A turning point in human history, 1945 marked the end of World War II, ending with the defeat and occupation of Nazi Germany (including Austria) and the Empire of Japan (especially Korea) by the United States and the Soviet Union in the world of two superpowers. It is also the year the Nazi concentration camps were liberated and the only year in which atomic bombs (nukes) have been used in war. (against the Japanese.)
Events World War II will be abbreviated as "WWII"
January
January 1 – WWII: Germany begins Operation Bodenplatte, an attempt by the Luftwaffe to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries. Chenogne massacre: German prisoners are allegedly killed by American forces near the village of Chenogne, Belgium. January 6 – WWII: A German offensive recaptures Esztergom, Hungary from the Soviets. January 9 – WWII: American and Australian troops land at Lingayen Gulf on western coast of the largest Philippine island of Luzon, occupied by Japan since 1942. January 12 – WWII: The Soviet Union begins the Vistula–Oder Offensive in Eastern Europe, against the German Army. January 13 – WWII: The Soviet Union begins the East Prussian Offensive, to eliminate German forces in East Prussia. January 16 – WWII: Adolf Hitler takes residence in the Führerbunker in Berlin. January 17 WWII: The Soviet Union occupies Warsaw, Poland. The Holocaust: Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who has saved thousands of Jews, is taken into custody by a Soviet patrol during the Siege of Budapest and is never again seen publicly. January 18 – The Holocaust: The SS begins the evacuation of Auschwitz concentration camp. Nearly 60,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, are forced to march to other locations in Germany; as many as 15,000 die. The 7,000 too sick to move are left without supplies being distributed. January 19 – The Holocaust: Soviet forces liberate the Łódź Ghetto; only 877 Jews of the initial population of 164,000 remain at this time. January 20 – Germany begins the Evacuation of East Prussia. January 21–22 (night) – At the Grünhagen railroad station, located in East Prussia at this date, two trains, heading for Elbing, collide. At dawn the station is reached by Soviet Army infantry and tanks which destroy the station, killing between 140 and 150 people. January 23 – WWII: Hungary agrees to an armistice with the Allies. German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the start of Operation Hannibal, the mass evacuation by sea of German troops and civilians from the Courland Pocket, East Prussia and the Polish Corridor, evacuating an estimated 800,000-900,000 German civilians and 350,000 soldiers from advancing Soviet forces. Evacuation of Germans from Grünhagen. January 24 – WWII: AP war correspondent Joseph Morton, nine OSS men, and four SOE agents are executed by the Germans at Mauthausen concentration camp under Hitler's Commando Order of 1942, which stipulates the immediate execution of all captured Allied commandos or saboteurs without trial, even those in proper uniforms. Morton is the only Allied correspondent to be executed by the Axis during the war. January 25 – WWII: Hitler appoints Heinrich Himmler as commander of the hastily formed Army Group Vistula (Heeresgruppe Weichsel) to halt the Soviet Red Army's Vistula–Oder offensive into Pomerania, despite Himmler's lack of military experience. January 26 – WWII: 19-year-old U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Audie Murphy sees action at Holtzwihr, France, for which is awarded the Medal of Honor. January 27 The Holocaust: The Soviet Red Army liberates the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. WWII: The Soviet Red Army reaches Wolf's Lair former Hitler headquarters.Wolf's Lair from Battlefields WW2 January 30 – WWII: , with over 10,000 mainly civilian Germans from Gotenhafen (Gdynia) is sunk in Gdańsk Bay by three torpedoes from Soviet submarine S-13 in the Baltic Sea; up to 9,400, 5,000 of whom are children, are thought to have died – the greatest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history. Raid at Cabanatuan: 121 American soldiers and 800 Filipino guerrillas free 813 American prisoners of war from the Japanese-held camp in the city of Cabanatuan, in the Philippines. Adolf Hitler makes his last public speech, on broadcast radio, expressing the belief that Germany will triumph. January 31 – WWII: The Battle of Hill 170 in the Burma Campaign ends with the British 3rd Commando Brigade defeating the Imperial Japanese Army 54th Division, causing the Japanese Twenty-Eighth Army to withdraw from the Arakan Peninsula.
