End-stage crime

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As Endphaseverbrechen or crimes of the final phase are Nazi crimes referred to in the last weeks and months of World War II were committed; usually the end phase is defined as the period between January 1945 and the locally different end of the war. The term was coined in the context of the prosecution of these crimes in Germany and Austria after 1945. 410 judgments on the crime complex “crimes of the end phase” are presented in the judicial collection of judicial and Nazi crimes .

Perpetrator and victim

Typical perpetrators were members of state organs and National Socialist organizations such as Gestapo , SS and the Wehrmacht , according to Blatman's comprehensive study, often civilians from the Hitler Youth , Volkssturm , security guards of any origin and also unorganized citizens. Typical victims were civilians and soldiers who were accused of devastating military strength or desertion , concentration camp prisoners on death marches as well as forced laborers and prisoners of war from other countries.

Ferdinand Schörner , appointed by Hitler in his political will on April 30, 1945 as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, was known as the "bloody Ferdinand"; He was and is considered to be "the most brutal of Hitler's field marshals". He regularly tore off medals and insignia from retreating officers and sentenced scattered soldiers to death. He sent many soldiers and Volkssturm men on so-called suicide mission . In March 1945, Schörner wanted to have General Hanns von Rohr executed because he refused to shoot soldiers who had fled Soviet tanks. The OKH mitigated the death sentence to demotion and probation.

Legal processing

The Control Council Act No. 4 of October 20, 1945 on the restructuring of the German judiciary enabled German courts to prosecute crimes of the Nazi era , but only to a limited extent. Crimes against nationals of the Allies were initially not allowed to be prosecuted; the Allied military authorities still reserved this area for themselves. Their main trials, the Nuremberg Trial and its follow-up trials, which were conducted against the high-ranking perpetrators, began around the same time. With this Control Council Act, the jurisdiction of German courts and public prosecutors was initially limited primarily to crimes against Germans or Austrians. Due to the temporal proximity, which favored the evidence, many crimes of the last weeks of the war, the so-called end-phase crimes, came to court in the first few years. As a rule, those who committed the crimes were charged first. Proceedings against desk criminals were brought in large numbers in later years.

Many West German courts pointed out that the final phase crimes took place in a “general doom and end time mood”, a “final battle and mass psychosis ”, a mood of terror and the collapse of the state order and assessed this as a debt relief and punishment mitigating. The Act of Impunity of 1954 provided for a partial amnesty for crimes which "under the influence of the extraordinary circumstances between October 1, 1944 and July 31, 1945 in the acceptance of an official, service or legal obligation, in particular on the basis of an order" had been committed. Proceedings in which prison sentences of less than three years could be expected have been discontinued. The exemption from punishment or the discontinuation of proceedings according to § 6 concerned 77 cases in the first year, including 44 for manslaughter or manslaughter in less serious cases.

The text of the law took up the motif “on the basis of an order” and spurred the controversy about the so-called emergency order . The historian Norbert Frei sees the amnesty as a “political and social delegitimation of efforts to prosecute”, which resulted in a “dramatic decrease in the number of new investigations initiated” against Nazi perpetrators.

The crime

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In January 1945 the Gestapo commandos and SS leaderships were instructed by the Gestapo headquarters on the instructions of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler and Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller of the Berlin Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) to prevent "subversive" activities by German leftists and foreign workers. "Those concerned are to be destroyed", it said in the orders.

The following actions were carried out:

This corresponded to the post-war and survival concept of National Socialism . The commanders , commanders and subordinates should leave only scorched earth to the enemy armies (scorched earth policy ). In addition, no Democrats , Communists , Social Democrats , "unruly" pastors and other dissidents should be left. The tracks of the NS - crimes (such as the gas chambers in Auschwitz , the concentration camp in the kingdom) should be blurred.

Gestapo boss Heinrich Müller : "We will not make the same mistake that was committed in 1918; we will not let our internal German enemies live. "

The first trial

The first Nazi trial for an end-stage crime in what would later become the Federal Republic of Germany began on September 6, 1945 before the Giessen Regional Court . Five men were accused of murdering a 64-year-old postal worker on April 10, 1945 by shooting in the neck for seeking contact with advancing American troops. The defendants were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.

Examples

Examples of end-of-war crimes in Germany, Austria and Croatia are (alphabetically by location):

Aachen

March 25, 1945: Franz Oppenhoff , appointed Lord Mayor by the Americans after the US Army took Aachen , was murdered by a command (SS men and air force ) in front of his house on the orders of Heinrich Himmler . The command had crossed the front line with a captured US aircraft.

Altötting

In Altötting , Adam Wehnert, Josef Bruckmayer, Hans Riehl, Monsignore Adalbert Vogl and Martin Seidel were shot dead by an SS command on April 28, 1945 , while District Administrator Josef Kehrer and Mayor Karl Lex committed suicide according to official reports. Following an appeal by the Bavarian Freedom Campaign, they tried to free their hometown from Nazi rule in order to prevent destruction by the approaching US troops. On May 1, 1945, the electrician Max Storfinger was finally shot.

Apolda

In April 1945, six deserters from the Wehrmacht who had deserted were shot on the Bismarck-Höhe sports field. In memory of the three young soldiers known by name, Gerd Funke, Anton Müller and Gerhard Volk , three stumbling blocks were laid on August 18, 2009 not far from the crime scene .

Aschaffenburg

March 28, 1945: Friedel Heymann was publicly executed as an alleged deserter.

Aschendorfer Moor, Emslandlager, Leer / East Friesland

Private Willi Herold , called “the executioner of the Emsland”, was separated from his unit and “promoted” himself to captain. With a group of scattered soldiers who had joined him, he took over the Emsland camp on April 11, 1945 under the pretense of corresponding authorizations . Herold and his accomplices killed a total of 125 camp inmates and civilians.

Berlin

Blankenhain

When American troops approached the place on April 8, 1945, Mayor Konrad Fuß tried to hoist a white flag, and he was shot.

