The war in Europe was already decided in 1943 at Stalingrad, over a year before the Western Front was even opened, and I guess the populace of Nazi-occupied Europe was very well aware of that.
A (not so minor) correction: The Red Army stopped roughly at the Elbe/Mulde rivers, not at the Rhine. Large parts of what would later become the Soviet Occupation Zone (and later East Germany) were actually liberated by the US Army (the US and UK do deserve a lot of credit for preventing the Soviet Union from occupying all of Europe after the war had ended of course).
https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year...
The war in Europe was already decided in 1943 at Stalingrad, over a year before the Western Front was even opened, and I guess the populace of Nazi-occupied Europe was very well aware of that.
A (not so minor) correction: The Red Army stopped roughly at the Elbe/Mulde rivers, not at the Rhine. Large parts of what would later become the Soviet Occupation Zone (and later East Germany) were actually liberated by the US Army (the US and UK do deserve a lot of credit for preventing the Soviet Union from occupying all of Europe after the war had ended of course).