The ordeal for the civilian population in the Lower Rhine region had started months before: On October 7th, 1944, a total of 700 British bombers attacked Emmerich and Kleve - over 1,000 civilians died in the first heavy air raids on these relatively small cities. Many people took the attacks as a warning and began to consider leaving the region. In Wesel, the non-working population had the opportunity to use special trains that took refugees to safer areas of Germany. Numerous women and children from cities west of the Rhine also followed calls to evacuate – these evacuees from the Lower Rhine region found temporary shelter in the Magdeburg area, some made it to the Württemberg area. From mid-October 1944, an area 10 to 15 kilometres wide, situated immediately behind the front line in the Kleve district, was declared a "Red Zone," which also included the city of Kleve. Women and children had to leave this zone while men under 60 were allowed to stay. The hinterland further away from the front was designated as the "Green Zone“. Many of the civilians evacuated from the "Red Zone" decided to stay put in the „Green Zone“. The front line still ran beyond the border, on Dutch soil, so Dutch residents of the "Red Zone" were also forced to leave their homes and farms. Convoys of these Dutch evacuees were marched through German territory towards the Rhine and in the direction of Rees, where they crossed the river. They were then directed to the north to re-enter Dutch territory which was still under German occupation. Cattle from the evacuated „Red Zone“ was confiscated and driven east to be brought across the Rhine. Members of the Hitler Youth were tasked to accompany these cattle drives.

At the beginning of February 1945, the front along the “Westwall” - or “Siegfried Line”, as the Allies called it - still ran on Dutch soil between Nijmegen and Roermond. On German orders, the "Red Zone" behind the front was now largely cleared of all remaining civilians. On February 1st, bombers attacked the Wesel railway and road bridges. They also hit Wesel’s built-up areas, killing and injuring several people. After this attack all schools in Wesel were closed „until further notice“. The municipal administration had already been relocated to the remote suburb Blumenkamp by this time. The danger became more tangible, and many Wesel residents left the city. Trains departed from the village of Drevenack to bring civilians to safer areas. Journeys by train, however, were risky because Allied fighter bombers dominated the skies at daytime. Not only did they strafe German military vehicles and columns but also individual civilians, cyclists, farmers ploughing and driving horse-drawn carriages. Trains were considered a particularly worthwhile target because they were presumed to transport German troops or supplies. On February 8th, this led to a tragic incident near Wesel - Allied fighter-bombers strafed a freight train carrying Dutch families forcibly evacuated from Roermond. The train had been waiting on a siding in the Kanonenberge area near Blumenkamp for a considerable time and was an easy target. 15 Dutch civilians died in this attack. Two days later, American bombers attacked Wesel once more. Many residents who had previously declined to flee now sought refuge in the surrounding villages, moving in with relatives or friends. Thus they were lucky to escape Wesel’s "Black Friday", when - on February 16th - two heavy airraids destroyed large parts of the city of Wesel. 322 civilians were killed that day. Following this “Black Friday”, most survivors fled the city which saw a series of further attacks over the next days.

The western bank of the Lower Rhine region had been a combat zone since February 8th, 1945. Civilians who remained in the area were caught between the frontlines. By March 11th, the entire area west of the Rhine had been conquered by British, Canadian and American troops. The Allies now cleared this zone of all remaining civilians. These were ordered to make their way to an internment camp near the large psychiatric hospital centre located in Bedburg-Hau. Refugees who had fled the combat zone in previous weeks had already been concentrated there. To accommodate a total of 28,000 people the British Army set up a tent complex near Bedburg-Hau. This camp remained in operation until April 1945. During this time 347 people - mostly small children and elderly internees - died of disease and infections.

With the Allied offensive across the Rhine on March 23rd, 1945, the area east of the Lower Rhine became a battle zone. The population was confronted with a huge war machine steamrolling anything that came in its way. At this stage, only Wesel’s outskirts were still inhabited. However, in Hamminkeln and many other villages the locals experienced the many horrors of war. Houses and farms were destroyed in the fighting, people were caught in the crossfire or were killed by shelling. Moreover, on many farms livestock was killed and injured by shrapnel or died in stables that had caught fire by shelling. Most people sought shelter from the artillery barrage that preceded the offensive. As many buildings were without cellars, entire neighbourhoods gathered in the few available basements where they endured hours and days in very cramped conditions. Eyewitnesses report that a lot of prayers were said in those hours. Often, German soldiers - trying to escape the shelling – temporarily joined these "basement communities." Soon after Allied troops had made it across the Rhine, battles between German defenders and the attacking Allies raged in villages and around farms. Finally, the population in the area between Wesel, Hamminkeln and Mehrhoog was in for another surprise: On the morning of Saturday, March 24th,1945, almost 20,000 Allied soldiers came down by parachute or in gliders to take up the fight against the German defenders.

