4,500,000 (91 Divisyen)[2][3] 17,000 kereta kebal[4] 28,000 pesawat tempur[5] 63,000 pucuk meriam[6] 970,000 kenderaan[5]
Permulaan: 1,000,000 [7][8] 500 kereta kebal/meriam serbuan beroperasi[9] 2,000 pesawat tempur beroperasi[10]
Kerugian dan korban
Amerika: 62,704 mangsa (termasuk 15,009 terkorban)[11] Kanada: 6,298 mangsa (termasuk 1,482 terkorban)[12] British: tidak diketahui Perancis: tidak diketahui
Januari-Mei 1945: 265,000 hingga 400,000 (Untuk semua barisan perang)[13] 200,000 ditawan (Januari-Mac) 4,400,000 menyerah diri (April–Jun)[14]
Pencerobohan Bersekutu ke atas Jerman telah diselaraskan oleh Pihak Bersekutu Barat pada bulan-bulan terakhir permusuhan di kancah EropahPerang Dunia II. Sebagai persediaan untuk pencerobohan pihak Sekutu terhadap Jerman, beberapa siri operasi ofensif telah dirancang untuk menawan dan merampas tebing timur dan barat Sungai Rhine: Operasi Veritable dan Operasi Grenade pada Februari 1945, dan Operasi Lumberjack dan Operasi Undertone pada Mac 1945. Penyerbuan Bersekutu ke atas Jerman bermula dengan pihak Sekutu Barat menyeberangi Sungai Rhine pada 22 Mac 1945 sebelum merebak keluar dan menawan semua barat Jerman daripada Baltik di utara hingga ke genting Alpine di selatan, dimana mereka berhubung dengan askar-askar Tentera Darat Ke-5 AS di Itali.[15][16] Digabungkan dengan penawanan Berchtesgaden, sebarang harapan pemimpin Nazi meneruskan perang dari apa yang dipanggil Benteng Negara atau melarikan diri melalui banjaran Alps telah disekat, tidak lama kemudian diikuti oleh penyerahan kalah tanpa syarat Jerman pada 8 Mei 1945. Ini dikenali sebagai "kempen Eropah Tengah" dalam sejarah ketenteraan Amerika Syarikat .
Menjelang awal tahun 1945, kebanyakan kempen menyebelahi tentera Bersekutu di Eropah. Di Barisan Barat pihak Bersekutu telah berperang di Jerman dengan kempen menentang Garis Siegfried semenjak Pertempuran Aachen dan Pertempuran Hutan Hurtgen pada akhir tahun 1944 dan menjelang Januari 1945 telah menolak tentera Jerman kembali ke titik permulaan mereka semasa Pertempuran Bulge. Kegagalan ofensif ini telah mengurangkan simpanan strategik Jerman, menyebabkannya tidak bersedia untuk melawan kempen Bersekutu yang terakhir di Eropah. Kekalahan tambahan di Rhineland semakin melemahkan Tentera Darat Jerman, meninggalkan saki-baki unit yang tenat untuk mempertahankan tebing timur sungai Rhine. Pada 7 Mac, pihak Bersekutu menawanjambatan terakhir yang menyeberangi sungai Rhine di Remagen, dan telah mendirikan sebuah pengkalan terdepan yang besar di tebing timur sungai itu. Semasa Operasi Lumberjack, Operasi Plunder dan Operasi Undertone pada Mac 1945, mangsa korban Jerman pada Februari–Mac 1945 dianggarkan berjumlah 400,000 orang, termasuk 280,000 orang ditangkap sebagai tawanan perang.[17]
Di Barisan Timur, Tentera MerahSoviet (termasuk Angkatan Tentera Poland di Timur dibawah perintah Soviet) secara serentak dengan Sekutu Barat, berjaya membebaskan kebanyakan Poland dan memulakan ofensif mereka ke dalam Timur Jerman pada Februari 1945, dan menjelang Mac berada dalam jarak yang dekat dengan Berlin. Kemaraan awal ke Romania, iaitu Penyerangan Jassy–Kishinev Pertama pada April dan Mei 1944 menemui kegagalan; Ofensif kedua pada Ogos berjaya. Tentera Merah juga memasuki kedalam Hungary (Penyerangan Budapest) dan timur Czechoslovakia dan buat sementara berhenti di garisan Oder-Neisse, yang kini merupakan sempadan Jerman moden. Kemaraan pantas di Perbatasan Timur memusnahkan lagi unit-unit tempur veteran Jerman dan dengan banyak membataskan keupayaan Führer Jerman Adolf Hitler untuk memperkuatkan pertahanan Rhine. Oleh itu, dengan Pihak Bersekutu Barat membuat persiapan akhir untuk ofensif terkuat mereka kedalam wilayah tengah Jerman, kemenangan adalah semakin hampir.
^Includes 25 armored divisions and 5 airborne divisions. Includes 61 American divisions, 13 British divisions, 11 French divisions, 5 Canadian divisions, and 1 Polish division, as well as several independent brigades. One of the British divisions arrived from Italy after the start of the campaign.
^"Tanks and AFV News", January 27, 2015. Zaloga gives the number of American tanks and tank destroyers as 11,000. The Americans comprised 2/3 of the Allied forces, and other Allied forces were generally equipped to the same standard.
^S. L. A. Marshall. ["On Heavy Artillery: American Experience in Four Wars"]. Journal of the US Army War College. Page 10. "The ETO", a term generally only used to refer to American forces in the Western European Theater, fielded 42,000 pieces of artillery; American forces comprised approximately 2/3 of all Allied forces during the campaign.
