1945
Mass suicide in Germany
By 1945 German civilians were well aware of the atrocities that their army had committed on the Eastern Front and the revenge that was being taken by the Soviets as they pressed toward Berlin. The media run by Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels stressed the inhuman waves of arson, rape and murder carried out by the Red Army, causing millions of refugees to flee west. Another consequence was the phenomenon of mass suicides, either in anticipation of Russian occupation, or after having suffered brutal treatment at the hands of Russian troops. One remarkable case of this took place on May 1, 1945, in Demmin, the day that Berlin was captured and the hammer and sickle flag was waved over the German chancellery.
On April 30 the Red Army reached the outskirts of Demmin, a town full of refugees from the east. Nazi officials and the police had fled and a large white banner flew from the church steeple signalled a willingness to surrender. Three emissaries from the Red Army approached with a promise of easy treatment but they were gunned down by Nazi diehards, and fanatic Hitler Youth continued to snipe at advancing Russian units. The retreating German army had dynamited the bridges as they went, leaving the townsfolk with no routes of escape and a vengeful enemy pouring in. The result was three days of ceaseless rape and looting while 80% of Demmin was burnt to the ground.
These horrors prompted panic and a rash of collective suicides. Whole families killed themselves with poison, gunshot, drowning or hanging. With the death toll placed at anywhere from 900 to 2,000 it was the largest recorded mass suicide in Germany.