East meets West at the Elbe
1945 · Event
An American patrol meets Soviet soldiers on a wrecked bridge at Torgau on the Elbe, cutting Germany in two; the photographs of handshakes flash around the world. For one day the alliance is a picture of itself — the line where they meet will harden into the Cold War's frontier.
On these timelines: D-Day & the Liberation of Europe, World War II, Master, Germany, Cold War
More from D-Day & the Liberation of Europe
- Battle of Normandy (1944)
- Liberation of Paris (1944)
- The landing at Omaha Beach (1944)
- Eisenhower's weather gamble launches Overlord (1944)
- The airborne night before D-Day (1944)
- The Falaise Pocket closes (1944)
- Operation Cobra breaks out of Normandy (1944)
- Operation Market Garden (1944)
Around 1945
- Cuban Revolutionary War (1953)
- Decolonisation of Africa (1952)
- Apartheid (1948)
- Berlin Airlift (1948)
- Korean War (1950)
- The Holocaust (1941)
- Chinese Civil War (resumed) (1945)
- Indian independence and Partition (1947)
- Manhattan Project (1942)
- World War II (1939)