Treuenbrietzen massacre

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The Treuenbrietzen massacres were war crimes in which 127 Italian military internees were shot dead by units of the Wehrmacht near Treuenbrietzen on April 23, 1945, and a little later, according to a report by the Brandenburg state government, between 30 and 166 German civilians were shot by units of the Red Army .

Massacre of 127 Italian military internees in the village of Nichel

Italian burial place of the victims of the massacre in Treuenbrietzen on the Waldfriedhof-Zehlendorf

On April 21, 1945, the 51st Guards Armored Regiment, belonging to the 1st Ukrainian Front , occupied the city. On the night of April 23rd, soldiers of the 12th Army of the Wehrmacht , reinforced by members of the Reich Labor Service and Hitler Youth from the Gauschwarm Berlin, recaptured large parts of Treuenbrietzen. In particular, the Wenck Army was demonstrably deployed in Treuenbrietzen and the surrounding area in the last weeks of April 1945. On April 23, 1945, members of the Wehrmacht or the Waffen-SS drove 131 Italian military internees, who had been forced laborers in a munitions factory in Treuenbrietzen for two years , into a wooded area near the village of Nichel, which is near Treuenbrietzen. All but four survivors were shot in a gravel pit. The victims lie on the Italian war cemetery at the forest cemetery in Zehlendorf ( Berlin ).

German civilians shot in Treuenbrietzen

During the first occupation of the city on April 21, a senior Soviet officer was killed. According to contemporary witness reports, white flags were hoisted at the town hall shortly before the arrival of the Red Army. The Germans had surrendered. There are different versions of the circumstances of the shooting of Lieutenant Colonel Fedor Tschartschinski: According to the local historian Helmut Päpke, a German SS man shot at the Red Army staff and killed the officer when the troops marched in. The local historian Wolfgang Ucksche, on the other hand, reports that there was a fatal argument in the Soviet headquarters during a victory celebration on the same day (according to other sources on April 22nd) . The city commander, Lieutenant Colonel Fedor Sharchinsky, was shot dead. There is insufficient evidence for both versions. However, the historical sources indicate the accuracy of the first version.

What is certain is that on the afternoon of April 23, 1945, the Red Army regained control of the city. A little later, the Soviet soldiers asked the residents of Treuenbrietz to evacuate the city. The civilians were being taken out of the city in a northeastern direction. According to contemporary witness reports, the men were separated from the women and children at the edge of the forest. The men were taken into the forest and shot. It has not been conclusively proven whether the shooting was a spontaneous killing of excess or a deliberate punitive action. The sources indicate that it may have been the execution of a military order.

There is widespread disagreement among local historians about the number of victims. Estimates, according to which the number of victims could have been up to 1000 residents of the city, must be rejected as dubious according to the current status. These figures include German soldiers killed in combat, civilian war victims and suicides. In the report by the Brandenburg state government, Andreas Weigelt assumes the number of victims is between 30 and 166 German civilians.

Law enforcement and prosecution investigations

Just a few days after the murders of the Italians, Red Army officers questioned survivors and villagers with no results. In 1965, the Public Prosecutor General of the GDR turned to the Cologne Public Prosecutor's Office with a request for assistance and initiated nationwide investigations. Because the proceedings in Cologne were closed in 1974, the investigations into the Treuenbrietzen case were also closed. The massacre of the Italian military internees remained unknown to the public for a long time. This changed when the Italian judiciary in Ancona began its own investigations based on the testimony of a survivor in 2002 and asked for administrative assistance in Germany. This procedure was then continued in Ludwigsburg .

Since autumn 2008, the Potsdam public prosecutor's office has been investigating unknown members of the Red Army for "murder to the detriment of German civilians in a large number of cases" due to the massacre in Treuenbrietzen. In mid-November, the Potsdam officials asked the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation for legal assistance. The Potsdam Public Prosecutor's Office took action following a complaint from the Forum for Enlightenment and Renewal , which is primarily concerned with clearing up what happened during the GDR dictatorship. However, because German courts do not have jurisdiction over war crimes committed by the Allied forces, there is a procedural obstacle , so the proceedings were closed in 2009.

