Western Front ( World War II ) The Western Front of the European Theatre of World War II encompassed Denmark , Norway , Luxembourg , Belgium , the Netherlands , the United Kingdom , France , and Western Germany . World War II military engagements in Southern Europe and elsewhere are generally considered under separate headings . The Western Front was marked by two phases of large - scale combat operations . The first phase saw the capitulation of the Netherlands , Belgium and France during May and June 1940 after their defeat in the Low Countries and the northern half of France , and continued into an air war between Germany and Britain that climaxed with the Battle of Britain . The second phase consisted of large - scale ground combat , which began in June 1944 with the Allied landings in Normandy and continued until the defeat of Germany in May 1945 . Although the majority of German military deaths occurred on the Eastern Front , German losses on the Western Front were almost irreplaceable , because most of Germany ' s resources were being allocated to the Eastern Front . This meant that , while losses there could be replaced to some extent , very few replacements or reinforcements were being sent to the west to stop the advance of the Western Allies . The Normandy landings was a tremendous psychological blow to the German military and its leaders , who had feared a repetition of the two - front war of World War I . 1939 – 40 : Axis victories . Phoney War . The Phoney War was an early phase of World War II marked by a few military operations in Continental Europe in the months following the German invasion of Poland and preceding the Battle of France . Although the great powers of Europe had declared war on one another , neither side had yet committed to launching a significant attack , and there was relatively little fighting on the ground . This was also the period in which The United Kingdom and France did not supply significant aid to Poland , despite their pledged alliance . While most of the German Army was fighting against Poland , a much smaller German force manned the Siegfried Line , their fortified defensive line along the French border . At the Maginot Line on the other side of the border , French troops stood facing them , whilst the British Expeditionary Force and other elements of the French Army created a defensive line along the Belgian border . There were only some local , minor skirmishes . The British Royal Air Force dropped propaganda leaflets on Germany and the first Canadian troops stepped ashore in Britain , while Western Europe was in a strange calm for seven months . In their hurry to re - arm , Britain and France had both begun to buy large numbers of weapons from manufacturers in the United States at the outbreak of hostilities , supplementing their own production . The non - belligerent United States , contributed to the Western Allies by discounted sales of military equipment and supplies . German efforts to interdict the Allies ' trans - Atlantic trade at sea ignited the Battle of the Atlantic . Scandinavia . While the Western Front remained quiet in April 1940 , the fighting between the Allies and the Germans began in earnest with the Norwegian campaign when the Germans launched Operation " Weserübung " , the German invasion of Denmark and Norway . In doing so , the Germans beat the Allies to the punch ; the Allies had been planning an amphibious landing in which they could begin to surround Germany , cutting off her supply of raw materials from Sweden . However , when the Allies tried to invade Norway , the attack was repulsed . The German Navy , nonetheless , suffered very heavy losses . Battles for Luxembourg , the Netherlands , Belgium and France . In May 1940 , the Germans launched the Battle of France . The Western Allies ( primarily the French , Belgian and British land forces ) soon collapsed under the onslaught of the so - called " " blitzkrieg " " strategy . The majority of the British and elements of the French forces escaped at Dunkirk . With the fighting ended , the Germans began to consider ways of resolving the question of how to deal with Britain . If the British refused to agree to a peace treaty , one option was to invade . However , the German Navy ( " Kriegsmarine " ) , had suffered serious losses in Scandinavia , and in order to even consider an amphibious landing , Germany ' s Air Force ( the Luftwaffe ) had to first gain air superiority or air supremacy . 