to combat a tough Italian resistance movement that had developed in the mountainous north. Essentially Italy was in civil war.

*** Stalin, every bit as plotting as Hitler, preferred not to have Polish forces outside of his control, as the forces in Warsaw were; thus he let the Germans destroy these "free" Polish forces. Stalin had his own plans for post-war Poland, with the Soviet Union taking much of eastern Poland, and with the remainder of Poland being pro-Soviet.

**** Bulgaria is an interesting case. Although an Axis ally, Bulgaria had never declared war on the Soviet Union. When the Soviet armies approached the country in early September 1944, the Soviets simply declared war on Bulgaria and entered the country. The Bulgarians then declared war on Germany. 

WORD HISTORY:
Stalag-This word for a German prisoner-of-war camp was borrowed into English during the World War Two era. It is really a contraction of "Stammlager," a compound, with both parts having closely related words in English: For "stem" see:

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2012/05/making-choice-part-one.html

For "lager/lair" see: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/02/german-question-part-eighty-one.html

Gestapo-Another word borrowed into English during the Nazi era, it is a contraction of "Geheime Staatspolizei;" that is, "Secret State Police." (Note: The German adjective "geheim" is a word derived from "Heim," a close relative of English "home." Interestingly, German "geheim" (the noun for "a secret" is "(das) Geheimnis") didn't become common with the meaning "secret" until the 1600s!^ The idea behind the meaning goes to your home being private and personal; thus, eventually, the word developed the meaning "something kept private;" thus, "secretive." English "homely" is a word closely related to German "heimlich," another adjective meaning "secretive, having to do with things done in private." While the word "homely" originally meant "of the home, personal, familiar," it also later developed a meaning of "plain, unattractive," and even "ugly," that meaning is now used more in American English (Canadian?), but like its German cousin "heimlich," it also meant "private, personal."  

^ German "geheim" also was borrowed by Dutch, and seemingly also West Frisian, as both languages have "geheim," while Low German has "geheem," but whether this "may" be an original development that simply took the "secret" meaning.