In remembrance of the 80th Anniversary of the fall of the Third Reich and the end of World War II in Europe, Stephen Ambrose Historical Tours is pleased to offer the 80th Anniversary of VE Day Tour.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany boasting that his new Reich would last a thousand years. Just over 12 years later in the smoking ruins of his capital city, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, in the bunker below his chancellery building. Europe lay in ruins, 20 million were dead and the world had learned the true meaning of the word Holocaust.

You will study the final days of the WWII in Europe as you travel from Remagen, to Dresden, Torgau, Potsdam and Berlin, following the route taken by the Allies as they fought their way into the heart of the Reich and eventual victory in Berlin. Along the way you will visit sites such the famous Ludendorff Bridge—the first bridge taken across the Rhine—as well as the location of the 1945 Big Three Conference at Potsdam, 1936 Olympic Stadium, Gatow Airfield and Luftwaffe Museum, German High Command bunker complex at Zossen, and the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.

A four-day stay in Berlin will allow you to see many of the most famous WWII, Cold War and cultural sites in the city, including the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, site of the Reich’s Chancellery and the bunker where Hitler committed suicide, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Treptower Park Soviet Memorial, and Bernauer Strasse, where the most well-preserved section of the Berlin Wall still standing.