Bremen

Spring 1945: 15 deportees from the village of Meensel-Kiezegem / Belgium perished in the Neuengamme concentration camp / Bremen-Blumenthal subcamp . On August 1 and August 11, 1944, the village was attacked by the SS and Belgian fascists, and many villagers were deported, including 22 to Blumenthal for forced labor in the steel mill. 61 residents were deported to Neuengamme concentration camp. 15 of them died on the AG Weser . In Bremen there were evacuation lists from the SS as early as March 1944 , according to which all forced laborers (not just the subcamps) were to be driven to larger assembly points in order to be set off from there when the Allies approached. No prisoner should fall alive into the hands of the Allies. In the first quarter of 1945, according to a doctor's report from March 1945, 515 concentration camp prisoners perished in the seven Neuengamme field units in Bremen (starved, died of exhaustion, frozen to death, beaten to death), 249 in the Schützenhof commando alone, 55 in the Blumenthal command. 203 in the Farge concentration camp , 68 dead in the Rießpott / Osterort camp . During a transport of 100 concentration camp prisoners from this satellite camp on January 11, 1945, three prisoners arrived alive in Neuengamme. The death march of 2,500 to 3,000 prisoners began on April 9, 1945 in Farge and led via Neuengamme to the Bay of Lübeck , where the survivors and other victims of the “ evacuation marches ” were loaded onto Cap Arcona , Thielbek and Athens . The ships were sunk by British bombs, most of the occupants were killed. Some of the unfit for transport were left behind in the Sandbostel prisoner of war camp with typhus and dysentery . More than 300 dead were buried in Brillit (Rotenburg district) alone .

Brettheim and Reubach

Three citizens of the village of Brettheim near Rot am See were hanged by the SS and the Wehrmacht just before the end of the war. They had taken weapons from Hitler Youth who wanted to continue fighting.

Celle

April 8, 1945: During the bombing of the Celle freight depot, a concentration camp prisoner was also transported there. The escaping survivors were persecuted and shot by SS men. Police and civilians also took part in the Celle massacre. Eyewitnesses compared the attacks on the escaping prisoners to a "hare hunt".

Chemnitz

March 27, 1945: Chemnitz Gestapo people shot seven anti-fascists who had fled from prison in the forest near Neukirchen .

German shooters

March 29, 1945: massacre by German riflemen

Dortmund

Dusseldorf

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Flensburg

Around Flensburg, at least 150 soldiers are said to have been executed in the last days of the war on the basis of armed forces court judgments. The following cases in particular became known:

Shortly before the end of the Second World War, on May 5, 1945, three sailors, Karl-Heinz Freudenthal , Günther Kaellander and Willi Albrecht , who served on the Z 5 Paul Jacobi and wanted to prevent the ship from sailing on May 3 by sabotage, were on executed at the Twedter Feld shooting range .

On May 6, 1945, Asmus Jepsen was also executed as a deserter at the Twedter Feld firing range (see special area Mürwik and Dönitz government ).

On May 9, 1945, the naval officer Rudolf Petersen was the judge of the desertion process of a military court against four young soldiers, namely against the 26-year-old sailor Fritz Wehrmann from Leipzig , the 20-year-old radio operator Alfred Gail from Kassel , the 22-year-old Corporal Martin Schilling from East Frisia and a fourth soldier. The three soldiers named here have been sentenced to death , and on May 10, 1945 speedboat escort ship Buea shot ; The court only recognized grounds for mitigation in the case of the soldier Kurt Schwalenberg, who was sentenced to three years in prison. The execution of the three soldiers took place two days after the German total surrender . This happened even though Petersen had the naval flag drawn down on the ships under his command on May 8 and, as the judge at the trial, could have exercised his right to pardon. The four young soldiers had tried - trusting the partial surrender of May 4, 1945 - to get from their accommodation in Svendborg on the island of Funen to mainland Germany on May 6 . They were picked up by a Danish auxiliary police officer and transferred to the local commandant of the German troops . Petersen was acquitted in February 1953.

The last marine soldier executed directly in the Mürwik special area was probably Johann Christian Suess . The high command of the Navy in Meierwik (in the special area Mürwik) confirmed death sentences in northern Germany and Norway until May 15, 1945, with the subsequent demand that they be carried out. Only on the day in question did the high command announce that death sentences, corporal punishment and the mere use of German weapons were prohibited on the basis of an order from the British occupying forces . After that, some members of the Wehrmacht in the Angelner hinterland still believed that they would have to continue to maintain “naval breeding” by means of shootings. From May 22nd, the shooting of Hugo Standte by members of the Navy near Grundhof is known. The formal dissolution of the naval war courts in Schleswig-Holstein finally took place on May 31, 1945.

Frankfurt am Main

Free City

  • On April 24, 1945 the so-called socialist murders were committed in Freistadt (Upper Austria). Four people from Freistadt and a Polish farm worker were secretly arrested by the Volkssturm on April 24th and murdered on the night of April 25th at the Jaunitz Bridge in the south of the city.
  • In October 1944, some residents of the resistance group New Free Austria were arrested and a total of 16 people were sentenced, 8 of them to death. On May 1, 1945, seven people from Freistadt and one from Linz were shot dead by a Volkssturm commando in Treffling .

Guards

Dead in front of the Isenschnibber barn

April 1945: Massacre in the Isenschnibber field barn near Gardelegen of 1,016 concentration camp prisoners, including at least 63 Jews. About 24 hours before the liberation by the US Army, SS guards, members of the Wehrmacht , the Reich Labor Service , the Volkssturm and other Nazi organizations crammed the prisoners from the Mittelbau-Dora and Hannover-Stöcken concentration camps into a stone barn at the end of a death march . Then the groups of perpetrators set the building on fire after the prisoners in the barn were initially able to escape the fire. Machine guns were used to fire at those who tried to escape. The perpetrators also threw hand grenades into the barn.

Göstling on the Ybbs

In the Göstling massacre, which took place on the night of April 12th to 13th, 1945, 76 Jewish slave laborers (42 women, 23 men and 11 children) were murdered in Göstling . Members of the Waffen SS and HJ set the victims' camp barracks on fire using bazookas and hand grenades .