February
February – Raymond L. Libby of American Cyanamid's research laboratories, at Stamford, Connecticut, announces a method of orally administering the antibiotic penicillin. February 3 – WWII: Battle of Manila: United States forces enter the outskirts of Manila to capture it from the Japanese Imperial Army, starting the battle. On February 4, U.S. Army forces liberate Santo Tomas Internment Camp in the city. The Soviet Union agrees to enter the Pacific War against Japan, once hostilities against Germany are concluded. February 4–11 – WWII: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin hold the Yalta Conference. February 7 – WWII: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila. February 8 – The Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, championed by charismatic native leader Elizabeth Peratrovich, is passed by the territorial Senate, after the legislature defeated a previous bill in 1943. February 9 Walter Ulbricht becomes leader of the German Communists in Moscow. WWII: "Black Friday": A force of Allied Bristol Beaufighter aircraft suffers heavy casualties in an unsuccessful attack on German destroyer Z33 and escorting vessels sheltering in Førde Fjord, Norway. February 10 – WWII: German troopship is sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13; 3,608 drown. February 10–20 – WWII: Operation Kita – The Imperial Japanese Navy returns "Completion Force", containing both its Ise-class battleships, safely from Singapore to Kure in Japan despite Allied attacks. February 12 – A devastating tornado outbreak in Mississippi and Alabama kills 45 people and injures 427 others. February 13 – WWII: The Budapest Offensive and the Siege of Budapest end with Nazi troops surrendering Budapest (Hungary) to Soviet-Romanian forces. Bombing of Dresden (Germany) by the British Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces; 25,000-35,000 are estimated to have died. February 16 – WWII: The Bombing of Wesel begins, destroying 97% of the town over three days. American and Filipino ground forces land on Corregidor Island in the Philippines. Combined American and Filipino forces recapture the Bataan Peninsula. Venezuela declares war on Germany. February 18–March 5 – WWII: American and Brazilian troops kick off Operation Encore in Northern Italy, a successful limited action in the Northern Apennines that prepares for the western portion of the Allied Spring offensive.Ernest F. Fisher Jr., The Mediterranean Theater of Operations: Cassino to the Alps (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1977), p. 425–434 February 19–20 – 980 (actual figure is disputed) Japanese soldiers die as a result of being attacked by long saltwater crocodiles in Ramree, Burma. February 19 – WWII: Battle of Iwo Jima – About 30,000 United States Marines land on Iwo Jima. February 21 – The last V-2 rocket is launched from Peenemünde. February 22 – WWII: Italian Front: The Battle of Monte Castello ends after nearly three months of fighting when the Brazilian Expeditionary Force expels German forces from a pivot point in the (Tuscan) North Apennines where their artillery was impeding the advance of the British Eighth Army toward Bologna. Uruguay declares war on Germany and Japan. February 23 – WWII: Battle of Iwo Jima: A group of United States Marines reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island, and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (taken by Joe Rosenthal), later wins a Pulitzer Prize. The US Army 11th Airborne Division, with Filipino guerrillas, free the captives of the Los Baños internment camp. The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined American and Filipino ground troops. The suburb of Intramuros is devastated.Battle of Manila Footnotes: Battle for Manila by Richard Connaughton, John Pimlott and Duncan Anderson (2002) Presidio Press pp 164–7 The German garrison in Poznań capitulates to Red Army and Polish troops. Bombing of Pforzheim: The heaviest of a series of bombing raids on Pforzheim, Germany, by Allied aircraft is carried out by the British Royal Air Force. As many as 17,600 people, or 31.4% of the town's population, are killed in the raid and about 83% of the town's buildings destroyed, two-thirds of its complete area and between 80 and 100% of the inner city. Turkey joins the war on the side of the Allies. February 24 – Egyptian premier Ahmad Mahir Pasha is assassinated in Parliament after declaring war on Germany and Japan. February 27 – The Bombing of Mainz results in 1,209 confirmed dead; 80% of the city is destroyed. February 28 – In Bucharest, a violent demonstration takes place, during which the Bolşevic group opens fire on the army and protesters. In response, Andrei Y. Vishinsky, USSR vice commissioner of foreign affairs and president of the Allied Control Commission for Romania, travels to Bucharest to compel Nicolae Rădescu to resign as premier.
March
March 1 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives what will be his last address to a joint session of the United States Congress, reporting on the Yalta Conference. March 2 Former U.S. vice-president Henry A. Wallace starts his term of office as United States Secretary of Commerce, serving under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The rocket-propelled Bachem Ba 349 Natter is first test launched at Stetten am kalten Markt. The launch fails and the pilot, Lothar Sieber, dies.Year by Year – 1945. History International. WWII: Allied troops led by 10th Armored Division capture Trier, the oldest city in Germany. March 3 – WWII: Finland declares war on the Axis powers. United States and Filipino troops take Manila, Philippines. Pawłokoma massacre: A Polish Home Army unit massacres between 150 and 500 Ukrainian civilians in the Polish village of Pawłokoma. Bombing of the Bezuidenhout: The British Royal Air Force accidentally bombs the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood in The Hague, Netherlands, killing 511 people. March 4 In the United Kingdom, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), joins the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) as a truck driver/mechanic in London. The Swiss cities of Basel and Zürich are accidentally bombed by the United States. March 5 – WWII: Brazilian troops take Castelnuovo (Vergato) in the last operations of the Allied Operation Encore. March 6 A Communist-led government is formed in Romania under Petru Groza, following Soviet intervention. Resistance fighters accidentally ambush and attempt to execute SS general Hanns Albin Rauter, the arch-persecutor of the Dutch. March 7 WWII: At the end of Operation Lumberjack, American troops seize the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine at Remagen, Germany and begin to cross; in the next 10 days, 25,000 troops with equipment are able to cross. 10th Armored Division captures the city of Cologne. March 8 Josip Broz Tito forms a Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Nazi authorities kill 117 Dutch men in reprisal for the attempted murder of Hanns Albin Rauter. Operation Sunrise: Waffen-SS General Karl Wolff meets with Allen Welsh Dulles of the United States Office of Strategic Services at Lucerne, Switzerland, to negotiate the surrender of the Axis forces in Italy to the Allies.