Did Hitler do this really?
M.Fer...@juno.com
Many years ago I read in a book entitled "The Rise and Fall of Nazi
Germany and Imperial Japan" a story which stated that when the
Russians were advancing towards Berlin, Hitler gave the order for
hundreds (if not thousands) of crippled and maimed Germans to be
forced into the underground railroads and the locks of the Danube
river to be opened and these Germans were to drowned. I remember the
sub-heading reading "then he gave one of his most insane orders".
According to this story, this did happen and the order was carried
out. If something this horrendous happened, why is this never
discusssed?
Mark Ferrante
Paco Jones
M.Fer...@juno.com wrote:
>Many years ago I read in a book entitled "The Rise and Fall of Nazi
>Germany and Imperial Japan" a story which stated that when the
It has been discussed, Mark. Cornelius Ryan mentions it in "The last
100 days", William Shirer mentions it, and many others.
Byt the way, I'm not sure it was the Danube. I think it was the Rhine.
However, the basic facts are right: they flooded the tunnels which
were full of German refugees.
Georg Schwarz
M.Fer...@juno.com writes:
>Many years ago I read in a book entitled "The Rise and Fall of Nazi
>Germany and Imperial Japan" a story which stated that when the
>Russians were advancing towards Berlin, Hitler gave the order for
>hundreds (if not thousands) of crippled and maimed Germans to be
>forced into the underground railroads and the locks of the Danube
>river to be opened and these Germans were to drowned. I remember the
>sub-heading reading "then he gave one of his most insane orders".
well, the Danube is at least a few 100 km away from Berlin, and it's
pretty unlikly that Hitler wasn't aware of that geographical fact :-)
Seriously, AFAIK quite a number of people hiding in subway and underground
railroad tunnels (around Potsdamer Platz I think) drowned during the
battle of Berlin when water from Landwehrkanal (I think) entered the
tunnel. I'm not sure about the exact circumstances but it might very well
have been caused as a result of orders issued by Hitler.
In the final phase of the war Hitler did indeed issue orders not to spare
anything and anybody in the defense of the Reich. If Germany lost the war,
he repeatedly said, she was not worth continuing to exist anyway.
--
Georg Schwarz (sch...@physik.tu-berlin.de, ku...@cs.tu-berlin.de, PGP 2.6ui)
Institut für Theoretische Physik +49 30 314-24254 FAX -21130 IRC kuroi
Technische Universität Berlin http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/
Oliver Weber
In the article " Did Hitler do this really? ", M.Fer...@juno.com
wrote on 26 Dec 1996 09:33:03 -0500:
>Many years ago I read in a book entitled "The Rise and Fall of Nazi
>Germany and Imperial Japan" a story which stated that when the
>Russians were advancing towards Berlin, Hitler gave the order for
>hundreds (if not thousands) of crippled and maimed Germans to be
>forced into the underground railroads and the locks of the Danube
>river to be opened and these Germans were to drowned. I remember the
>sub-heading reading "then he gave one of his most insane orders".
>
>According to this story, this did happen and the order was carried
>out. If something this horrendous happened, why is this never
>discusssed?
If I remember correctly, there was indeed an incident involving
underground railroads. To be more precise, S-Bahn tunnels.
And of course, not the Danube (which would have been inconveniently
far away, i.e. in Southern Germany), but the Spree.
When the Russians were already fighting in Berlin (in April 1945),
Hitler (or the OKW) ordered the destruction of some bridges. They were
warned that this action would cause the tunnels under the Spree to
collapse, and would therefore flood a large segment of the underground
S-Bahn system of Berlin, where a lot of civilians and wounded had
taken shelter from the fightings above. The bridges were destroyed,
and the tunnels flooded.
Hitler (or anybody else) did not seem to "force" anyone into the
tunnels before the bridges were destroyed, as you have read (although
it would fit his style, I must agree, comp. his orders regarding
"Verbrannte Erde"), but he (or whoever gave the order in the
Fuehrerbunker to do so) clearly accepted that the civilians would be
drowned.
Yours,
Oliver Weber O-
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Ho4bart
one problem with this is the danube is nowhere near
berlin. and do you remember the rest right? i believe
something akin to this was mentioned in the tv series
"world at war", and i think it was that some subway
tunnel(s) were flooded to deny red army transit, while
german civilians were still sheltering there. i really
think "thousands" would be pushing it. i' m sure the
hardcore nazis would have loved to do this to jews,
red army prisoners, etc. but when you hear or read of
something that sounds a little too fantastic please
try to use your judgement. why would Hitler have done
such? would it have served ANY of his war goals? Hitler
believed that if germany failed in the war and most or all
germans were annihilated, that would be the proper and
unavoidable working out of fate. but nazism was really not
about setting out to destroy your own people.
hue miller
Dirk Lorek
M.Fer...@juno.com wrote:
>when the
>Russians were advancing towards Berlin, Hitler gave the order for
>hundreds (if not thousands) of crippled and maimed Germans to be
>forced into the underground railroads and the locks of the Danube
>river to be opened and these Germans were to drowned.
On 25 Apr 45, Soviet troops were observed in the subway system which
was crowded with refugees and wounded Wehrmacht personnel. On 26 Apr,
combat engineers blew up the bulkheads of the Landwehrkanal between
Schoeneberg and Moeckernbruecke in order to flood the subway system
and hinder Soviet advance through it.
I can't say who gave the order or how many casualties there were.
Dirk
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