1945 Mass Suicide Party in Leipzig, Germany

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Leipzig, Germany. Aprill 13, 1945. Shots of the ruined city and corpses of suicides. Among them the Volkssturm local leader and the Deputy Mayor of Leipzig with his wife and daughter, who committed suicide in the Neues Rathaus as American troops were entering the city. The city's Mayor and his family also killed themselves.
In Leipzig G.I.s scouted the deserted Rathaus (City Hall) and reported as follow : "There's some civilian stiffs upstairs."
In his solid mayoral chair sat Oberbürgermeister Alfred Freiberg, his sightless eyes fixed on the carved ceiling. In armchairs beside him, waxen-faced in death, sat his matronly wife and bespectacled daughter. In an adjoining room Stadtkämmerer (City Treasurer) Kurt Lisso, his wife and daughter also sat in poisoned death. The rigid bodies of four Volkstürmers sprawled in other offices.
Two, it was plain, had sat across a table, sipping brandy until one had drunk enough to pick up a machine pistol, shoot his comrade and then himself.
16mm Kodachrome rarely seen footage filmed by the 69th Infantry Division Combat-Camera-Unit.

Germany is stricken by a series of unprecedented waves of suicides during the final days of the Nazi regime. The reasons for these waves of suicides are numerous and include the effects of Nazi propaganda, the example of the suicide of Adolf Hitler, victims' attachment to the ideals of the Nazi party, and a reaction to the loss of the war and, consequently, the anticipated Allied occupation of Nazi Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_suicides_in_1945_Nazi_Germany
On this website you can see the outstanding Elizabeth 'Lee' Miller's photos of the same suicides appearing in the clip:
http://www.eucmh.com/2011/01/27/mass-suicide-party-in-leipzig-germany-1945/

Music score (Demo Only) added in 2011 by ROMANO-ARCHIVES (Simply Tired - Sin Holding on to Drowning).

Encoded by ROMANO-ARCHIVES.

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