At the beginning of the spring of 1945 everything was now ready for a decisive action by the Allies that would put an end to the war. In January, the Allies had rejected the Ardennes offensive, the last major German attack on the Western front.
After the failure of this operation the German army was almost exhausted and the remaining German forces were unable to resist the Allied counteroffensive in Europe. Moreover, in February-March 1945 the advance in the Rhineland had allowed the Allies to seize the bridge of Ludendorff, in Remagen (which would have allowed the Anglo-American troops to easily cross the Rhine river) and to inflict enormous losses on the Wehrmacht (about 400,000 soldiers killed in combat and 280,000 taken prisoner).
On the eastern front the Red Army had conquered most of Poland and was pushing towards Hungary and Czechoslovakia stopping on the Oder-Neisse line. The advance of Soviet troops had engulfed many German combat units limiting the ability of Hitler and the German generals to provide reinforcements for defense on the Rhine.
