Breakdown
Since a landing of the Allies in France or Belgium was being reckoned with after the USA entered the war, German troops in increasing numbers were transferred to the west. Thus, in 1942, the German army was able to make no more decisive advances in Russia to the east. The fighting in the Mediterranean demanded more forces, ending with defeat and the invasion of British and American troops in Sicily in July 1943.
The greatest and most demoralising defeat of the German Wehrmacht, however, was at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43. The British-American peace offering negotiated in Casablanca, demanding the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers and Japan, was rejected. The last two years of the war, now touted on the German «home front» with exhortations to hold out («Do you want total warfare?»), only postponed the inevitable end.
The Allies decided on a tactic of attrition against the civilian population through the massive bombing of numerous German cities which cost over a half million people their lives. Allied troops landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944. The German forces were pushed back ever farther on all fronts. After the Red Army conquered Berlin on 2 May 1945, the unconditional surrender was signed. Hitler evaded the defeat by committing suicide on 30 April.