Mass suicide in Demmin
Nazi officials, the police, the Wehrmacht, and many citizens had left the town before the arrival of the Red Army, while thousands of refugees from the East had also taken refuge in Demmin.
The retreating Wehrmacht had blown up the bridges over the Peene and Tollense rivers, which enclosed the town to the north, west, and south, thus blocking the Red Army's advance and trapping the remaining civilians.
[2] During the last weeks of World War II, tens of thousands of Germans killed themselves, especially in territories occupied by the Red Army.
[3] The German historian Udo Grashhoff and the German author Kurt Bauer wrote that the suicides occurred in two stages: in a first wave before the Red Army's arrival, in part due to a "fear of the Russians" spread by Nazi propaganda,[4] and – as in Demmin – in a second wave after the Red Army's arrival, triggered by executions, looting, and mass rapes committed by Soviet soldiers.
[7] In late April, when the Eastern Front drew closer (Battle of Berlin), women, children, and elderly men were forced to dig a 5-kilometre (3.1 mi)-long anti-tank ditch east of the town.
[6] On 28 April, the German flight from the town began: the Nazi party functionaries left in confiscated fire engines, the hospital was evacuated, all the police departed, and a number of civilians fled.
[6][7] According to an eyewitness, Soviet negotiators approached the anti-tank ditch and promised to spare Demmin's civilian population from "harassment" and looting in the case of a surrender without fight.
[7] The remaining Wehrmacht units,[3][7] belonging to Army Group Weichsel, and some Waffen-SS,[6] retreated through Demmin,[3][7] and about half an hour after the incident,[7] blew up all bridges leading out of town behind them.
[3][7] According to eyewitnesses, some "fanatics", primarily Hitler Youth,[3] shot at the Soviet soldiers,[7] despite several white flags being hoisted on Demmin's buildings.
Memorably, a Nazi loyalist schoolteacher, having shot his wife and children, launched a grenade on Soviet soldiers using a panzerfaust, before finally hanging himself.
[9] According to the Focus magazine, an eyewitness stated that the first Soviet soldier was shot near the hospital at 11:05 AM by someone running amok, apparently the aforementioned teacher, who had before told a neighbor that he had killed his wife and his children.
[10] A third eyewitness confirmed the identity of the gunman in a report by Norddeutscher Rundfunk, while blaming him for causing the Soviet troops to retaliate by plundering and burning the town.
[10] Another incident is said to have happened on 1 May, when the local pharmacist hosted a "victory party" of Soviet officers, killing them with poisoned wine.
[12] Focus magazine however dismissed that as a "legend"[6] and theologian and historian Norbert Buske concluded in a 1995 study that the story had been fabricated.
[6] Reportedly, Soviet soldiers had doused the houses' walls with petrol, before setting them on fire, and stood guard for three days to prevent extinguishing.
[3] On 30 April, when the atrocities started in the evening, Soviet soldiers had looted both Demmin's grain distilleries and several alcohol stores.
[3] In another case, a grandfather forcibly took away a razor blade from a mother who was about to kill her children and herself after being raped by Soviet soldiers and hearing of the death of her husband.
In contrast, a 20-metre (66 ft) obelisk was erected in Demmin's burnt center to commemorate Soviet soldiers who had died in the area.
[6] As late as 1989, the chronicle of the district's Communist party blamed the destruction of the town on Werwolf and Hitler Youth activities.
[3] As Der Spiegel puts it:Arbitrary executions, the rapes, the torching of towns – the atrocities of the Red Army were a taboo in the GDR, the mass suicides as well.
The first post-war district official (Landrat) of Demmin, who was confirmed in this position by the Soviet authorities on 15 May 1945, briefly mentioned the events in an internal "activity report" of 21 November, speaking of more than 700 suicide victims.
[3] Historian Erla Vensky managed to "smuggle" a line about a "panic, in the course of which 700 people committed suicide" into the "History of the local workers' movement".
[6] After the collapse of the East German government, some of the eyewitnesses, including Demmin's current chronicler, Zimmer, "broke the silence" and made their account of the mass suicide public.
