Hitler's chief architect, Albert Speer, is put in charge of Germany's armaments programme

German industrial enterprises are moved from the vulnerable Ruhr valley to the slave labour facilities of Auschwitz

Germany launches a bombing campaign specifically targeting historic British cities with three stars in the Baedeker guidebook

German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer flies to neutral Sweden to contact the British on behalf of conspirators against Hitler

The German V-2 rocket is successfully tested by Wernher von Braun and his team at Peenemünde

An international declaration condemns Germany's 'bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination'

Hitler appoints Karl Dönitz as commander of the German navy

Martin Bormann, previously head of the party secretariat, becomes Hitler's personal secretary

Two hydroelectric schemes in the Ruhr valley are destroyed by the RAF's Dam Busters and their bouncing bombs in Operation Chastise

Belsen, used as a prisoner-of-war camp since 1940, is turned into a concentration camp

The Hamburg Fire Department coins the word Feuersturm ('firestorm') to describe the unprecedented effects of an RAF raid on the city

The RAF bomb the German V-2 rocket research station at Peenemünde

Allied bombers begin four months of night-time raids on Berlin

Italy changes sides and declares war on her recent ally, Germany

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in Buchenwald, writes his Letters and Papers from Prison

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

Romania changes sides to fight with the Red Army against Germany

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

British bombers launch a devastating raid against Dresden, killing tens of thousands in a firestorm

The Soviets instal a puppet government in Romania while the fight continues against Germany

Patton's Third US Army is the first Allied force to cross the Rhine, at Oppenheim, south of Mainz

Montgomery's Twenty-First Army Group crosses the Rhine at several points in the north

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