Götting

On April 28, 1945, SS men murdered pastor Josef Grimm and teacher Georg Hangl from Götting to suppress Bavaria's freedom campaign .

Hagen

April 12, 1945: The Gestapo shot eight German and four Soviet prisoners from Hagen prisons in the Donnerkuhle near Hagen. Among the German prisoners were two "deserted" Wehrmacht members, as well as citizens from Altena, Düsseldorf, Wermelskirchen and Wuppertal.

Hagen-Rummenohl

Sterbeckerhammer, April 5, 1945: 118 forced laborers of Stalag VI A in Hemer from Montenegro / Yugoslavia were “taken away” on the orders of Gauleiter Albert Hoffmann . Destination (according to the files in the Lüdenscheid city ​​archive) "unknown". Later, 107 Yugoslavs who had only recently arrived were among the 23,000 prisoners of war liberated by US troops in mid-April 1945. If it was about the prisoners of Sterbeckerhammer, then at least eleven people murdered on Hoffmann's orders can be assumed. The sources researched by a journalist and then VVN functionary in the city archives were questioned by specialist historians with regard to their address as a final phase crime.

Hamburg

Hanover

On April 6, 1945 there were around 850 prisoners in the Hanover-Ahlem subcamp . The SS drove 600 prisoners on a death march to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . Around 250 prisoners who were unable to march remained behind. Several prisoners were shot on the march. On April 8, the surviving prisoners reached Bergen-Belsen.

On April 6, 1945, three “ death marches ” from Hanover concentration camp outposts arrived in Fuhrberg . The exhausted prisoners “slept” in several barns in Fuhrberg and were driven on to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp the next day .

Members of the Gestapo office in the former Israelite Horticultural School in Ahlem drove mostly Soviet prisoners of war and forced laborers to the Seelhorster cemetery in Hanover and killed 154 people. American troops reached Ahlem on April 10, 1945 and liberated the remaining prisoners. On May 2, 1945, “incriminated Nazis” were forced by the US Army to dig the mass grave in Seelhorst: 526 bodies were discovered. 386 were taken to the Maschsee in a funeral procession and buried on the north bank.

Hemer

10/11 April 1945: Eight prisoners were shot in Hemer by the Dortmund Gestapo, which had fled to Hemer.

Herne

At the end of March 1945: prisoners were taken to Dortmund. Her execution probably took place there in Rombergpark .

Herten

March 29, 1945: Eight Soviet forced laborers and prisoners of war were shot by the SS in the Herten forest and buried in a bomb crater. Gauleiter Albert Hoffmann is said to be responsible for this.

Hessental death march

April 5, 1945: evacuation march ( Hessental death march ) of prisoners from the Hessental and Kochendorf concentration camps .

Hildesheim

On March 26 and 27, 1945, around 30 to 50 foreign forced laborers were hanged on the Hildesheim market square, most of them Italian forced laborers. Furthermore, between April 4 and 6, 1945, shortly before the city was liberated by the US Army on April 7, 1945, all prisoners in the police substitute prison in the north cemetery were executed by the Hildesheim Gestapo. A total of 209 people were murdered in Hildesheim in the last days of the war.

Hirzenhain

March 23, 1945: 49 women were transported from the Frankfurt-Heddernheim labor education camp to the Hirzenhain branch . Five women fled during the transport. The remaining 44 were shot by the SS on March 26, 1945 along with 37 other women and six prisoners from the camp.

Ingelheim

March 18, 1945: The local commander of the Volkssturm ("Kampfkommandant"), the captain and winery owner Hermann Berndes , is executed for treason on the orders of the commander of the Mainz bridgehead; On March 17, before the arrival of the Americans, he had called on the residents to be prudent and to hand over weapons.

Iserlohn

Mid-February 1945: French forced laborers were arrested in Iserlohn , executed in Rombergpark / Bittermark .

Jasenovac

April 22, 1945: 520 people were killed during an attempt to break out of the Jasenovac concentration camp southeast of Zagreb . The rest of the approximately 1050 prisoners were murdered shortly before partisans were able to liberate and disband the camp on May 5th.

Jennersdorf

In Jennersdorf in Burgenland there were several massacres of Hungarian-Jewish forced laborers in the course of the construction of the south-east wall in the spring of 1945 . These crimes were committed by members of the 23rd Waffen Mountain Division of the SS "Kama" (Croatian No. 2) and the 5th SS Panzer Division "Wiking" .

kassel

Good Friday 1945: Twelve prisoners from the Kassel-Wehlheiden prison , among them a Wehrmacht deserter, were liquidated by the Gestapo. The day before, the Gestapo and police murdered Italian slave laborers who had been getting food from a bombed freight train at Wilhelmshöhe station.

Cologne

January 30, 1945: On this day the Gestapo from Cologne reports that they have arrested 500 people, including 220 Germans. From January to March 1945 1800 domestic and foreign resistance fighters were murdered in Cologne.

Koselitz

April 17, 1945: About 180 forced laborers from the Flossenbürg concentration camp , who were deployed in the Gröditz subcamp , were shot down and buried near the Saxon community of Koselitz .

Krems at the Donau

April 6, 1945, massacre in the Stein penal institution : the head of the Stein an der Donau penal institution , Franz Kodré , uncle of the Knight's Cross holder Heinrich Kodré , orders the prisoners to be released. The Waffen-SS, Wehrmacht, police and Volkssturm shot 229 people in the institution itself under the pretext of putting down a revolt. A real hunt for escaped prisoners begins around Krems, known as the Krems hare hunt . In Hadersdorf alone , 61 prisoners were murdered by the Waffen SS on April 7th.

Krottendorf (community Neuhaus am Klausenbach)

On March 23, 1945 in Krottendorf near Neuhaus ( Neuhaus am Klausenbach municipality ) in Burgenland, 83 sick Hungarian-Jewish forced laborers who were employed in the construction of the south-east wall were shot by members of an unknown unit of the Waffen-SS .