West German military historian Burkhart Müller-Hillebrand (Das Heer 1933–1945 Vol 3. Page 262) estimated 265,000 dead from all causes and 1,012,000 missing and prisoners of war on all German battlefronts from Jan 1, 1945 - April 30, 1945. No breakdown of these figures between the various battlefronts was provided.
US Army historian Charles B. MacDonald (The European Theater of Operations: The Last Offensive, Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington D.C., 1993, page 478) holds that "exclusive of prisoners of war, all German casualties in the west from D-day to V–E Day probably equaled or slightly exceeded Allied losses". In the related footnote he writes the following: "The only specific figures available are from OB WEST for the period 2 June 1941–10 April 1945 as follows: Dead, 80,819; wounded, 265,526; missing, 490,624; total, 836,969. (Of the total, 4,548 casualties were incurred prior to D-day.) See Rpts, Der Heeresarzt im Oberkommando des Heeres Gen St d H/Gen Qu, Az.: 1335 c/d (IIb) Nr.: H.A./263/45 g. Kdos. of 14 Apr 45 and 1335 c/d (Ilb) (no date, but before 1945). The former is in OCMH X 313, a photostat of a document contained in German armament folder H 17/207; the latter in folder 0KW/1561 (OKW Wehrmacht Verluste). These figures are for the field army only, and do not include the Luftwaffe and Waffen-SS. Since the Germans seldom remained in control of the battlefield in a position to verify the status of those missing, a considerable percentage of the missing probably were killed. Time lag in reporting probably precludes these figures' reflecting the heavy losses during the Allied drive to the Rhine in March, and the cut-off date precludes inclusion of the losses in the Ruhr Pocket and in other stages of the fight in central Germany."
German military historian Rüdiger Overmans (Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Oldenbourg 2000, pp.265-272) maintains, based on extrapolations from a statistical sample of the German military personnel records.(see German casualties in World War II), that the German armed forces suffered 1,230,045 deaths in the "Final Battles" on the Eastern and Western fronts from January to May 1945. This figure is broken down as follows (p. 272): 401,660 killed, 131,066 dead from other causes, 697,319 missing and presumed dead. According to Overmans the figures are calculated at "todeszeitpunkt" the point of death, which means the losses occurred between January to May 1945. The number of POW deaths in Western captivity calculated by Overmans, based on the actual reported cases is 76,000 (p. 286). Between 1962 and 1974 by a German government commission, the Maschke Commission put the figure at 31,300 in western captivity.(p. 286) Overmans maintains (pp. 275, 279) that all 1,230,045 deaths occurred during the period from January to May 1945. He states that there is not sufficient data to give an exact breakout of the 1.2 million dead in the final battles (p.174). He did however make a rough estimate of the allocation for total war losses of 5.3 million; 4 million (75%) on the Eastern front, 1 million (20%) in the West and 500,000 (10%) in other theaters. Up until Dec. 1944 losses in the West were 340,000, this indicates losses could be 400,000 to 600,000 deaths in the Western theater from January to May 1945 (p.265). Overmans does not consider the high losses in early 1945 surprising in view of the bitter fighting, he notes that there were many deaths in the Ruhr pocket (p.240) According to Overmans the total dead including POW deaths, in all theaters from Jan-May 1945 was 1,407,000 (January-452,000; February-295,000; March-284,000; April-282,000; May-94,000) No breakout by theater for these losses is provided.(p.239)
^Rüdiger Overmans, Soldaten hinter Stacheldraht. Deutsche Kriegs-gefangene des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Ullstein Taschenbuchvlg., 2002. p.273 During the period January to March 1945 the POW's held Western Allies increased by 200,000; During the period April to June 1945 the number increased to 5,440,000. These figures do not include POWs that died or were released during this period. (see Disarmed Enemy Forces).
^Fifth Army History • Race to the Alps, Chapter VI : Conclusion [1] "On 3 May the 85th and 88th [Infantry] Divisions sent task forces north over ice and snow 3 feet deep to seal the Austrian frontier and to gain contact with the American Seventh Army, driving southward from Germany. The 339th Infantry [85th Division] reached Austrian soil east of Dobbiaco at 0415, 4 May; the Reconnaissance Troop, 349th Infantry 88th Division, met troops from [103rd Infantry Division] VI Corps of Seventh Army at 1051 at Vipiteno, 9 miles south of Brenner."
^Wallace, Linnel, Lt. Col., Commanding Officer, Summary History of the 289th Engineer Combat Battalion -8 WW II, 1990, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle, PA
Bedessem, Edward M. (1996). Central Europe, 22 March – 11 May 1945. CMH Online bookshelves: The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II. Washington, D.C.: US Army Center of Military History. ISBN0-16-048136-8. CMH Pub 72-36.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
Szélinger, Balázs; Tóth, Marcell (2010). "Magyar katonák idegen frontokon" [Hungarian soldiers on foreign fronts]. Dalam Duzs, Mária (penyunting). Küzdelem Magyarországért: Harcok hazai földön (dalam bahasa Hungarian). Kisújszállás: Pannon-Literatúra Kft. m/s. 94. ISBN978-963-251-185-6.CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link) CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
Zaloga, Steve; Dennis, Peter (2006). Remagen 1945: Endgame Against the Third Reich. Osprey Publishing. ISBN1-84603-249-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
Zimmerman, John (2008). Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg (Vol. 10 Part 1). Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. ISBN978-3-421-06237-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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