The Pittsburgh Press (November 26, 1944)
Wave of suicides reported in Nazi Army and Gestapo
Many prefer that way out rather than to face what will happen in defeat
By Paul Ghali
Bern, Switzerland – (Nov. 25)
The “sin of self-destruction” is the universal theme of Germany’s military chaplains these days – probably on orders of the German Army High Command. The fatherland has broken out in suicide rash.
SS (Elite Guard) and Gestapo men, as well as soldiers whose families have been wiped out by bombardments or who fear a return to the front, are doing away with themselves rather than to face what they realize is coming to them when Germany is defeated.
Hatred of the brown-shirted regime is reported to be increasing daily not only among the German people but inside the German Army as everybody wonders just what has happened to Adolf Hitler. Der Führer’s continued “flight from publicity” has apparently had a catastrophic effect on the faithful, for his continued silence seems to confirm the rampant rumors as to his bad health or even death. The case of Marshal Erwin Rommel, whose recovery after injury on the Western Front had been reported, only to be contradicted weeks later by announcement of his death, is not forgotten.
Now the people ask, “was Hitler wounded more dangerously than we were told during the July 20 attempted assassination?”
Heinrich Himmler and his cohorts undoubtedly have their hands full these days, not only in attempting to deal with this rising hara-kiri mania but with widespread sabotage, which appears to mark the initial signs of active resistance against the Nazi empire.
The Oldenburg railway bridge on the Oldenburg–Bremen line has been destroyed. At the same place, on the same night, unknown enemies of the National Socialist Party lit up the railway station as a target for British fliers.
Sabotage is reported in the German Army and in the armaments industry. For many weeks the oval hand grenade No. 39 has been found to have construction faults which can only be laid to sabotage. This type of grenade explodes too soon, often killing the man who is throwing it. Submachine guns, too, are often found to be unusable owing to tiny technical faults invisible when they leave the factory.
“Vengeance on the SS” is now the common footnote on Volkssturm (People’s Army) posters.
As a result of all this recalcitrance, the Gestapo is reported to be tightening its iron grip and the army its punishment measures.
Sent to Eastern Front
Any soldier guilty of the slightest fault is either shot or sent to the “punishment company,” where treatment is said to be so bestial that the men prefer death. Some are sent instead to the Eastern Front, thus carrying their death sentences with them, for they are placed in positions where escape is impossible. These punishment squads are known as “companies of death.”
On the home front, death seems to have lost its horror. Visitors to Switzerland, who have seen bombarded German towns, have been impressed by the indifference with which the people apparently regard bodies lying in roads for days on end “because nobody claims them.”
“Do what you like with the dead, we’re fed up with them,” is the reply now when survivors of Allied bombings request municipal aid, according to accounts reaching here.