Langenfeld (Rhineland)

On April 13, 1945, 68 men known by name and three unknown men were executed by National Socialists without trial in a ravine of the Wenzelnberg near Langenfeld (Rhineland) . These were foreign workers and former German communists who “could see themselves motivated to engage in subversive activities”.

Leipzig

  • April 12, 1945: 53 German and foreign prisoners from two Leipzig prisons were murdered on the outskirts.
  • April 13, 1945: 32 German, French, Austrian and Czechoslovak police prisoners were murdered in a Wehrmacht barracks in Leipzig.
  • April 18, 1945: At least 80 prisoners from the Leipzig-Thekla satellite camp were shot or burned alive in the Abtnaundorf massacre .

Lippstadt

  • December 17, 1944: arrests in Lippstadt ; three days later the prisoners were brought to Herne, from there to Dortmund at the end of March 1945 for execution in Rombergpark / Bittermark.

Ludenscheid

  • February 4, 1945: Execution of at least 14 Soviet Gestapo prisoners in the Hunswinkel labor education camp near Lüdenscheid . The citizens of Lüdenscheid, Paul Anton Weber and Alex Usseler, were brought to Dortmund and murdered there in March / April 1945.
  • April 9, 1945: Execution of the three German soldiers Alex Kamp, Fritz Gass and Heini Wiegmann, who were accused of desertion, in Lüdenscheid. Their corpses were put on public display as a "deterrent". Half an hour before the US troops marched in, a paymaster of the Wehrmacht killed the hairdresser Hermann Massalsky, who was known to be an opponent of the Nazi regime, because he had asked soldiers to desert.

Luneburg

Memorial in the zoo in Lüneburg

In the days from April 7th to 11th, 1945, 256 concentration camp inmates were killed in Lüneburg . They came from a satellite concentration camp in Wilhelmshaven and were on their way to Neuengamme . Most of the prisoners were resistance fighters of the French Resistance .

Some of the prisoners died on April 7, 1945 in a bomb attack on the Lüneburg train station, crammed into cattle wagons or were shot by marines and an SS man in the following days. On April 11, 1945 alone, 60 to 80 men died in an execution. Escaped prisoners were chased and caught again by the police and some citizens of Lüneburg and were murdered a few days before the end of the war. The dead were later buried in a wooded area, where the memorial in the zoo honors the dead and keeps the story of this crime alive.

Meinerzhagen

March 29, 1945 (Maundy Thursday): arrests in Meinerzhagen ; the victims (eight members of the Meinerzhagener anti-fascist resistance group , workers at the Otto Fuchs company of the military economic leader Hans Joachim Fuchs ) were later murdered in Dortmund.

"Mühlviertel Hare Hunt"

1./2. February 1945: About 500 prisoners attempted to escape from death block 20 of the Mauthausen concentration camp. Only 150 of them managed to escape initially. All those who could not escape into the woods and 75 sick people who remained in the block were executed that same night. Most of the fugitives were caught and mostly shot or killed on the spot. Only eleven refugees survived.

Munich

April 29, 1945: Around 150 Gestapo prisoners were murdered by their guards in the Perlacher Forest .

Nammering

The mass grave on the Totenwiese near Nammering was closed by order of the Americans, the local population had to attend the exhumation or even lend a hand.

On April 7, 1945, a prisoner transport with 5009 prisoners was set in motion in the Buchenwald concentration camp under the orders of SS-Obersturmführer Hans Merbach . Due to advanced acts of war, the train had to be diverted. At the town of Nammering ( Fürstenstein municipality , Passau district) an armored locomotive fell down the embankment, the track was damaged and the transport could not continue for several days. Hunger and cruelty dominated the five days between April 18 and 23, 1945. 794 prisoners died during these days. They starved to death, were killed or shot. Without the help of the responsible pastor Johann Bergmann , who organized food donations despite threats, it would have been even more. Merbach arranged a mass grave in a nearby ravine (the Renholdinger quarry). In the night of April 27th to April 28th, the railroad transport arrived at the Dachau concentration camp .

The railway line near Nammering on which these events took place is now a cycle path. The 1945 concentration camp transport memorial commemorates what happened here.

Neuss

Beginning of May 1945: Heinrich Glasmacher , a citizen of Neuss , mate on the minesweeper " M 612 ", was shot with ten other young sailors in Sønderborg / Denmark on the instructions of the naval command. Under the leadership of Glasmacher, the sailors had prevented the ship from leaving so that the fight would not continue.

Nierstein ( grain sand crime )

March 21, 1945: On the opposite bank of the Rhine, the Kornsand, Georg Eberhardt, Cerry Eller, Johann Eller, Nikolaus Lerch, Jakob Schuch (all Nierstein) and Rudolf Gruber ( Oppenheim ) were murdered by Nazi activists who came from Nierstein advancing American troops had fled to the other side of the Rhine. Several victims were cruelly mistreated prior to the execution. The victims were shot when the American tanks rolled down the vineyards of Nierstein and Oppenheim to the Rhine.

Ohrdruf

US generals inspect a pile of bodies in the Ohrdruf camp , April 12, 1945

January 30, 1945: One thousand forced laborers were transported to Bergen-Belsen , countless died when the Ohrdruf S III external unit was evacuated from the Buchenwald concentration camp . The slave laborers had built an underground headquarters for Adolf Hitler since November 1944 . Attempts were made to remove the traces of the atrocities through targeted fires.

Oschatz

On the night of May 1, 1945, ten Polish and Ukrainian slave laborers were shot dead by a Wehrmacht unit in the village of Ganzig near Oschatz .

Palm nods in East Prussia

January 31, 1945: Several thousand female concentration camp prisoners are murdered by their guards on the Amber Coast in Palmnicken . If the first plan to bury the women alive in a tunnel failed due to local resistance, the SS chased the prisoners onto the brittle Baltic Sea ice at the end of January 1945 and shot them there. Very few (approx. 15) survivors, no atonement for the perpetrators. The crime became public knowledge after 1994, contemporary witnesses had remained silent until then.

