The year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. In 1945 fierce battles were fought in the German Lower Rhine region. The events left a lasting impression among those who lived through these difficult and dangerous times. In the post-war decades a vivid culture of public remembrance evolved in and around Wesel. However, most eyewitnesses - who for decades gave accounts of their personal experience of war - are no longer with us. To continue the local tradition of remembrance and to commemorate the events that unfolded in the final months of World War Two we decided to build and maintain this website. We are a group of local historians from Wesel, Hamminkeln and Xanten.

In the Lower Rhine region - the westernmost part of Germany - the Allies took decisive steps to bring the war to an end.  They conquered the area west of the Lower Rhine in February 1945 (Operations Veritable and Blockbuster), in March they carried out an assault across the Rhine supported by a large-scale airborne operation (Operations Plunder and Varsity). After crossing the Rhine Allied armies advanced eastwards and finished the task they had been given: To defeat Germany and its armed forces and to end the reign of Nazi terror over Europe.

In September 1944, the northernmost thrust of the Allied advance in Northwest Europe reached the Belgian-Dutch border – just three months after the successful landings on the coast of Normandy. Field Marshall Montgomery now planned to cross the Rhine in the Netherlands and to advance into Germany from there. To clear the way for his ground forces, American and British airborne troops landed near Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem on September 17th, 1944 (Operation Market Garden). However, the Germans stopped them at Arnhem, where the Allies failed to conquer and hold the one bridge that would have been essential for their advance across the Rhine. Fighting continued on Dutch soil until February 8th, 1945, when Canadian and British troops launched an offensive into Germany from the Nijmegen area. Their aim was to conquer the area west of the Lower Rhine between Kleve, Geldern and Büderich. They were supported by American troops who, from February 22nd, 1945, advanced from the southwest via Venlo and Rheinberg towards Wesel. By March 11th, 1945, the Allies had cleared the entire area west of the Rhine. Then they prepared their offensive across the Rhine - the plan was to gain a foothold on the eastern bank of the Rhine north of the Ruhr industrial area. The frontline stretched along the river from Dinslaken downstream to Wesel and further down to Rees and Emmerich - an area known as the Lower Rhine region. Here the Rhine was to be crossed, allowing the Allied Armies to advance deep into the Reich.

The Rhine crossings in the north - planned and executed under the command of British Field Marshall Montgomery - were a major step for the Allies to end the war. Moreover, to overcome the most famous German river was of great symbolic significance.

With the capture of Emmerich on March 31st, 1945, the conquest of the area east of the Rhine was successfully completed. On the Allied side, the Rhine crossings and the airborne operation cost the lives of over 2,300 soldiers. Most casualties were incurred on the first two days, March 24th and 25th. Losses of a similar dimension can be assumed for the German forces – official statistics are, if available at all, very sketchy. According to the Allied tally, over 16,000 German soldiers were taken prisoner during the battle for the Rhine crossing.

Just three days after the Rhine crossings, the isolated bridgeheads at Wesel, Bislich, Rees, Dinslaken and Spellen had been combined into on large bridgehead east of the Rhine. Along the river between Dinslaken and Emmerich, engineers built 20 pontoon bridges, soon after they started the construction of large "semi-permanent" bridges at Wesel, Bislich and Rees. Allied troops were now able to cross the Rhine completely uncontested. On the eastern bank of the Lower Rhine, Canadian 1st Army - with some British troops under its command - now had a staging area from which they could advance to liberate the northern provinces of the Netherlands. On April 13th, British troops took Arnhem. The city had been under German occupation for almost seven months after the failed Allied airborne operation in September 1944. The fighting to liberate the Netherlands continued until May 4. In Germany, Allied troops advanced eastward and northward from the Lower Rhine region. On April 15th, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated by British units - they were part of British 11th Armoured Division, which had crossed the Rhine near Wesel.

On May 4th, Field Marshal Montgomery accepted the first partial surrender of the Wehrmacht on Lüneburg Heath – all German troops in northwestern Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark surrendered. The unconditional surrender of all German Wehrmacht troops followed on May 7th at the Allied headquarters in Reims in France. This act was repeated at the instigation of the Soviet Union in the late evening of May 8th, 1945, in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst. This marked the end of the Second World War in Europe.