1941 – 44 : Interlude . With the Luftwaffe unable to defeat the RAF in the Battle of Britain , the invasion of Great Britain could no longer be thought of as an option . While the majority of the German army was mustered for the invasion of the Soviet Union , construction began on the Atlantic Wall – a series of defensive fortification s along the French coast of the English Channel . These were built in anticipation of an Allied invasion of France . Because of the massive logistical obstacles a cross - channel invasion would face , Allied high command decided to conduct a practice attack against the French coast . On 19 August 1942 , the Allies began the Dieppe Raid , an attack on Dieppe , France . Most of the troops were Canadian , with some British contingents and a small American and Free French presence along with British and Polish naval support . The raid was a disaster , almost two - thirds of the attacking force became casualties . However , much was learned as a result of the operation – these lessons would be put to good use in the subsequent invasion . For almost two years , there was no land - fighting on the Western Front with the exception of commando raids and the guerrilla actions of the resistance aided by the Special Operations Executive ( SOE ) and Office of Strategic Services ( OSS ) . However , in the meantime , the Allies took the war to Germany , with a strategic bombing campaign the US Eighth Air Force bombing Germany by day and RAF Bomber Command bombing by night . Two early British raids for which battle honours were awarded were Operations " Collar " in Boulogne ( 11 June 1940 ) and " Ambassador " in Guernsey ( 14 – 15 July 1940 ) . The raids for which the British awarded the " North - West Europe Campaign of 1942 " battle honour were : Operation " Biting " - Bruneval ( 27 – 28 February 1942 ) , St Nazaire ( 27 – 28 March 1942 ) , Operation " Myrmidon " - Bayonne ( 5 April 1942 ) , Operation " Abercrombie " - Hardelot ( 21 – 22 April 1942 ) , Dieppe ( 19 August 1942 ) and Operation - " Frankton " - Gironde ( 7 – 12 December 1942 ) . A raid on Sark on the night of 3 / 4 October 1942 is notable because a few days after the incursion the Germans issued a propaganda communiqué implying at least one prisoner had escaped and two were shot while resisting having their hands tied . This instance of tying prisoner ' s hands contributed to Hitler ' s decision to issue his Commando Order instructing that all captured Commandos or Commando - type personnel were to be executed as a matter of procedure . By the summer of 1944 , when expectation of an Allied invasion was freely admitted by German commanders , the disposition of troops facing it came under the command of OB West ( HQ in Paris ) . In turn it commanded three groups : the Wehrmacht Netherlands Command ( " Wehrmachtbefehlshaber # Niederlande " ) or WBN , covering the Dutch and Belgian coasts and Army Group B , covering the coast of northern France with the German 15th Army ( HQ in Tourcoing ) , in the area north of the Seine ; the 7th Army , ( HQ in Le Mans ) , between the Seine and the Loire defending the English Channel and the Atlantic coast , and Army Group G with responsibility for the Bay of Biscay coast and Vichy France , with its 1st Army , ( HQ in Bordeaux ) , responsible for the Atlantic coast between the Loire and the Spanish border and the 19th Army , ( HQ in Avignon ) , responsible for the Mediterranean coast . It was not possible to predict where the Allies might choose to launch their invasion . The chance of an amphibious landing necessitated the substantial dispersal of the German mobile reserves , which contained the majority of their panzer troops . Each army group was allocated its mobile reserves . Army Group B had the 2nd Panzer Division in northern France , 116th Panzer Division in the Paris area , and the 21st Panzer Division in Normandy . Army Group G , considering the possibility of an invasion on the Atlantic coast , had dispersed its mobile reserves , locating the 11th Panzer Division in Gironde , the 2nd SS Panzer Division " Das Reich " refitting around the southern French town of Montauban , and the 9th Panzer Division stationed in the Rhone delta area . The OKW retained a substantial reserve of such mobile divisions also , but these were dispersed over a large area : the 1st SS Panzer Division " Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler " was still forming and training in the Netherlands , the 12th SS Panzer Division " Hitlerjugend " and the " Panzer - Lehr " Division were located in the Paris - Orleans area , since the Normandy coastal defence sectors or ( " Küstenverteitigungsabschnitte " - KVA ) were considered the most likely areas for an invasion . The 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division " Götz von Berlichingen " was located just south of the Loire in the vicinity of Tours . 1944 – 45 : The Second Front . Normandy . On 6 June 1944 , the Allies began Operation Overlord ( also known as " D - Day " ) – the long - awaited liberation of France . The deception plans , Operations " Fortitude and " Bodyguard " , had the Germans convinced that the invasion would occur in the Pas - de - Calais , while the real target was Normandy . Following two months of slow fighting in hedgerow country , Operation " Cobra " allowed the Americans to break out at the western end of the lodgement . Soon after , the Allies were racing across France . They encircled around 200 , 000 Germans in the Falaise pocket . As had so often happened on the Eastern Front Hitler refused to allow a strategic withdrawal until it was too late . Approximately 150 , 000 