Penzberg

Honorary graves of the victims of the Penzberg murder night

End of April 1945: In view of the impending devastation of the Upper Bavarian mining town of Penzberg , anti-fascists forcibly took over administration in connection with the “ Bavarian Freedom Campaign ” in order to surrender the town without a fight. Wehrmacht, SS and "werewolves" took action against the anti-fascists and murdered 16 citizens. The crime became known as the Penzberger Murder Night .

Plettenberg

Beginning of March 1945: Two workers from Plettenberg were arrested, brought to Dortmund and executed there.

Ratingen

April 6, 1945: Eleven people were shot dead by Düsseldorf Gestapo officers in the Kalkumer Forest near Ratingen . As far as is known, the victims, ten men and one woman, came from the Soviet Union and the Netherlands. Six victims are known by name. They were forced laborers. Detective Inspector Dr. Victor Harnischfeger was the head of the execution. Harnischfeger was initially acquitted by the British Military Court in Hamburg in 1947, sentenced to death in 1948 for other murders, pardoned for life and given amnesty in 1952; later he became chief detective in a major German city.

Rechnitz

24./25. March 1945: In the Rechnitz massacre in Burgenland , Austria , around 180 Hungarian-Jewish forced laborers were murdered near the so-called Kreuzstadl .

regensburg

On April 22, 1945 Gauleiter (Gau Bayreuth) and Reich Defense Commissioner Ludwig Ruckdeschel demanded the defense of the city down to the last stone in a fanatical speech or radio address in the Velodrom . Regensburg was declared a "fortress" in 1944 . When American troops approached, cathedral preacher Johann Maier wanted to spare the city and the residents a hopeless fight with many dead. Therefore, at a rally on April 23, 1945, he requested that Regensburg be handed over to the Americans without a fight . Maier was arrested immediately and sentenced to death by hanging on the same evening in a sham trial, known as a court martial , for allegedly degrading military strength . The following day he was publicly hanged together with the Regensburg citizen Josef Zirkl and the retired gendarmerie officer Michael Lottner on Moltkeplatz (today Dachauplatz ) ; around his neck he wore a cardboard sign that read "I am a saboteur ". A memorial was erected at the execution site on Dachauplatz and Maier's remains were transferred to Regensburg Cathedral in 2005. On the night of April 26, the combat commander of the Wehrmacht units and the NSDAP district leader Wolfgang Weigert left Regensburg for the south. On April 27th, Major Othmar Matzke, in consultation with Lord Mayor Otto Schottenheim , initiated the handover of the city of Regensburg to the 3rd US Army without a fight .

Reichersberg

On May 2, 1945 two Volkssturm men in Reichersberg shot the Augustinian canon Rupert Haginger (* 1898) from Mehrnbach and the monastery manager Theresia Lauß (* 1893) from Vordernebelberg . A white flag was waving at the house of the Lauß sisters (Reichersberg No. 100, not far from the monastery ) . In the act, the Volkssturm men invoked the motto of Gauleiter Eigruber : "If you capitulate cowardly, you will be shot dead."

Rinteln

April 5, 1945: Friedrich-Wilhelm Ande , who, during the fighting for Rinteln, campaigned for the city's German combat commandant for the release of two arrested American parliamentarians who had been sent to Rinteln by the 5th Armored Division of the US Army for handover negotiations Arrested by higher NS party functionaries and SS officers present for “cowardice in front of the enemy” and later found shot in Garbsen near Hanover .

Römhild

When Arbeitserziehungslager Römhild the were just before the war ended 25-92 march incompetent inmates in a sand cave on the eastern slope Great Gleichenberg shot. Then the cave entrance was blown up. The mass grave was found at the end of January 1947.

Sandbostel

In the last weeks of the war up to April 1945: 3,000 inmates of the Neuengamme concentration camp were brought to the prisoner and reception camp Sandbostel , northeast of Bremen , and were killed there.

Scheibbs (district in Lower Austria)

In the Scheibbs district in the Mostviertel in Lower Austria, end-stage crimes took place in several locations. On April 13, 1945, 76 Jewish slave laborers were murdered by members of the SS in Göstling an der Ybbs . On April 15, 1945, 100 Jewish forced laborers were murdered in Randegg by members of the SS and the Hitler Youth. On April 19, 1945, 16 Hungarian-Jewish slave laborers were murdered by the Waffen SS in a moat in Gresten .

Schwerin

On May 2, 1945 , one hour before the US troops marched in , Marianne Grunthal was hanged by SS men on the station forecourt in Schwerin . She had been positive about Hitler's death and the approaching peace.

Schwetig

January 31, 1945: The prisoners of the Gestapo labor education camp Oderblick were deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and sent on a transport, that is, a death march . About 70 sick inmates were locked in the sick barrack and burned. Then all the other barracks were burned down.

Siegen-Wittgenstein

  • On April 3, 1945, Ignatz Bruck was arrested, mistreated and publicly shot by members of the Volkssturm for hoisting a white flag in Klafeld , after the perpetrators had initially unsuccessfully tried to hang him.
  • In April 1945, three forced laborers who allegedly tried to overflow to the approaching US troops were shot in the neck in Eiserfeld . Further killings of forced labor in the final phase are reported from Aue, the Berleburg area, from Erndtebrück, Feudingen, Netphen, Niederschelden, Siegen, Steinbach, Weidenau, Womelsdorf. The perpetrators were members of the Gestapo, the SS and the Wehrmacht.

Sonnenburg

Soviet soldiers between murdered prisoners, Sonnenburg prison, 1945

January 31, 1945: More than 810 prisoners from the Sonnenburg prison were murdered.

Sprockhövel

Two days before the Americans marched into a quarry in the Hilgenpütt forest area on the city limits of Wuppertal , two previously unknown deserted German soldiers were shot by the military police and left lying there.

