Line of contact
The Line of Contact marked the farthest advance of Canadian, American, British and Soviet Armies into German controlled territory at the End of World War II in Europe. (In general "Line of Contact" refers to the demarcation between any two armies, or more, and this contact can be between belligerent or between allied armies.)
This contact began with the first meeting between Soviet and American forces at Torgau, near the Elbe river on Elbe Day, April 25, 1945. The line continued to form as American, British and Soviet forces took control of, or defeated, Nazi forces, up until the time of the May 8 unconditional surrender of Germany and beyond. This line of contact did not conform to the agreed-upon occupation zones, as stipulated in the Yalta Conference. Rather, it was simply the place where the two armies met each other. The Canadian, American and British forces had actually gone far beyond the Yalta agreement boundaries, in some cases up to two hundred miles past, going deep into the states of Mecklenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, as well as Brandenburg. The capital of Mecklenburg, the city of Schwerin, was captured on May 2, 1945. The city of Leipzig, in Saxony, was probably the largest of the cities captured by the Americans that were inside the areas to be later passed to the Soviets. The land of Thuringia was completely occupied by American forces. The completed line of contact between Canadian/US/British forces and Soviet forces began at Wismar on the Baltic coast and proceeded south, passing along Schwerin; Magdeburg; an area east of Leipzig; and on to the Czech town of Pilsen; and towards Linz in Austria.
