Suicide at the Fall of Nazi Germany

Warfare

History Hit

History

4.5 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2020

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There is almost no end to the dark secrets that emerge from the smashed ruins of 1945 Europe. Dr Florian Huber has spent years researching the fascinating story of the epidemic of suicide that spread through Germany as they faced certain defeat in 1945. Some people committed suicide after suffering atrocities at the hands of the Soviets, others because of the trauma of allied bombing and the destruction of the conflict around them. But many did so because they did not wish to live in a world without Nazism. Dr Huber has even interviewed people whose parents tried to kill them as young children. In this episode, Dan spoke to Dr Huber about this dark secret in modern German society and his book, which provoked an outpouring of stories when it was published.

Transcript

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0:00.0	There's almost no end to the dark secrets that emerged out of the ruins of a smashed 1945 Europe.
0:08.0	One of these is the disturbing story of the epidemic of suicides that spread through Germany as they faced certain defeat.
0:18.0	Now, there's a variety of reasons why people committed suicides. Some were suffering from the atrocities at the hands of the Soviets,
0:25.9	others because of the traumas of Allied bombing, and then of course there was those who just didn't
0:31.2	want to live in a world without Naziism.
0:34.0	And so in this episode of the history hit World Wars Podcast, first recorded for Dan's
0:38.6	Nosed History Hit, Dan talks with Dr Florian Huber,
0:42.0	who's undertaken some of the most fascinating research and interviewed people whose parents even tried to kill them as young children.
0:50.0	It's a dark secret history and Dr. Huber's book when it was published actually caused an outpouring of similar stories and revealed this hidden section of modern German history. Loring, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.
1:17.0	I'm very thankful for you to call me.
1:23.4	Thank you. So listen, when did the German people, German soldiers,
1:30.0	a German civilian population, seriously come to terms with the fact they might lose the war
1:36.2	and that losing might involve catastrophic foreign invasion and everything that goes along with that.
1:45.0	Well, the first glimpse of losing the war was absolutely the Battle of Stalingrad.
1:52.0	Nobody had expected that any German army could seriously lose a battle.
1:57.4	And this was the first time and it could not be denied. So that was the first time that the idea of losing the war and being occupied by the enemy came into the mind of the people.
2:10.0	And it's interesting, of course, because there was the terrible reverse around Moscow in the winter of
2:14.0	1941, but had that been, had that been covered up, had that been glossed over by the government's propaganda
2:20.7	machines?
2:21.7	It had been covered up by propaganda and people still couldn't believe
2:27.8	in losing any battle from the German side because before it had been Blitz Creek and Blitz Creek was always very
2:35.3	successful so being forced to stop in front of Moscow in winter of 1941 nobody
	...

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