St. Oswald in Freiland

On April 1, 1945, five captured partisans were shot on the grounds of the labor service camp in St. Oswald at the behest of the district leader of Deutschlandsberg , Hugo Suette , after an interrogation; one of them had previously been left helpless despite serious injuries. The act was dealt with in the Graz partisan murder trial.

St. Polten

On April 13, 1945, almost two days before the Red Army marched in, 13 members of the Kirchl-Trauttmansdorff resistance group were sentenced to death without a fair trial and shot on the same day.

Strem

During the construction of the southeast wall in the Strem sub-section in southern Burgenland, Hungarian-Jewish forced laborers who were unable to work were murdered. In the neighboring community of Heiligenbrunn , relatives of the guards murdered other forced laborers at the end of March 1945 during the evacuation marches due to the approach of the Red Army. In 1948, some of the perpetrators were sentenced to long prison terms by the Graz People's Court .

Stukenbrock

March 31, 1945 (Easter Monday): Stalag 326 Stukenbrock was evacuated by the Germans. Before that, parts of the camp staff were relocated to the east.

Treuenbrietzen

April 23, 1945: 131 Italian military internees who had to work as forced labor in an ammunition factory in Treuenbrietzen were driven into a nearby forest by members of the Wehrmacht, where all but four survivors were shot.

Warstein, Langenbachtal, Eversberg (Arnsberg Forest)

20.-22. March 1945: 57 foreign forced laborers from the Warstein camp were shot on March 20 on the orders of SS General Hans Kammler . The next day, 71 workers were taken from the Sauerlandhalle camp and shot. On March 22nd, 80 foreigners were picked up from the same camp and murdered near Eversberg . The Sauerlandhalle was then set on fire by the SS. However, French workers managed to free thousands of trapped Russians from the hall. After a trip to Berlin, Kammler had announced: “The foreign labor problem was threatening the very existence of the German population. We must retaliate now. We have to decimate the number of foreign workers. "

frond

Spring 1945: Ten men from the Dutch Putten come at central warehouse fronds of the Neuengamme concentration camp killed. On October 2, 1944, the SS and Wehrmacht carried out a "retaliation" in Putten: 661 men were kidnapped from the previously destroyed village near Amersfoort , only 49 survived the deportation, all others were murdered in Germany, including many in Neuengamme concentration camp.

Weimar

April 5, 1945: Gestapo officers killed 149 inmates of the police prison in Weimar . Under the command of the Oberregierungsrat and SS-Obersturmbannführer Hans-Helmut Wolff , the Gestapo operated the "scheduled" closure of the Weimar office. Detective Inspector and SS-Obersturmführer Felix Ritter, together with ten other officers, executed the prisoners, including seven women, and buried them makeshiftly in bomb craters. Then the Weimar Gestapo went on an "orderly retreat" to Bohemia. On the way they shot another 13 people, military and civilians, forced laborers and prisoners who had fled. When the dead were exhumed in July 1945, 43 people could still be identified by name. The victims were cremated in July 1945 and buried in August 1946 in a grave field at the main cemetery in Weimar. The memorial stone was inaugurated in Webicht on August 3, 1963 , and was later moved to Tiefurter Allee near the Tiefurt entrance sign.

April 5, 1945: One day after Gotha's surrender, Josef Ritter von Gadolla was sentenced to death in the Weimar Mackensen barracks for "abandoning the Gotha fixed place" and shot dead. His last words have been handed down: “So that Gotha can live, I have to die!” With the death sentence, Gadolla became a victim of the Nazi military justice . The judgment was overturned in 1997 and he was thus rehabilitated.

Wenzelnberg Gorge in Langenfeld

April 13, 1945: 71 prisoners, three days before the arrival of the Allies on the orders of obergruppenführer Gutenberger Karl and Field Marshal Walter Model , supported by the Wuppertal Gestapo chief Josef Hufenstruhl in which Wenzelberg canyon in the mountains of sand in about Langenfeld (Rheinland) belonging Wiescheid to killed on the city limits of Solingen . The perpetrators: A command from Solingen and Wuppertal Gestapo people and criminal investigators. 60 murdered came from the Remscheid-Lüttringhausen prison . (Director Dr. Karl Engelhardt tried, contrary to the instructions, to name as few people as possible. On his own initiative, instead of political prisoners, he selected the majority of serious non-political criminals and presented them to the Gestapo as political prisoners, four from the Wuppertal prison -Bendahl , four slave laborers from the Ronsdorf police prison , three were unknown.)

Vienna

  • On April 5, 1945, the two chemists Kurt Horeischy and Hans Vollmar were shot while trying to prevent the destruction of an electron microscope ordered by Professor Jörn Lange .
  • On April 12, 1945, a few hours before the arrival of the Red Army, nine Jews were tracked down and shot by SS members in a cellar on Förstergasse in Vienna- Leopoldstadt .

Wuppertal

In late February / early March 1945: On the Grafenberg in Burgholz Forest in a clearing near the shooting range of the Wuppertal police Wuppertal Criminal six women and 24 men were from the under aid Gestapo shot . They were forced laborers from the Soviet Union . The names of those shot remained unknown, with the exception of Helena Matrosova , a Ukrainian teacher.

Image documents

The documentary film by Andrea Mocellin (director and film maker) and Thomas Muggenthaler (film maker): Death Train in Freedom (2017) shows contemporary recordings of such a train shortly before the end of the war in Europe.