Germans were able to escape from the Falaise pocket , but they left behind most of their irreplaceable equipment and 50 , 000 Germans were killed or taken prisoner . The Allies had been arguing about whether to advance on a broad - front or a narrow - front from before D - Day . If the British had broken out of the Normandy bridge - head around Caen when they launched Operation " Goodwood " and pushed along the coast , facts on the ground might have turned the argument in favour of a narrow front . However , as the breakout took place during Operation " Cobra " at the western end of the bridge - head , the 21st Army Group that included the British and Canadian forces swung east and headed for Belgium , the Netherlands and Northern Germany , while the US Twelfth Army Group advanced to their south via eastern France , Luxembourg and the Ruhr Area , rapidly fanning out into a broad front . As this was the strategy favoured by supreme Allied commander Dwight D . Eisenhower and most of the rest of the American high command , it became the strategy which was adopted . Liberation of France . On 15 August the Allies launched Operation " Dragoon " – the invasion of Southern France between Toulon and Cannes . The US Seventh Army and the French First Army , making up the US 6th Army Group , rapidly consolidated this beachhead and liberated southern France in two weeks ; they then moved north up the Rhone valley . Their advance only slowed down as they encountered regrouped and entrenched German troops in the Vosges Mountains . The Germans in France were now faced by three powerful Allied army groups : in the north the British 21st Army Group commanded by Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery , in the center the American 12th Army Group , commanded by General Omar Bradley and to the south the US 6th Army Group commanded by Lieutenant General Jacob L . Devers . By mid - September , the 6th Army Group , advancing from the south , came into contact with Bradley ' s formations advancing from the west and overall control of Devers ' force passed from AFHQ in the Mediterranean so that all three army groups came under Eisenhower ' s central command at SHAEF ( Supreme Headquarters , Allied Expeditionary Forces ) . Under the onslaught in both the north and south of France , the German Army fell back . On 19 August , the French Resistance ( FFI ) organised a general uprising and the liberation of Paris took place on 25 August when general Dietrich von Choltitz accepted the French ultimatum and surrendered to general Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque , commander of the Free French 2nd Armored Division , ignoring orders from Hitler that Paris should be held to the last and destroyed . The liberation of northern France and the Benelux countries was of special significance for the inhabitants of London and the southeast of England , because it denied the Germans launch sites for their mobile V - 1 and V - 2 " Vergeltungswaffen " ( reprisal weapons ) . Unfortunately for the Allies , the Germans took special care to thoroughly wreck all port facilities before they could be captured . As the Allies advanced across France , their supply lines stretched to breaking point . The Red Ball Express , the Allied trucking effort , was simply unable to transport enough supplies from the port facilities in Normandy all the way to the front line , which by September , was close to the German border . Major German units in the French southwest that had not been committed in Normandy withdrew , either eastwards towards Alsace ( sometimes directly across the US 6th Army ' s advance ) or into the ports with the intention of denying them to the Allies . These latter groups were not thought worth much effort and were left " to rot " , with the exception of Bordeaux , which was liberated in May 1945 by French forces under General Edgard de Larminat ( Operation " Venerable " ) . Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine . Fighting on the Western front seemed to stabilize , and the Allied advance stalled in front of the Siegfried Line ( " Westwall " ) and the southern reaches of the Rhine . Starting in early September , the Americans began slow and bloody fighting through the Hurtgen Forest ( " " Passchendaele with tree bursts " " — Hemingway ) to breach the Line . The port of Antwerp was liberated on 4 September by the British 11th Armoured Division . However , it lay at the end of the long Scheldt Estuary , and so it could not be used until its approaches were clear of heavily fortified German positions . The Breskens pocket on the southern bank of the Scheldt was cleared with heavy casualties by Canadian and Polish forces in Operation " Switchback " , during the Battle of the Scheldt . This was followed by a tedious campaign to clear a peninsula dominating the estuary , and finally , the amphibious assault on Walcheren Island in November . The campaign to clear the Scheldt Estuary was a decisive victory for the First Canadian Army and the rest of the Allies , as it allowed a greatly