ABSTRACT
From June 1944 to May 1945, Soviet and Allied forces ground the Third Reich to defeat. German losses were staggering. In these eleven months, an average of 8,000 German soldiers were killed daily. 1 Millions of German civilians fled advancing Soviet armies. Allied and Soviet airpower and artillery pulverized German cities. Yet Hitler insisted that Germany would fight to the last bullet. There would be no repeat of 1918. The Reich would prevail, either through miracle weapons such as V-2 rockets and jet-powered aircraft or through an eleventh-hour crack in the alliance between the western Allies and the Soviet Union.
