Die Todesmärche: Völkermord und Massaker als Ergebnis des Zerfalls der Gesellschaft

The death marches, a form of mass murder of Jewish inmates and of other ethnic groups during evacuation from the concentration camps in January-May 1945, took place in a chaotic context, in which the exercise of violence was left completely to individual decisions of mainly SS personnel. What started out with the intention to keep alive and take advantage of the work force of prisoners ended up in disorganized brutal and lethal marches, with one goal - to escape the advance of the Allied armies. Any prisoner who interfered with that escape was murdered. This mass murder was facilitated by the fact that, in the eyes of the perpetrators, the victims were an anonymous collective, lacking any individual traits. Many German citizens witnessed the “death marches” taking place on the roads in their country; most of them reacted with indifference and passivity, regarding the prisoners as strange, threatening, or dangerous criminals.