improved delivery of supplies directly from Antwerp , which was far closer to the front than the Normandy beaches . In October the Americans decided that they could not just invest Aachen and let it fall in a slow siege , because it threatened the flanks of the U . S . Ninth Army . As it was the first major German city to face capture , Hitler ordered that the city be held at all costs . In the resulting battle , the city was taken , at a cost of 5 , 000 casualties on both sides , with an additional 5 , 600 German prisoners . South of the Ardennes , US forces fought from September until mid - December to push the Germans out of Lorraine and from behind the Siegfried Line . The crossing of the Moselle River and the capture of the fortress of Metz proved difficult for the US troops in the face of German reinforcements , supply shortages , and unfavorable weather . During September and October , the Allied 6th Army Group ( U . S . Seventh Army and French First Army ) fought a difficult campaign through the Vosges Mountains that was marked by dogged German resistance and slow advances . In November , however , the German front snapped under the pressure , resulting in sudden Allied advances that liberated Belfort , Mulhouse , and Strasbourg , and placed Allied forces along the Rhine River . The Germans managed to hold a large bridgehead ( the Colmar Pocket ) , on the western bank of the Rhine and centered around the city of Colmar . On 16 November the Allies started a large scale autumn offensive called Operation " Queen " . With its main thrust again through the Hürtgen Forest , the offensive drove the Allies to the Rur River , but failed in its core objectives to capture the Rur dams and pave the way towards the Rhine . The Allied operations were then succeeded by the German Ardennes offensive . Operation Market Garden . The British Field - Marshal Montgomery persuaded Allied High Command to launch a bold attack , Operation " Market Garden " which he hoped would get the Allies across the Rhine and create the narrow - front he favoured . Paratrooper s would fly in from Britain and take bridges over the main rivers of the German - occupied Netherlands in three main cities , Eindhoven , Nijmegen , and Arnhem . The British XXX Corps would punch through the German lines along the Maas - Schelde Kanal and link up with American paratroopers in Eindhoven . If all went well XXX Corps would advance into Germany without any remaining major obstacles . XXX Corps was able to advance beyond six of the seven paratrooper - held bridges , but was unable to link up with the troops near the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem . The result was the near - destruction of the British 1st Airborne Division . The offensive ended with Arnhem remaining in German hands and the Allies holding an extended salient from the Belgian border to the area between Nijmegen and Arnhem . Winter counter - offensives . The Germans had been preparing a massive counter - attack in the West since the Allied breakout from Normandy . The plan called " Wacht am Rhein ( " Watch on the Rhine " ) " was to attack through the Ardennes and swing North to Antwerp , splitting the American and British armies . The attack started on 16 December in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge . Defending the Ardennes were troops of the US First Army . Initial successes in bad weather , which gave them cover from the Allied air forces , resulted in a German penetration of over to within less than of the Meuse . Having been taken by surprise , the Allies regrouped and the Germans were stopped by a combined air and land counter - attack which eventually pushed them back to their starting points by 25 January 1945 . The Germans launched a second , smaller offensive ( " Nordwind " ) into Alsace on New Year ' s Day , 1945 . Aiming to recapture Strasbourg , the Germans attacked the 6th Army Group at multiple points . Because the Allied lines had become severely stretched in response to the crisis in the Ardennes , holding and throwing back the " Nordwind " offensive was a costly affair that lasted almost four weeks . The culmination of Allied counter - attacks restored the front line to the area of the German border and collapsed the Colmar Pocket . Invasion of Germany . In January 1945 the German bridgehead over the river Roer between Heinsberg and Roermond was cleared during Operation " Blackcock " , followed by the pincer movement of the First Canadian Army in Operation " Veritable " advancing from the Nijmegen area of the Netherlands and the US Ninth Army crossing the Rur ( Roer ) in Operation Grenade " was planned to start on 8 February 1945 , but it was delayed by two weeks when the Germans flooded the river valley by destroying the dam gates upstream . During the two weeks that the river was flooded , Hitler would not allow Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt from withdrawing east behind the Rhine , arguing that it would only delay the inevitable . Hitler ordered him to fight where his forces stood . By the