Editing Bernard Montgomery (section)

==== Crossing the Rhine ====
[[File:Operationvarsity.jpg|thumb|Montgomery (left), [[Air Marshal]] [[Arthur Coningham (RAF officer)|Sir Arthur Coningham]] (centre) and the Commander of the [[Second Army (United Kingdom)|British Second Army]], Lieutenant-General [[Miles Dempsey|Sir Miles Dempsey]], talking after a conference in which Montgomery gave the order for the Second Army to begin [[Operation Plunder]]]]
[[File:Montgomery receives Order of Victory HD-SN-99-02756.JPG|thumb|Montgomery was awarded the [[Order of Victory]] on 5 June 1945. [[Dwight Eisenhower]], [[Georgy Zhukov]] and [[Sir Arthur Tedder]] were also present.]]

In February 1945, Montgomery's 21st Army Group advanced to the Rhine in [[Operation Veritable]] and [[Operation Grenade]]. It crossed the Rhine on 24 March 1945, in [[Operation Plunder]], which took place two weeks after [[U.S. First Army]] had crossed the Rhine after capturing the [[Ludendorff Bridge]] during the [[Battle of Remagen]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Last/USA-E-Last-11.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150426074853/http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Last/USA-E-Last-11.html|url-status=dead|title=HyperWar: The Last Offensive [Chapter 11]|archive-date=26 April 2015|website=www.ibiblio.org}}</ref>

21st Army Group's river crossing was followed by the encirclement of the [[Ruhr Pocket]]. During this battle, U.S. Ninth Army, which had remained part of 21st Army Group after the Battle of the Bulge, formed the northern arm of the envelopment of German [[Army Group B]], with U.S. First Army forming the southern arm. The two armies linked up on 1 April 1945, encircling 370,000 German troops, and on 4 April 1945, Ninth Army reverted to Omar Bradley's 12th Army Group.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/the-u-s-ninth-armys-breakout-crossing-the-roer-and-the-rhine/|title=The U.S. Ninth Army's Breakout: Crossing the Roer and the Rhine|date=30 December 2018|publisher=Warfare History Network|access-date=16 March 2018|archive-date=6 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180606183843/http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/the-u-s-ninth-armys-breakout-crossing-the-roer-and-the-rhine/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

By the war's end, the remaining formations of 21st Army group, First Canadian Army and British Second Army, had liberated the northern part of the Netherlands and captured much of north-west Germany, occupied [[Hamburg]] and [[Rostock]] and sealed off the Danish peninsula.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://militarymaps.narod.ru/eur_oper_e.html#may45|title=Second World War Military Situation Maps 1944–1945|access-date=26 May 2013}}</ref>

On 4 May 1945, on [[Lüneburg Heath]], Montgomery accepted the [[German surrender at Lüneburg Heath|surrender of German forces in north-west Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands]].<ref name="heath218">{{harvnb|Heathcote|1999|p=218}}</ref>