Commemoration

Soviet honor grove

The memorial for the victims of both massacres can be found in the Trift cemetery on Jüterboger Straße. It consists of a number of war graves, a pavilion and the stele with the names of the dead as well as a memorial stone for a fallen doctor from Treuenbrietzen. The war cemetery houses 337 dead in six mass graves , in which the dead lie in twelve rows one above the other, including, according to official information, 209 German soldiers, 125 civilian residents of Treuenbrietzen and three foreign slave laborers. The memorial stone reads: “MEMORIAL OF THE DEAD”. Regina Scheer researched this on behalf of the Brandenburg State Center for Political Education and the Ministry for Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg: “It was said that the victims of the retaliatory action are buried here. On closer inspection of the cemetery documents, however, it turned out that there are also Polish forced laborers and children who had died before this reprisal. ”In the GDR they were reported as victims of a bomb attack, which has been proven to have taken place three days earlier. Until the political change in 1989/90, nobody was allowed to speak about this event.

In 2005, on the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, the city announced a redesign of the honor grove , which housed a large Soviet military cemetery in GDR times. April 23, 1945 has been officially celebrated in Treuenbrietzen since 1995 as the day of remembrance for the victims of both massacres. In the meantime, Italians and Russians from the embassies are also coming to this commemoration.

See also

Web links

Commons : Triftfriedhof Treuenbrietzen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Petra Görlich: The dead of Treuenbrietzen . In: Department for press and public relations of the University of Potsdam (Ed.): Portal - The Potsdam University Magazine . No. 04/2010 , p. 41 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Michael Sontheimer: Late efforts . In: Der Spiegel . No. 1 , 2009, p. 31 ( online - December 29, 2008 ).
  3. ↑ a b c d Heike Kleffner : Ludwigsburg's last murder puzzles. In: the daily newspaper . May 17, 2005, accessed March 25, 2014 .
  4. ↑ a b c Regina Scheer: Dealing with the monuments. A research in Brandenburg . Ed .: Brandenburg State Center for Political Education / Ministry for Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg. 2003, p. 89 f . ( online [PDF]). online ( Memento of the original dated December 2, 2007 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.politische-bildung-brandenburg.de
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Michael Mielke: Massacre in Treuenbrietzen: the taboo is broken. In: The world . November 29, 2008, accessed March 26, 2014 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f Thomas Wachs: Public prosecutor's office is hoping for information from Russian archives on the shooting of hundreds of civilians in Treuenbrietzen in April 1945. In: Märkische Allgemeine . November 27, 2008, archived from the original on February 11, 2013 ; accessed on March 27, 2014 .
  7. ↑ a b c Susanne Lenz: The obelisk wobbles. In: Berliner Zeitung . May 8, 1998, accessed March 25, 2014 .
  8. ↑ a b c d Katrin Bischoff: The Treuenbrietzen massacre. In: Berliner Zeitung . November 25, 2008, accessed March 26, 2014 .
  9. ↑ a b Katalin Ambrus, Nina Mair, Matthias Neumann: In the Märkischen Sand - Nella sabbia del Brandeburgo. Out of Focus Filmproduktion, accessed November 1, 2016 .
  10. ↑ a b Peter Gärtner: Riddle about two massacres. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung . January 2, 2009, accessed March 26, 2014 .
  11. ↑ The massacre of the Soviets goes unpunished. In: Der Tagesspiegel . October 31, 2009, accessed March 27, 2014 .
  12. ^ Claus-Dieter Steyer: City without men. In: Der Tagesspiegel . June 21, 2006, accessed March 26, 2014 .
  13. ^ Ceremony 'Three Nations Shake Hands Over the Graves'. Ministry of the Interior, April 24, 2005, accessed March 27, 2014 .