time the water had subsided and the US Ninth Army was able to cross the Roer on 23 February , other Allied forces were also close to the Rhine ' s west bank . Von Rundstedt ' s divisions which had remained on the west bank , were cut to pieces in the ' battle of the Rhineland ' , - 280 , 000 men were taken prisoner . With a large number of men captured , the stubborn German resistance during the Allied campaign to reach the Rhine in February and March 1945 had been costly . Total losses reached an estimated 400 , 000 men . Once the Allies had crossed the Rhine , the British fanned out northeast towards Hamburg crossing the river Elbe and on towards Denmark and the Baltic . British forces captured Bremen on 26 April after a week of combat . British and Canadian paratroopers reached the Baltic city of Wismar just ahead of Soviet forces on 2 May . The US Ninth Army , which had remained under British command since the battle of the Bulge , went south as the northern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement as well as pushing elements east . XIX Corps of the Ninth Army captured Magdeburg on 18 April and the US XIII Corps to the north occupied Stendal . The US 12th Army Group fanned out , the First Army went north as the southern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement . On 4 April the encirclement was completed and the Ninth Army reverted to the command of Bradley ' s 12th Army Group . The German Army Group B commanded by Field Marshal Walther Model was trapped in the Ruhr Pocket and 300 , 000 soldiers became POWs . The Ninth and First American armies then turned east and pushed to the Elbe river by mid - April . During the push east , the cities of Frankfurt am Main , Kassel , Magdeburg , Halle and Leipzig were strongly defended by ad hoc German garrisons made up of regular troops , Flak units , Volkssturm and armed Nazi Party auxiliaries . Generals Eisenhower and Bradley concluded that pushing beyond the Elbe made no sense since eastern Germany was destined in any case to be occupied by the Red Army . The First and Ninth Armies stopped along the Elbe and Mulde rivers , making contact with Soviet forces near the Elbe in late April . The US Third Army had fanned out to the east into western Czechoslovakia and southeast into eastern Bavaria and northern Austria . By V - E Day , the US 12th Army Group was a force of four armies ( First , Third , Ninth and Fifteenth ) that numbered over 1 . 3 million men . End of the Third Reich . The US 6th Army Group fanned out to the southwest , passing to the east of Switzerland through Bavaria and into Austria and northern Italy . . The Black Forest and Baden were overrun by the French First Army . Determined stands were made in April by German forces at Heilbronn , Nuremberg , and Munich but were overcome after several days . Elements of the US 3rd Infantry Division were the first Allied troops to arrive at Berchtesgaden , which they secured , while the French 2nd Armoured Division seized the Berghof ( Hitler ' s Alpine residence ) on 4 May 1945 . German Army Group G surrendered to US forces at Haar , in Bavaria , on 5 May . Field Marshal Montgomery took the German military surrender of all German forces in The Netherlands , northwest Germany and Denmark on Lüneburg Heath , an area between the cities of Hamburg , Hanover and Bremen , on 4 May 1945 . As the operational commander of some of these forces was Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz , the new Reichspräsident ( head of state ) of the Third Reich this signaled that the European war was over . On 7 May at his headquarters in Rheims , Eisenhower took the unconditional surrender of all German forces to the western Allies and the Soviet Union , from the German Chief - of - Staff , General Alfred Jodl , who signed the first general instrument of surrender at 0241 hours . General Franz Böhme announced the unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway . Operations ceased at 2301 hours Central European time ( CET ) on 8 May . On that same day Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel , as head of OKW and Jodl ' s superior , was brought to Marshal Georgy K . Zhukov in Karlshorst and signed another instrument of surrender that was essentially identical to that signed in Rheims with two minor additions requested by the Soviets . The 1944 – 45 campaign in hindsight . While the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces represented a resounding success for the Western Allies and the Soviet Union , the path to this outcome was influenced by the strategic decisions of both sides . In retrospect , it is clear that particular factors and choices strongly affected the pace and course of the campaign on the Western Front . The Allies made serious errors and questionable uses of their forces several times during the course of operations in 1944 – 45 . Thus , while the Allies enjoyed a great victory , on occasion their prosecution of the campaign afforded their German adversaries opportunities that prolonged the fighting unnecessarily .