THE WORST AND SCARIEST KILLING OF THE VILLAGE OF NEMMERSDORF BY THE GERMANS
The Worst And scariest Killing Of The Village Of Nemmersdorf. By The Germans.
ctober 21, 1944. The village of Nemmersdorf, in East Prussia, is taken by troops of the Soviet 25th Guards Tank Brigade, who cross the Angerapp river. It was the first time in the entire war that the territory of Germany proper had been invaded by an enemy force. Although the village apparently had no strategic value, the symbolism of this occupation was immeasurable.
After several vigorous German counterattacks, Soviet troops were ordered overnight to withdraw to a more secure defensive position in the rear. The next day, the Germans liberated Nemmersdorf.
And what did they come across?
At the end of the village, on the left side of the road, is the great Weisser Krug inn... In the farmyard further up the road there was a cart, where four naked women were nailed by their hands in a cruciform position. Behind Weisser Krug in the direction of Gumbinnen is a square with a monument to the Unknown Soldier. Then there is a great coaching inn, Roter Krug . Next to it, parallel to the road, was a barn and at each of its two doors a naked woman was nailed by the hands, in a crucified posture.
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In the houses, we found seventy-two women, including children, and an old man of 74 years old, all dead... all murdered in a bestial manner, with the exception of a few who had bullet holes in their necks. Some babies had their heads crushed. In one room we found an 84 year old woman, sitting on a sofa… and half of her head had been chopped off with an ax or shovel…
We carried the bodies to the village cemetery where they lay to await the foreign medical commission… At this, a nurse came from Insterburg, a native of Nemmersdorf, looking for her parents. Among the bodies were her mother, 72, and her father, 74, the only male among those killed.
She also proved that all the dead were from Nemmersdorf. On the fourth day the bodies were buried in two pits. Only the next day did the medical commission arrive, and the graves had to be reopened. The foreign commission unanimously established that all the women, even the eight- to twelve-year-old girls and even the 84-year-old woman had been raped. After examination by the commission, the bodies were reburied.
—Testimony of Captain Hermann Sommer, one of the first to arrive at the scene of the massacre, published in the book Die Nemesis von Potsdam .
The brutality of the Red Army was nothing new.
But his victims were.
They would no longer be Poles, Ukrainians, Russians or Belarusians suffering at the hands of the forces that came to “liberate” them. No.
From now on, it would be the Germans.
If Germany fought to the end, it's because it literally had nothing to lose; “Enjoy the war, because peace will be hell”.
Remember Nemmersdorf. