On January 20, 1945, Roosevelt is sworn in as US President. Roosevelt chose Harry. S. Truman as his Vice President to ensure that “his successor will [be] a man of the people who will do his best to heal the nation when the war inevitably ends” (214). Roosevelt is aware that his health is failing; he wants to avoid what happened after Lincoln’s assassination, when an inadequate Vice President, Andrew Johnson, became President.

Despite having played a central role in defeating the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge, Patton is relegated by Eisenhower to the task of mopping up German resistance. British General Montgomery gets prized job of leading the Allied offensive into Germany. Montgomery has been deliberately husbanding his resources during the Battle of the Bulge for this purpose. Meanwhile, head of OSS intelligence “Wild Bill” Donovan has just found out that Germany has captured several of his spies, creating a propaganda coup for the Third Reich.

In late January 1945, the SS is trying to destroy evidence of the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, as “Hitler has ordered that the murders be stopped and that all proof of his atrocities be destroyed” (225).