Mass suicides in Nazi Germany

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." German psychiatrist Erich Menninger-Lerchenthal 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."

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. 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 Declarations, that all those considered war criminals would face judgment, leading to execution or life sentences. 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 murdered 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, often in response to widespread rape and looting by Soviet soldiers (cf. mass suicide in Demmin).

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

Methods

In March 1945, as part of Operation Periwig, the British printed a German-language black propaganda postcard, supposedly issued by the fictitious anti-Nazi "Red Horse" resistance movement, and giving detailed instructions on how to hang oneself with the minimum amount of pain. The professed goal of this group was the execution of high-ranking Nazi functionaries. In order to draw more attention to this goal among the German population, agents were commissioned to place this horse symbol on various buildings or objects while postcards were sent to prominent Germans containing threatening texts and showing the Red Horse symbol. When the recipients were asked to commit suicide, the hidden meaning was, that this was more honourable than being liquidated by the resistance group.

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. Prior to his own suicide in the Führerbunker, Hitler ensured all his staff had been given poison capsules.

Many German civilians would go into forests to hang themselves and their families in areas which were soon to be invaded by the Red Army, while others would use poison instead. There are also numerous documented cases where parents killed their children before they killed themselves.

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

Number of suicides and locations

More than 7,057 suicides were reported in Berlin in 1945, but it is thought that many went unreported due to the chaos of the post-war period. Other locations where suicides happened include:

• Neubrandenburg: more than 600 suicides
• Burg Stargard: 120 suicides
• Neustrelitz: 681 suicides
• Penzlin: 230 suicides
• Tessin: 107 suicides
• Vietzen and Rechlin: mass suicide by drowning in Lake Müritz
• Teterow, Güstrow, Rostock, Bad Doberan: hundreds of suicides each
• Malchin more than 500 suicides, buried in a mass grave
• Schönlanke (now Trzcianka): about 500 suicides
• Stolp (now Słupsk): about 1,000 suicides
• Lauenburg (now Lębork): about 600 suicides
• Grünberg (now Zielona Góra): about 500 suicides
• Berlin: 7,057 during 1945