The SS's train transport from the Leitmeritz subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp was to lead through the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, occupied Czechoslovakia , to the Mauthausen concentration camp at the end of April / beginning of May 1945 . The guards were members of the SS and the Wehrmacht. The SS failed to do this shortly before the total surrender. Most of the approximately 4,000 concentration camp prisoners who were initially deported in open freight cars without food survived.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sven Keller: Volksgemeinschaft at the end. Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-486-72570-4 , p. 5 f.
  2. ↑ Mark Mazower : Military violence and National Socialist values ​​- The Wehrmacht in Greece 1941 to 1944. In: Hannes Heer, Klaus Naumann (ed.): War of extermination. Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 to 1944. Hamburg 1995, p. 172.
  3. ↑ Control Council Act No. 4
  4. ^ Justice and Nazi crimes. Main areas of criminal prosecution in West Germany 1945–1997 ( Memento of the original from September 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www1.jur.uva.nl
  5. ↑ Law on the waiver of penalties and fines and the suppression of criminal and fine proceedings of July 17, 1954, Federal Law Gazette I p. 203, § 6.
  6. ↑ Norbert Frei: Politics of the Past. dtv 30720, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-423-30720-X , p. 127.
  7. ↑ Norbert Frei: Politics of the Past. dtv 30720, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-423-30720-X , p. 128.
  8. ↑ The murders between April 22 and 24, 1945 gedenkstaettenforum.de (PDF; 274 kB)
  9. ↑ Murdered deserter on www.gedenkenafeln-in-berlin.de
  10. ^ Karl Schippa in the Kreuzberg Museum
  11. ↑ Committee of the survivors and fellow prisoners of the victims in Rombergpark (ed.): Katyn im Rombergpark. o. o. o. J. (around 1951); Ulrich Sander: Murder in Rombergpark. Factual report. Grafit, Dortmund 1993; Lore Junge : Tied up with barbed wire. The Romberg Park Murders. Victim and perpetrator. Bochum 1999.
  12. ↑ State Capital Düsseldorf, District 3 (Ed.): 1933-1945. Individual fates and experiences , Volume II, Moritz Sommer, Düsseldorf 1986.
  13. ^ Association Personal Committee Justice for Victims of Nazi Military Justice. Mementos in Germany , accessed on: August 26, 2019.
  14. ^ The downfall in Flensburg in 1945. (PDF) State Center for Civic Education Schleswig-Holstein , p. 15 , archived from the original on October 20, 2016 ; accessed on January 18, 2019 (talk on January 10, 2012 by Gerhard Paul ).
  15. ↑ Gerhard Paul u. Broder Schwensen (Ed.): May '45. End of the war in Flensburg , Flensburg 2015, p. 97 ff.
  16. ↑ See Flensburger Tageblatt : aerial photo series: Fördewald: Am Grünen und im Stillen , dated: August 27, 2011, accessed on: February 25, 2014.
  17. ↑ stolpersteine-leipzig.de accessed on August 13, 2017.
  18. ^ Gerhard Paul : The shootings in the Geltinger bay. in: Society for Politics and Education Schleswig-Holstein (Hrsg.): Democratic history: Yearbook for Schleswig-Holstein. Neuer Malik-Verlag, Volume 9, Kiel 1995, ISBN 3-89029-966-0 online
  19. ↑ The memorial stone from Norgaardholz: History ( Memento of the original from April 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 3, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / norgaardholz.jimdo.com
  20. ↑ Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Ed.): May '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 109 f.
  21. ↑ Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Ed.): May '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 110.
  22. ↑ Gardelegen lexicon: Gardelegen Isenschnibbe-Feldscheune ( Memento from August 4, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  23. ↑ Heinz Arnberger, Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider (ed.): Commemoration and dunning in Lower Austria. Reminder signs of resistance, persecution, exile and liberation (=  part of: Anne Frank Shoah Library ). 2nd Edition. Mandelbaum Verlag, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-85476-367-3 .
  24. ↑ The Hagen Gestapo process 1946/1996. Essen 1996.
  25. ^ Rainer Fröbe, Claus Füllberg-Stollberg, Christoph Gutmann, Rolf Keller, Herbert Obenaus, Hans Herrmann Schröder: Concentration Camp in Hanover: Concentration Camp Work and the Armaments Industry in the Late Phase of the Second World War . Part II. Verlag August Lax, Hildesheim 1985, ISBN 3-7848-2422-6 , p. 407-647 .
  26. ↑ Death marches on "Network Memory + Future in the Hanover Region"
  27. ^ From the education and leisure center in Hanover-Mühlenberg , an annual commemorative march was later over Isernhagen , Burgwedel , Fuhrberg, Wietze and Winsen / A carried out to the Catholic Atonement Church of the Precious Blood in Bergen . The memorial march from Hanover to Bergen-Belsen took place for the first time from April 12 to 14, 1985 and ended with a memorial service on the site of the former concentration camp , see Frankfurter Rundschau of April 15, 1985 and Antifaschistische Rundschau of March 1985.
  28. ↑ Markus Roloff: Only looters had to die? The mass executions of the Hildesheim Gestapo in the final phase of the Second World War. In: Hildesheim yearbook for the city and monastery of Hildesheim. Volume 69, 1997, pp. 183-220.
  29. ↑ Networked-Recalling Hildesheim: The mass executions of the Hildesheim Gestapo .
  30. ↑ http://www.ingelheimer-geschichte.de/index.php?id=684
  31. ^ Südostwall section Südburgenland: The Jennersdorf massacre , website regiowiki.at, accessed on February 15, 2018.
  32. ↑ Stein, April 6, 1945. The judgment of the Vienna People's Court (August 1946) against those responsible for the massacre in the Stein prison - a publication by the Federal Ministry of Justice, ed. by Gerhard Jagschitz and Wolfgang Neugebauer , Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-901142-24-X .
  33. ↑ The documentary Kremser Hasenjagd by Gerhard Pazderka and Robert Streibel deals with this final phase crime; The Kremser Hasenjagd www.kremser-hasenjagd.at
