Fall of the Reich in 1945

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

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Watched a documentary on the History Channel last night that was mind blowing.  The Third Reich: The Fall.  I never thought about exactly what happened to Germans left in Berlin at the fall of the Reich and Germany in 1945.

It was tough - the times and the documentary.

We Germans are finished ... if you were in Berlin in 1945 there was no running water or electricity and the war was being fought outside your front door.  As a million - red army - Russian soldiers circled Berlin, less than 10,000 soldiers, many mere boys were left to defend the city.  5000 Germans committed suicide including Hitler.

As the tanks approached, artillery boomed and fires blazed, women and children darted in the streets in frenzied panic.  They faced the hate and disdain of the world, were made to look at corpses found in death camps and bury the dead.  When that was done they turned to rebuilding Germany, one cinder block at a time, a process that lasted until the decade of the eighties.

Today Germany is the indisputable leader in the European Union's economy.

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii