Collapse and Perspectives for Renewal, 1943–1945

Abstract

The collapse of the Third Reich began in the winter of 1942–1943. No matter what immense racial and spatial perspectives the planners of the SS state may have had, the area of Europe under Nazi control began to shrink. Anglo-American landings in French North Africa in November 1942 spelled the doom of Field Marshal Rommel’s famed Afrikakorps. Dogged Russian resistance blossomed into the incredibly hard-fought campaign around Stalingrad which culminated on January 31, 1943, in the surrender of 140,000 men to victorious Soviet power. Allied bombing raids over Germany intensified. A week of determined bombing of Hamburg in late July caused destruction and casualties comparable to those of the first atomic blast over Hiroshima two years later.