Nazi Death Marches: Book Details German Citizens’ Role in End of War Killings
More than 250,000 concentration camp prisoners died in death marches shortly before the end of World War II. Many of them were murdered by German civilians. A new book tries to answer the question why.
The end was in sight, with Allied troops already on the outskirts of the city. Nevertheless, a number of citizens of Celle in north-central Germany became murderers on April 8, 1945.
They participated in the hunt for hundreds of concentration camp prisoners who, during an American bombing attack on the city and its train station, had fled from the freight cars, some of them in flames, in which they were being transported. Local police officers, guards and members of the Volkssturm national militia and the Hitler Youth executed their victims in a nearby forest.
The prisoners were “killed like animals,” many of them execution style, according to a British military report. Up to 300 people died in the massacre, with the leader of a Hitler Youth group in Celle killing more than 20 alone. The Allies captured the city four days later.