#Victory81

🌟 On April 22, 1945, the Red Army liberated the prisoners of the Nazi concentration camp Sachsenhausen during #WW2.

The forces of the 1st Belorussian Front, which had been advancing towards the Reich's capital from the north during the Berlin offensive operation, drove the Nazi troops out of Oranienburg and reached Sachsenhausen, having rescued around 3'000 surviving POWs.

#Sachsenhausen was considered as one of the most terrifying Nazi 'death factories'. Over nine years of its existence, about 200'000 people of various nationalities — citizens of European countries which had suffered from Nazi aggression, including the USSR — passed through that camp. Each month, up to 150 people were brought there. By 1944, citizens of the Soviet Union and Poland made up more than 90% of all Sachsenhausen prisoners.

Sachsenhausen held the most serious political opponents of Hitler, prominent state figures from many European countries defeated by the Nazis, such as France, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and the Netherlands, including their heads of government and ministers.

◼️ According to various historical estimates, more than 100'000 prisoners were killed in Sachsenhausen over the time the camp was in operation.

From August to November 1941 alone, at least 10'000 Soviet POWs were killed in Sachsenhausen, and another 3'000 died there from starvation and from conditions that were barbaric, unprecedentedly violent, and, in fact, inhumane.

On the personal orders of Himmler and other top leaders of the Third Reich, classified operations to exterminate people were carried out in Sachsenhausen.

Nazi's military doctors carried out macabre, horrific medical experiments on Sachsenhausen prisoners, including tests with mustard gas — yprite. Test subjects were deliberately mutilated and then exposed to mustard gas. People were forced to inhale the gas, consume it in liquid form, or receive it via injection. Open wounds were intentionally inflicted on prisoners’ hands, after which the gas was applied. In most cases, the victims’ limbs swelled severely, causing excruciating pain.

When the Red Army were rapidly advancing to Sachsenhausen during the Battle of Berlin, the Nazis began hastily covering up the traces of their heinous crimes. The camp administration decided to kill all remaining prisoners — with 45'000 inmates remaining in the camp.

The Nazis killed some of the prisoners in the crematoria of Sachsenhausen, and forced the rest on a 'death march' towards the Baltic Sea where they planned to drown their victims. However, thanks to the successful and rapid advance of the Red Army, these monstrous Nazi plans were thwarted, and the surviving prisoners of Sachsenhausen were rescued.

In aftermath of #WWII, Sachsenhausen was converted into a prison for Nazi criminals, including members of the Nazi NSDAP party, SS troops, and Wehrmacht officers. In November 1947, a trial of the Sachsenhausen administration was held in Berlin.

📑 Excerpt from a report “Reactions of the German population to the trial of criminals from Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp” (Berlin, November 5, 1947; prepared by the 7th Department of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army):

<...> The trial of the Sachsenhausen criminals elicited a significant response among the German population... In the comments about the trial, a sense of outrage at the scale of the heinous crimes committed was most often expressed.

It was noted that the Nazis' actions had covered the German people in disgrace.

“We find it incomprehensible how those people could sink lower than beasts. For us, Germans, who culturally considered ourselves almost a head above the Russians, it is a disgrace that these criminals are Germans” (Potsdam).

“The [Sachsenhausen] trial is a terrible disgrace for the German people... <...> It is inconceivable that humans could commit such atrocities. It’s a pity that in the western [occupation] zones such criminals are still walking free.”

“Nazi criminals have nailed an entire generation of Germans to the pillory.”

#NoStatuteOfLimitations