who was the leader of germany in wwii?
Hitler
entailment
 While the Allied armies continued their slow eastward drive between September and November 1944 , the Germans prepared for a counteroffensive . Adolf Hitler , the German leader , believed that by launching an offensive in the West he could force the United States and Great Britain to an early peace , and thereby transfer the entirety of the Wehrmacht to the Eastern Front , where he could bring the Soviet offensive to a standstill and defeat it . 

entailment
 German Supreme commander : Adolf Hitler 

entailment
 Hitler sought Lebensraum ( " living space " ) for the German people . His aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the primary cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe . He directed large @-@ scale rearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland , resulting in British and French declarations of war on Germany . In June 1941 , Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union . By the end of 1941 German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe and North Africa . Failure to defeat the Soviets and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats . In the final days of the war , during the Battle of Berlin in 1945 , Hitler married his long @-@ time lover , Eva Braun . On 30 April 1945 , less than two days later , the two killed themselves to avoid capture by the Red Army , and their corpses were burned . 

entailment
 Meanwhile , Wolff and von Vietinghoff , now commander of Army Group C , had almost concluded a preliminary surrender agreement with the OSS chief in Switzerland , Allen Dulles . Known as Operation Sunrise , these secret negotiations had been in progress since early March 1945 . Kesselring was aware of them , having previously consented to them , although he had not informed his own staff . He did , however , later inform Hitler . 

entailment
 By late 1944 , both the Red Army and the Western Allies were advancing into Germany . Recognising the strength and determination of the Red Army , Hitler decided to use his remaining mobile reserves against the American and British troops , which he perceived as far weaker . On 16 December , he launched the Ardennes Offensive to incite disunity among the Western Allies and perhaps convince them to join his fight against the Soviets . The offensive failed after some temporary successes . With much of Germany in ruins in January 1945 , Hitler spoke on the radio : " However grave as the crisis may be at this moment , it will , despite everything , be mastered by our unalterable will . " Hitler 's hope to negotiate peace with the United States and Britain was encouraged by the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945 , but contrary to his expectations , this caused no rift among the Allies . Acting on his view that Germany 's military failures meant it had forfeited its right to survive as a nation , Hitler ordered the destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it could fall into Allied hands . Minister for Armaments Albert Speer was entrusted with executing this scorched earth policy , but he secretly disobeyed the order . 
