Nine Allied armies, knifing into central Germany, trapped one Nazi army group and were on the verge of cutting off a second. In this week, on the edge of history, the outnumbered, outmaneuvered, broken Wehrmacht faced the chilling prospect of losing two-thirds of its strength in the west.

Completely encircled in the industrial Ruhr—Germany's last important source of coal, power and war machines—were some 100,000 troops of Field Marshal Walter Model's Army Group B. Rapidly pulling out of The Netherlands in a race against the British was Field Marshal Johannes Blaskowitz' Army...