A multinational Allied force moves fast from Monte Cassino to capture Rome

The Allies cross the Channel on D-day for the Normandy invasion

German troops massacre more than 600 civilians in the French village of Oradour

The first V-1 flying bombs (or doodlebugs) appear over London, numbering more than 2000 in two weeks

Adolf Hitler narrowly escapes death from a bomb placed by Claus von Stauffenberg

The Messerschmitt Me 262 fighter-bomber flies into combat, introducing the jet era in aerial warfare

from July - more than 5000 Germans, among them Rommel, die because of the Stauffenberg plot

The first V-2 rocket lands on London, killing three people in Chiswick

Allied bombing of Berlin forces Hitler to take refuge in his underground bunker

Adolf Hitler orders a scorched earth policy within Germany, in the path of the advancing Allies

American troops discover the German concentration camp at Buchenwald

The British reach Belsen and reveal appalling Nazi atrocities, worse even than at Buchenwald

American and Soviet troops join up at Torgau, 70 miles south of Berlin

Soviet armies form a complete circle around Berlin to isolate the city

Against Hitler's specific orders, the commander of the German army in Italy surrenders to the Allies

Adolf Hitler marries Eva Braun in his bunker, and holds a champagne reception with Goebbels as the principal guest

Hitler chooses Admiral Dönitz as his successor and appoints his cabinet

Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun retire to their marital quarters in the Berlin bunker and commit suicide

Soviet troops storm the Reichstag in the centre of Berlin on the day when Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his bunker below them

In the Berlin bunker, on the day after Hitler's death, Goebbels arranges for his six children to be lethally injected, and himself and his wife to be shot

Hermann Goering, sentenced to death at Nuremberg, kills himself with a potassium cyanide capsule the night before he is due to be hanged

German-born US philosopher Hannah Arendt links Hitler's and Stalin's regimes in The Origins of Totalitarianism