Mass suicides in Nazi Germany

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The Deputy Mayor of Leipzig and his wife and daughter, who committed suicide in the Neues Rathaus as American troops were entering the city on 20 April 1945.

During the final weeks of the Third Reich and the war in Europe, many civilians, government officials and military personnel throughout Germany committed suicide. In addition to high-ranking Nazi officials like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Philipp Bouhler and Martin Bormann, many others chose Selbstmord (German for "suicide", literally "Self-murder") rather than accept the defeat of Germany.[1] Motivating factors included fear of reprisals and atrocities by the Allies and especially the Red Army, Nazi propaganda that glorified suicide as preferable to defeat, and despondence after the suicide of Adolf Hitler. For example, in April 1945, at least 1,000 Germans killed themselves and others within 72 hours as the Red Army neared the East German town of Demmin.[2] In Berlin alone more than 7,000 suicides were reported in 1945; most of them were women.

Three distinct periods of suicides have been identified between January and May 1945 when thousands of German people took their own lives. Life Magazine reported that: "In the last days of the war the overwhelming realization of utter defeat was too much for many Germans. Stripped of the bayonets and bombast which had given them power, they could not face a reckoning with either their conquerors or their consciences."[1] German psychiatrist Erich Menninger-Lerchenthal [de] noted the existence of "organised mass suicide on a large scale which had previously not occurred in the history of Europe [...] there are suicides which do not have anything to do with mental illness or some moral and intellectual deviance, but predominantly with the continuity of a heavy political defeat and the fear of being held responsible".[3]

Overview

Reasons

There were several reasons some Germans decided to end their lives in the last months of the war. First, by 1945, Nazi propaganda had created fear among some sections of the population about the impending military invasion of their country by the Soviets or Western Allies. Information films from the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda repeatedly chided audiences about why Germany must not surrender, telling the people they faced the threat of torture, rape, and death in defeat. These fears were not groundless, as many Germans were raped, mostly by Soviet soldiers, although many by Western Allied soldiers also. The number of rapes is disputed, but was certainly considerable – hundreds of thousands of incidents, according to most Western historians.

Secondly, many Nazis had been indoctrinated in unquestioning loyalty to the party and with it its cultural ideology of preferring death over living in defeat. Finally, others killed themselves because they knew what would happen to them following defeat. The Soviets, Americans and the British had made it clear in 1943, with the Moscow Declaration, that all those considered war criminals would face judgment. Many party officials and military personnel were, therefore, aware they would face severe punishment for their conduct during the war.

Suicides happened in three successive waves:

  • The first phase began in early January 1945, when Soviet forces drove Germany back to its territories in East Prussia and Silesia.
  • The second phase occurred in April and May when numerous Nazi Party officials and senior military personnel committed suicide. Suicide levels reached their maximum in Berlin in April 1945 when 3,881 people killed themselves during the Battle of Berlin. It was in this phase that Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels took their lives, along with their respective wives. Magda Goebbels also killed her children (by giving them crushed cyanide tablets) at the same time.
  • The final phase occurred after the takeover of Germany by the Allies, primarily in the territories occupied by the Red Army.

The scale of the suicide waves suggests that fear and anxiety were common motivations.[4] There were also a large number of family suicides or murder-suicides where mothers and fathers killed themselves and their children.[5]

Methods

The body of Volkssturm Bataillonsführer Walter Dönicke lies next to a torn portrait of Hitler. Dönicke committed suicide in the city hall, Leipzig, Germany shortly before the arrival of allied troops on 19 April 1945.

Cyanide capsules were one of the most common ways that people killed themselves in the last days of the war. On 12 April 1945, members of the Hitler Youth distributed cyanide pills to audience members during the last concert of the Berlin Philharmonic.[6] Prior to his own suicide in the Führerbunker, Hitler ensured all his staff had been given poison capsules.

In March 1945, the British printed a German-language black propaganda postcard, supposedly issued by the Nazi government, giving detailed instructions on how to hang oneself with the minimum amount of pain.[7] There are numerous documented cases where parents killed their children before they killed themselves.[2]

Members of the German armed forces often used weapons to end their lives. For example, SS-Obergruppenführer Ernst-Robert Grawitz killed himself and his family with a grenade, Wehrmacht generals Wilhelm Burgdorf and Hans Krebs shot themselves in the head with their pistols, and Josef Terboven, the Reichskommissar for Norway, blew himself up in a bunker by detonating 50 kg (110 lb) of dynamite.

Number of suicides and locations

More than 7,000 suicides were reported in Berlin in 1945, but it is thought that many suicides went unreported due to the chaos of the post-war period.[8] Other locations where suicides happened include:

Notable suicides

Main article: List of suicides in Nazi Germany
Himmler's corpse after his suicide by poison in Allied custody, 1945

Many prominent Nazis, Nazi followers, and members of the armed forces committed suicide during the last days of the war. Others killed themselves after being captured. The list includes 8 out of 41 NSDAP regional leaders who held office between 1926 and 1945, 7 out of 47 higher SS and police leaders, 53 out of 554 Army generals, 14 out of 98 Luftwaffe generals, 11 out of 53 admirals in the Kriegsmarine, and an unknown number of junior officials.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b "Suicides: Nazis go down to defeat in a wave of selbstmord". Life Magazine. 14 May 1945. Retrieved 10 April 2011.
  2. ^ a b "In one German town, 1,000 people killed themselves in 72 hours". www.Timeline.com. Retrieved 9 October 2016.
  3. ^ Goeschel page 165
  4. ^ Goeschel page 164
  5. ^ Goeschel page 163
  6. ^ Sereny, Gitta (1996). Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth. Pan Macmillan. p. 507. ISBN 9780330346979.
  7. ^ H.1321, Hanging Instructions postcard.
  8. ^ Goeschel p. 160
  9. ^ (in German) Lakotta, Beate (5 March 2005). "Tief vergraben, nicht dran rühren" SPON. Retrieved 16 August 2010
  10. ^ Goeschel page 153

Sources

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