After the terrible losses suffered at Okinawa, Nimitz becomes convinced that he cannot sustain the invasion of Japan.

On the outskirts of the village of Barnstedt, between Bremervörde and Hamburg, Himmler (who had assumed the identity of Heinrich Hitzinger) and a small group were stopped by a British military patrol and taken to prisoner-of-war camp 031 near Bramstedt. Himmler, revealing his identity, then requested an interview with Captain T. Sylvester, the camp’s commandant, in a vain attempt to secure preferential treatment.

Germany. The US 3rd Division, stationed in Nordhausen, finds 14 tons of documents relating to the V-2, hidden in a mine by von Braun. Staver manages to postpone the American withdrawal from the sector until June 21st, to make way for the British. They hastily and secretly remove all the documents. On May 27th, Staver learns that the British have brought forward their arrival to May 28th, and on that very day, the small convoy of American jeeps and trucks, under the noses of the British, moves the tons of documentation.

Berlin. 110,000 women are recorded as having been raped. Overall, it is believed that nearly 2 million German women were raped in the immediate postwar period.

Bologna. The Allies disarm the partisan forces present in the city. For the past two weeks, they had turned a blind eye, or rather both, to the summary trials and executions of fascists captured by the partisans. Bologna is the only city in Northern Italy where the punishment of collaborators is carried out in the presence of Allied troops.

Surrender of the Third Reich to the Soviets signed in Berlin

Prague. After the city’s uprising against Nazi occupation and the intervention of the Russian Liberation Army, the Nazis signed a ceasefire on May 8th. After Eisenhower halted the advance of their troops, the Red Army entered the already liberated city on May 9th. For decades, Soviet history books would state that it was the Red Army that liberated the city (a fact also denounced by Solzhenitsyn).

Surrender of the Third Reich to the Allies signed by Donitz to Eisenhower in an elementary school in Reims

Netherlands. Anticipating the arrival of British and Canadian troops, a crowd gathers in the Dam, Amsterdam’s main square, in front of the royal palace, dancing and singing. In a final outburst of rage, a group of Nazi officers fires into the crowd with a machine gun mounted on a roof. 22 people die and over a hundred are seriously injured.

Prague. The city’s uprising against Nazi occupation begins. Prague was the first to be occupied and the last to be liberated. Czech resentment is atavistic and dates back to before the war. Many Germans are beaten, doused in petrol, and burned. Dozens are hanged from streetlamps with swastikas carved into their flesh. At the beginning of the uprising, approximately 200,000 Germans are present in the city, of whom approximately 1,000 are killed during the uprising, according to the Czechoslovakian government, including twenty women and at least eight children. It is impossible to determine the exact number, but this estimate is certainly too low. Mass graves containing up to 300 Germans each will be discovered. The first military division to enter the city will be Brunyachenko’s Russian Liberation Army on May 7, saving the uprising and the city. This division was composed of Russian elements who had fought with the Nazis against the Red Army, but now sided with the Czechs. After fierce fighting in the city streets, hampered by numerous barricades, the Nazis signed a ceasefire on May 8th, and after Eisenhower halted their troops, the Red Army entered the already liberated city on May 9th. For decades, Soviet history books would state that it was the Red Army that liberated the city (a fact also denounced by Solzhenitsyn).

Goebbels and his wife commit suicide, also killing their 6 children

In Modena, the synagogue reopens for worship; the Jewish community is almost halved compared to before the war.

Holland. British and American Avro Lancasters and B-17s dropped sacks of Swedish white bread flour, crates of chocolate, margarine, canned meat, powdered eggs, cigarettes, coffee, and chewing gum. The Dutch were exhausted by the German blockade of supplies and the flooding of their camps as a form of Nazi retaliation.

Moscow. Solzhenitsyn recounts, locked in prison and without information on the course of the war, hearing 30 cannon shots, which usually signified the capture of a European capital. Only Prague and Berlin were missing: he just had to guess which. Then on May 9th, they brought him lunch and dinner together, which was usually only for May Day celebrations: he guessed that the war might be over. That evening, he heard 30 cannon shots for the second capital, and then another 40 shots: it was the end of the Great Patriotic War.

Battle for Berlin: Red Army casualties number 350,000, German casualties unknown

As many as 1.8 million German soldiers surrendered to the Americans in May alone, fleeing the advancing Red Army. In total, during the war, the Americans, British, and French captured 8 million German soldiers, while the Russians captured 3.1 million, more than a million of whom died in captivity from starvation and hardship.

Revenge against female collaborators in Western European countries manifests itself almost exclusively through haircuts (around 20,000 cases), while in Eastern Europe, widespread rape is the norm. Throughout Europe, there is also talk of “horizontal collaborationism”: between one and two million children of German soldiers were born in occupied territories.

The vendettas against collaborators in northern Italy resulted in a certain number of victims, a figure that would be exploited by the Italian far right in the years to come. This number is probably around 15,000, while some put it at the absurd figure of 300,000. The partisans killed by fascists during the war numbered 45,000. While we can understand the widespread collaboration with despotic regimes during the war, that doesn’t mean we should condone it. Nor can we justify the brutal postwar vendettas. But it happened. But asking the European population, brutalized by years of atrocities and repression, to avoid these excesses would have been asking too much.

The Soviets enter the Ravensbruck concentration camp

Mid-afternoon: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun take their own lives, he with a pistol, she with poison.