The fighting on the ground placed civilians in immediate danger. Houses and farms were also at risk: To avert the destruction of their property, some residents implored German officers or NCOs to give up the fight - or at least to move their unit and continue the defence elsewhere. If one encountered fanatical fighters or hard-core Nazis such "interference" was potentially considered treason and could have life-threatening consequences. Some German defenders, though, were more understanding - especially when the locals had come to know them in the weeks before. This was quite often the case, as many German troops had been billeted in private houses and on farms in the days before the enemy attacked.

In the wake of the battle, civilians were often confined to the cellars where they had sought protection. The Allies did not trust the Germans and - for the time being - wanted them out of the way or at least under control. After the airborne landings, for example, all civilians living in the area east of Wesel were ordered by the Americans to gather on the Rohler farm on Molkereiweg in Lackhausen. While some of these civilians were able to return to their homes after a few hours, others remained under guard for four days. In Hamminkeln, all locals were locked up in the Protestant and Catholic churches and in the ballroom of a pub - they were put under guard for two days. With a few exceptions, British, American and Canadian soldiers mostly behaved decently, while they also kept their distance from the adult civilian population – the “no fraternization” orders were mostly adhered to. However, eyewitnesses recount numerous acts of vandalism and wilful destruction of private property. Most Germans knew that defeat meant being at the mercy of enemy soldiers - a threatening situation that caused anxiety und uncertainty.

Civilians now lived in an area occupied and controlled by Allied forces. Nazi rule was over, and all former officials had suddenly lost their power. Many ordinary citizens hurriedly removed all NSDAP party badges, swastika flags and portraits of Hitler – a last-minute attempt to avoid trouble in case enemy soldiers searched their house. Meanwhile, the Allies had put up posters in villages and towns to publicize their "Proclamation No. 1“. This was an address to the Germans by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, US General Dwight D. Eisenhower: “We come as conquerors, but not as oppressors. In the area of Germany occupied by the forces under my command, we shall obliterate Nazism and German Militarism. We shall overthrow the Nazi rule, dissolve the Nazi Party and abolish the cruel, oppressive and discriminatory laws and institutions which the Party has created. We shall eradicate that German Militarism which has so often disrupted the peace of the world. Military and Party leaders, the Gestapo and others suspected of crimes and atrocities will be tried and, if guilty, punished as they deserve."

The occupying forces also had clear instructions for German civilians. These were now subject to night-time curfews, radios, cameras and weapons had to be handed in. A list of residents had to be posted on the door of every house. Yet, despite all the anxiety and uncertainty, many Germans also had a feeling of relief: the immediate danger of being physically harmed by bombing or shelling was over. This change marks the Allied Rhine crossing as a unique event in the collective memory of the civilian population. For most Germans in the Lower Rhine region the Allied occupation in March 1945 was a sea change which brought about the dawning of a new era. Essentially, civilians in this area perceived it as their "end of the war“– even though this war raged on in other parts of Germany and Europe until May 8th, 1945. 

In the period from autumn 1944 to March 1945, the battles fought west and east of the river in the Lower Rhine region cost the lives of at least 4,000 civilians, including civilian forced labourers. This is, however, a minimum figure, based on the sketchy available statistics and  cannot be determined more precisely. The majority of civilian victims were killed in airraids on towns and villages, while a relatively small number was killed during the fighting on the ground.

As early as March 30th, 1945, six days after the Rhine crossing, British officers representing the military government in Wesel appointed Jean Groos as mayor and his son Wilhelm Groos as deputy mayor. They were to set up a so-called "commissioned administration" which was supposed to implement the instructions of the new British military government. All previous members of the city administration and officials in other public functions were to be scrutinized as part of the "denazification" process and, if necessary, dismissed.

In 1939, Wesel had counted a population of about 20,000. At the end of March 1945, only around 3,500 residents were left - mainly those who had stayed put in the outskirts, where some housing was still relatively intact. In addition, there were thousands of liberated forced labourers in the area. They were civilians who had been abducted from their home countries. Many of these men and women came from Poland and the Soviet Union. Classified as “racially inferior” according to Nazi ideology, they had been ill-treated and poorly fed. On farms, in factories and businesses they had been put to hard work. Thousands of Dutch men had suffered a similar fate - they had done bone-breaking work digging anti-tank ditches and defensive positions in the autumn and winter of 1944/45. A considerable number had died from disease and malnutrition. When the Allies crossed the Rhine, all these categories of “slave labourers” were finally liberated. The Dutch immediately set off back to their homeland. But the former forced labourers - like many prisoners of war hailing from the Soviet Union - could not return home immediately. They initially remained in Germany as "displaced persons" (DPs). In the Lower Rhine region, the Allies established camps near Hamminkeln and Haldern to provide shelter and food for the DPs. It was not until August 1945 that they could be "repatriated" to their respective home countries. Meanwhile, in and around the towns and villages, dangerous conflicts broke out between gangs of DPs and the local population. There were numerous acts of revenge, raids on farms, looting, theft and robbery, rape and even murder - frightening and vicious incidents that accompanied the closing chapter of the Second World War in the Lower Rhine region.