Allies Counterattack

Dday battle effects

The D-day battle or battle of Normandy was fought in the summer of 1944 between the Allied nations and German forces occupying Western Europe. This battle was the invasion and establishment of the Allied forces in Normandy, France during WWII. This battle remains as the largest seaborne invasion in history and the largest amphibious operation ever to take place that involved nearly three million troops crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy

At the end of the battle, the invasion of Normandy succeeded in its objective, on July 1933, one million Allied troops were entrenched in Normandy; they forced Germans to fight on two fronts; in the east against the Russian army, in the west against the Allies. Finally Germans were forced to go back to their territories. After the D-day battle until the final German surrender that occurred on May 8, 1945, Germany was in continuous combat with the Allied Forces.

The effects of this battle were extremely bad; this battle generated millions of deaths it is estimated that more than 425,000 German and Allied troops were killed, went missing or were wounded during the battle. But the German and the Allied troops were not the only ones that got affected, between 20,000 and 15,000 French civilians were killed during the battle.

This battle had many advantages over Jewish people, D-Day was planned to free Jews from concentration camps. The US forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp on April 11, 1945. American forces after this battle liberated more than 20,000 prisoners at Buchenwald. They also liberated the Dachau and Maithausen concentration camps.

The British forces liberated some concentration camps in northern Germany; some concentration camps that were liberated are the Bergen-Belsen and Neuengamme concentration camp.

When the British forces entered the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in mid-April 1945, they found approximately 60,000 prisoners, most of the Jews that were in here, were in critical conditions due to an epidemic, but still alive. 10,000 prisoners died from the effects of disease, or by the effects of malnutrition a few weeks after the liberation. The ones that survived were so weak that they could hardly move thanks to the years of maltreatment. Many of the camps had to be burned down to prevent the spread of epidemics. The survivors of the camps faced a long and difficult road to recovery.

The liberators were in shock due to the living conditions in the concentration camps, where millions of Jews were starving or were at the verge of death. Few days after the liberations the Nazi horrors were exposed to the world. Nazis by trying to deny the bad conditions of the concentration camps burned some of them, producing more deaths.

After this battle the number of liberated Jews was big, but also the number of death soldiers. As any battle it left many death people and also managed to make Germany get out from Normandy, giving more territories to the Allies and at the same time strengthening them.

Valerie

sources:  http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005131

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Normandy#War_memorials_and_tourism

http://www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/d-day/d-day-and-the-battle-of-normandy-your-questions-answered