THE TERRIBLE STORY OF THE GERMAN SOLDIERS WHO HUNG HIMSELF AT THE END OF THE WAR

 German soldier who hung himself at the end of the war

Ray Cunneen’s unit came across this German soldier in the woods. He had evidently hung himself when Germany surrendered, 1945

During the final weeks of Nazi Germany and World War II in Europe, many civilians, government officials, and military personnel throughout Germany and German-occupied Europe committed suicide. 

In addition to high-ranking Nazi officials like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Philipp Bouhler, and Martin Bormann, many others chose suicide 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 glorifying suicide as preferable to defeat, and despondency after the suicide of Adolf Hitler.

 For example, in May 1945, up to 1,000 people killed themselves before and after the entry of the Red Army into the German town of Demmin. In Berlin alone more than 7,000 suicides were reported in 1945.

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." 

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".

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