  34. ↑ Südostwall section Südburgenland: The Krottendorf Massacre (Neuhaus am Klausenbach) , website regiowiki.at, accessed on February 15, 2018.
  35. ↑ Alphons Matt: One from the Dark. The liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp by the bank clerk H. Zurich in 1988; Thomas Karny: The hunt. Pictures of the Mühlviertel “rabbit hunt”. Grünbach, 1992; Walter Kohl: A mother is waiting for you too. The Langthaler family in the midst of the “Mühlviertel hare hunt”. Grünbach, 2005; Linda DeMeritt: Representations of History. The Mühlviertler Hasenjagd as Word and Image. In: Modern Austrian Literature. No. 32.4, 1999, pp. 134-145.
  36. ^ Nikolaus Saller: Concentration camp transport in 1945 from Buchenwald via Nammering to Dachau. Retrieved November 10, 2017 .
  37. ↑ Johann Osel: Inextinguishable . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . No. 252, 2017 . Munich November 3, 2017.
  38. ^ Leonberger Kreis-Zeitung ( Memento from December 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  39. ^ City archive Ratingen (ed.): People like us. Memorial for the slave laborers murdered in the Kalkum Forest. Ratingen 2000; Erika Münster-Schröer: Spring 1945: Executions in the Kalkumer Forest and elsewhere. The investigations of the British War Crimes Group in military district VI - Düsseldorf area. In: Ratinger Forum. Contributions to the city and regional history .. In: Heft. 6, 1999, pp. 145-184 ; Erik Kleine Vennekate: 1945 - air raid, murder and invasion. The last weeks of the Second World War in Ratingen. In: Romerike Berge. Journal for the Bergisches Land. Issue 2/2015, pp. 29–36 .
  40. ↑ Description of the murder , in: Gottfried Gansinger: National Socialism in the Ried im Innkreis district: Resistance and persecution 1938-1945 , Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen (Studien Verlag) 2016
  41. ↑ Ernst Gansinger: Places of Remembrance , in: Church newspaper of the Diözese Linz, edition: 2013/18 (April 30, 2013, online )
  42. ^ Gert Stoi: The Römhild labor camp 1943–1945 Documentation of a crime . Salier Verlag, Leipzig and Hildburghausen 2010, ISBN 978-3-939611-41-7 , p. 93.
  43. ^ Gert Stoi: The Römhild labor camp 1943–1945 Documentation of a crime . Salier Verlag, Leipzig / Hildburghausen 2010, ISBN 978-3-939611-41-7 , p. 101.
  44. ^ Siegerland: Hans Klappert: Shot at the bunker wall. Nadja Potemkina´s way to Siegen without return. In: Siegener Zeitung. March 12, 1994; Ulrich sacrifice man : HeimatFrende. “Foreign deployment” in Siegerland, 1939 to 1945: how it happened and what preceded it. Siegen 1991, pp. 106-110; Dieter Pfau (Ed.): End of the war in Siegen in 1945. Documentation of the exhibition 2005. Bielefeld 2005, pp. 147–158.
    Wittgenstein: Main State Archives Düsseldorf, NW 1.091–17.390 (Hugo Feige), statement by Hugo Feige, August 16, 1948; Ernst Born: War events in Aue during World War II. In: Albert Hof: Aue-Wingeshausen, on the southern edge of the Rothaargebirge. Wingeshausen 1995, p. 598 f; Heinz Strickhausen: A small town on the brink of war. 1945-1949. Bad Berleburg 1999, pp. 167 f., 346; Wilhelm Völkel: From the war in the Wittgensteiner Land. In: War and misery in the Siegerland. Siegen 1981, pp. 189-230, especially pp. 197, 206; Edgar Dietrich: When the bombs fell from the sky. Erndtebrück 1995; Heinz Strickhausen: Berleburg. A small town in the post-war period. Bad Berleburg 2002, p. 479.
  45. ↑ Stad (t) tplan Sprockhövel in National Socialism 1933–1945 , publisher: Working Group Antifaschismus Ennepe-Ruhr and Association of the Persecuted of the Nazi Regime VVN / Bund der Antifaschisten Kreisverband Ennepe-Ruhr with the cooperation of the city archive Sprockhövel. Online version (PDF; 201 kB)
  46. ↑ Martin F. Polaschek : In the name of the Republic of Austria! The People's Courts in Styria 1945 to 1955. (= publications of the Styrian Provincial Archives. Volume 23). Graz 1998, ISBN 3-901938-01-X , p. 160. (PDF; 996 kB)
  47. ↑ Christian Fleck: Koralmpartisanen - About different careers of politically motivated resistance fighters. (= Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Historical Social Science, Materials on Historical Social Science. Volume 4). Verlag Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-205-07078-X , p. 162, p. 306.
  48. ↑ South-east wall section Südburgenland "Stremer murder trials" , website regiowiki.at, accessed on 15 February 2018th
  49. ↑ Katalin Ambrus, Nina Mair, Matthias Neumann: In the Märkischen Sand - Nella sabbia del Brandeburgo. Webdocument about the Treuenbrietzen massacre. Out of Focus Filmproduktion, accessed November 5, 2017 .
  50. ^ Ulrich Herbert: Foreign workers. Politics and practice of the "deployment of foreigners" in the war economy of the Third Reich. Berlin / Bonn 1985, ISBN 3-8012-0108-2 , p. 340. Ders .: History of foreigner policy in Germany. Munich 2001, p. 181
  51. ↑ Report and picture ( Memento of the original from April 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gotha.de
  52. ^ Judges overturn NS judgment. In: The world . January 21, 1998, accessed August 19, 2014 .
  53. ↑ Dieter Nelles, Fritz Beinersdorf: The murders in the Wenzelnberg Gorge on April 13, 1945. ( Memento of the original from April 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.waterboelles.de
  54. ↑ Kurt Horeischy (1913-1945) Hans Vollmar (1915-1945). Retrieved March 28, 2020 .
  55. ↑ Christa Zöchling : Sadistic Final Chord : Final War Crimes of 1945 , profile from March 14, 2015, accessed on September 24, 2017.
  56. ^ Death train to freedom (January 23, 8:15 p.m.) , information from the participating broadcasters 3sat and BR about the film. 45 min, re-broadcast January 23, 2019.
  57. ↑ Awards: German-Czech Journalist Award 2017, German Camera Award 2018, for the screenplay the authors were nominated for the Grimme Award 2019

Remarks

  1. ↑ A branch in Poppenhausen is not mentioned by Gert Stoi: Das Arbeitslager Römhild 1943–1945 Documentation of a crime .