A wave of mass suicides swept Nazi Germany at the close of WW2. Here, the Deputy Mayor of Leipzig and his wife and daughter, committed suicide in the Neues Rathaus as American troops were entering the city on 20 April 1945.

18 comments

  1. [Context](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_suicides_in_1945_Nazi_Germany)

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    During the final weeks of Nazi Germany and the war in Europe, many civilians, government officials and military personnel throughout Germany committed suicide. In addition to high-ranking Nazi officials like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Philipp Bouhler and Martin Bormann, many others chose Selbstmord (German for “suicide”, literally “Self-murder”) rather than accept the defeat of Germany. Motivating factors included fear of reprisals and atrocities by the Allies and especially the Red Army, Nazi propaganda that glorified suicide as preferable to defeat, and despondence after the suicide of Adolf Hitler. For example, in May 1945, up to 1,000 people killed themselves before and after the entry of Red Army into the German town of Demmin which resulted in a wave of rapes, pillage, and executions committed by Red Army soldiers. 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”.

  7. Towards the end of the war the nazis did a lot of propaganda saying that, should anyone fall into the hands of the soviets they will get tortured and killed. Due to the fear of that happening many people killed themselves.

  8. What really strikes me about this picture, even more so than an entire family committing suicide, is where they each are.

    I mean, wouldn’t you want to spend your last fw minutes holding on to your loved ones, instead of sitting across the room from each other? Depressing.

  9. During the final months of WW2 nazi propaganda was constantly repeating that in the case of Germany’s defeat, a whole German nation was going to be annihilated.

    Many, many ordinary Germans believed this announcements as faithfully as they believed other Nazi slogans.

  10. Is not it strange that they’re all separated from one another? Nazis or not, I’d think that a family in a death pact would be found holding one another.

    No, I’m not suggestng a conspriacy; I just found the photo to be strange.

  16. The nazi and suicide obsessed weirdo back at it again posting weird things to r/europe

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