The Horror of the German People at the End of World War 2 скачать в хорошем качестве

The Horror of the German People at the End of World War 2

In 1945, with the collapse of the Third Reich, millions of German civilians endured a true nightmare. Hunger became as deadly an enemy as the bombs: fields were devastated, reserves exhausted, and the rations imposed by the Allies barely allowed survival. Entire families walked for miles in the so-called “hunger marches,” trading their last belongings for a piece of bread. Children and the elderly died by the roadsides, victims of cold and malnutrition, while the ruined cities became scenes of looting, violence, and despair. The Soviet offensive in East Prussia and Silesia unleashed one of the most brutal tragedies of the war. Columns of refugees fled through the snow, harassed by bombings and the mass rapes committed by Red Army soldiers. Entire villages were wiped out, and thousands of women suffered systematic abuse. The exodus toward the Baltic culminated in catastrophes such as the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, where more than 9,000 people—mostly civilians—perished. What began as an attempt to escape turned into a collective sentence of death, uprooting, and suffering. After the defeat, expulsions and transit camps marked the fate of millions of Germans from the East. Forced marches, internments under inhumane conditions, looting, and reprisals completed a landscape of humiliation and torment. Rapes, murders, and cultural plundering erased entire homes, communities, and heritages. For the survivors, the end of the war did not bring peace but years of hunger, dispossession, and silence. This period remains one of the darkest and most silenced chapters of postwar Europe.