On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin and the war in Europe didn’t end. The Nazi regime and the German armed forces — unsurrendered — held on to an hourglass of territory, pinched at the waist where the Allies had met up on the Elbe. Norway, Denmark and the area north of Hamburg were at one end, then the Czech lands and Austria, widening out into northern Italy, were at the other. Over the first eight days of May on soil held by the Germans or that had been German, people continued to fight, to die, to drive out their oppressors, to escape justice, to set out for home, to polish their excuses for what had been done.
There
