Editing The World Wars (section)

===Victory in Europe===
After liberating France and Belgium, the Western Allies marched on Germany's border at the Rhine River while the Soviets blew through Ukraine, Poland, and East Germany before bumrushing Berlin. The Germans launched several desperate counter-attacks to try and break the Allies' will to fight, including the decisive Battle of the Bulge and the last-ditch offensives in Hungary and Romania. It prevented the Western Allies from pushing further than West Germany and insured the longevity of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe.

By this time, FDR was finally starting to realized that all the nasty things Churchill had been saying about Stalin were true; he was a liar and a paranoid, tyrannical sociopath hell-bent on carving out a swath of European territory to expand Communism and Soviet influence. While FDR's ambitions to allow countries to have their own say in their governance would be realized in the 30 years after August 1945, many countries of the Eastern Bloc would remain under the hammer and sickle as "satellite states". Even a brief attempted rebellion by the Poles to reestablish their country was brutally put down by the Nazis, while the Soviets sat on the outskirts of Warsaw and watched.

In the Battle of Berlin, the Germans fought ferociously against the Soviets, but Hitler took his life in the hours preceding the Soviets occupying the Reichstag and declaring victory. The official cessation of hostilities occurred on May 8 1945. This is known as VE Day, though in Russia it is called Victory Day, in honor of the tremendous sacrifices the men of the Red Army made during the many battles in which they fought against the German Heer.