1092 Ch. 26 • World War II
Devastation in Hamburg (left) and Stuttgart (right) after Allied bombing of
Germany.
Balkans. The Red Army recaptured all of the Crimea in the south by May
1943, pushing the Germans back to Ukraine in the summer.
In February 1944, Soviet troops reached what had been the eastern Pol
ish border before the German invasion. In the meantime, waves of British
and American bombers continued to devastate German cities; over 40,000
people perished in attacks on Hamburg in July 1943, during which more
than 9,000 tons of bombs rained down on the port city.
One by one, Germany’s Balkan allies bailed out. Romanian troops had
greatly aided the Nazi campaign in Odessa and the Crimea; Romanian oil
and wheat had fueled the German war effort. Now, in March 1944, seeing
the writing on the wall, the Romanian government approached the Allies,
hoping to arrange a separate peace. In August, King Michael finally ended
Ion Antonescu’s military dictatorship, and the new Romanian government
declared war on Germany.
Hitler intended Bulgaria to serve as a buffer against a possible Allied
invasion from Turkey. Bulgaria enjoyed the most autonomy of any Nazi
held Eastern European state because it provided Germany with badly
needed grain, permitted German military bases on its territory, and had
declared war on Britain and the United States back in 1941. Hitler had
allowed Bulgaria to annex Thrace from Greece (where Bulgarian forces
had executed thousands of Greeks and banned the Greek language) and to
take Greek and Yugoslav Macedonia. Now, as Germany’s defeat appeared
increasingly likely, the Bulgarian government brazenly announced its war
against the Allies had ended. The Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria in