Our series on World War II focuses on the liberation of Western Europe.
The Western allies launched the liberation of Europe from Sicily in the Summer of 1943. However, the progression through the Italian peninsula was very slow, and the real turning point was the massive landings on the beaches of Normandy in the morning of June 6, 1944. Progress was very slow in the beginning, with only one major city, Caen, liberated by the end of July.
As of August, the German army, after weeks of fierce resistance, could not counter the double advance from the West and from the South, as the Allies had landed on the Mediterranean shores of France. Paris was liberated on August 25, and most of France was free by September.
The fall and winter proved far more difficult as the German army launched a massive counteroffensive in Belgium, an episode known as the Battle of the Bulge, which lasted until mid-January. The final period lasted from January to May, 1945 as the German army collapsed from the joint assault of the Western allies and the USSR. The surrender was signed by Germany on May 8, at which point the German army was only controlling small parts of Germany, Northern Italy and a few pockets on the Atlantic shores of France.
The Western Front in 1944