At Ponte della Priula, a hamlet of Susegna near San Polo di Piave, the Military Tribunal worked at a frenetic pace, sentencing 100 fascists to death and carrying out executions. The trial records, if ever drawn up, were never recovered. The victims were 49 legionaries from the “Bologna” division, 15 soldiers from the “Romagna” division, 12 from the Black Brigade, 4 from the X MAS, and 20 unidentified individuals.

Liberation of Milan: Garibaldi partisans from Oltrepo Pavese, led by Italo Pietra “Edoardo,” enter through Porta Ticinese; there are 600 of them, with another 600 arriving the next day. The Giustizia e Liberta’ partisans enter through Porta Vigentina, and on April 28-29, Ciro Moscatelli’s partisans, the Garibaldi Brigades of Valsesia, enter.

A secret meeting took place in a villa on the Turin hills between partisan Franco Antonicelli, president of the CLN, and British Colonel John Melior Stevens, head of the Special Forces in Piedmont. At the end of the meeting, the British officer concluded: “Listen, Mr. President, clean up for two or three days. But on the third day, I don’t want to see another dead person in the streets.” In reality, the “cleanup” continued for several weeks.

End of the war in Italy

The Americans requisitioned an apartment in the house at the intersection of Via Nonantolana and Via Albareto in Modena, to set up a dental clinic; within minutes, dozens of citizens lined up outside the office.

Tokyo is hit by the largest bomber formation ever seen on Japanese targets: 502 B-29 Super-Fortress bombers; the destruction reaches levels never seen even in German cities; Osaka, Kope, Nagoya, Yokohama, Toyama are subsequently hit; in total the B-29s raze 28,500 hectares of urban surface to the ground.

The American X Division crosses the Po followed by the South African VI

American photojournalist Bob Schmidt and his assistant Louis J. Murchio photograph a combat scene in Largo Garibaldi in Modena: some snipers are shooting from a building

Himmler met with Count Folke Bernadotte in the cellar of the Swedish consulate in Lübeck, proposing German surrender on the Western Front, but not on the Eastern Front. The Western Allies were careful not to consider Himmler’s peace proposal; however, the offer was publicized in the press, and on April 28, Radio London announced: “The Reichsführer of the SS claims that Hitler is dead and that he is his successor.” In Berlin, Hitler, in a fit of uncontrollable rage, relieved him of all his political and military duties and also ordered his arrest and execution, but these were not carried out due to the difficult stalemate affecting all units of the Third Reich’s army.

American intelligence units, under Operation Hermes, reach the Mittelwerke facility in the Harz Mountains. Their goal is to secure the cooperation of hundreds of German scientists and engineers before the Russians arrive. This marks the beginning of the space race between the US and the USSR.

The Partisans enter Modena followed by the Americans

3:30 PM: Partisans besiege the Academy (Palazzo Ducale) where the Germans have taken refuge; the Germans attempt two sorties with vans and reach Via Taglio, Modena, where the battle is raging.

11 a.m.: The Germans retreat from Via Emilia Centro towards Piazza Roma: the battle with the partisans rages on in Via Taglio, Modena.

Gothic Line: Brazilian FEB troops capture Zocca, in the Province of Modena. The Gothic Line has collapsed. The German Wehrmacht forces flee in disarray, and the Allies sweep across the plain in pursuit.

The US XIV Army enters CastelFranco and continues towards the Po pursuing the retreating Nazis

Genoa. X MAS raiders, using Chariot underwater assault craft, disable the Italian aircraft carrier Aquila, anchored in Genoa, to prevent it from being used by the Germans or sunk to block access to the port of Genoa.

Formigine, a southern outskirts of Modena. A small formation of American fighter-bombers destroys Formigine. Among the dead, in a shelter in the castle’s basement, is Count Tito Bentivoglio, a renowned scientist.

Schio. The Black Brigades arrested Giacomo Bogotto, a partisan from Schio, tortured him, gouged out his eyes, and perhaps buried him alive. His body was exhumed the day after Schio’s liberation, April 30, before the eyes of a shocked and enraged population. In May, news of the Pedescala massacre arrived: 82 innocent civilians killed by retreating Germans. This was the context in which the Schio massacre took place.

The Soviets arrive at the Peenemunde base, between East Germany and Poland; it is the base where the V-1 and V-2 were built and tested; but by now it is almost emptied of equipment and men, who have fled to West Germany.

Los Alamos, New Mexico. Chemist George Kristiakowsky develops the scientific confidence necessary to establish that it is possible to completely control the development of the TNT explosion that triggers an atomic bomb. It is therefore possible to guarantee the success of the atomic bomb test by using special “lenses” to focus the TNT shock wave on the fissile uranium.

As the Third Reich collapsed, American intelligence agents from the Alsos Mission captured “Hitler’s Uranium Club,” the masterminds of the German nuclear program. This included geniuses like the politically ambiguous Werner Heisenberg, as well as less brilliant and openly Nazi scientists like Kurt Diebner. Intelligence interned them at Farm Hall, a delightful country house near Cambridge, England, where they were treated as guests rather than prisoners. Yet that romantic English home did not reassure Diebner at all. “I wonder if there are hidden microphones here,” he had said to Heisenberg shortly after arriving. And Heisenberg laughed: “Hidden microphones? No! They’re not that clever. And I don’t think they know the Gestapo’s methods.” It was at Farm Hall that German physicists learned of the bombing of Hiroshima. They learned about it from the BBC and initially dismissed the news as Allied propaganda. Then, however, they realize it’s true, and at that point their immediate reaction is one of horror. Horror is followed by reflections, acknowledgements of Nazi crimes, and recriminations over the failure of their nuclear program.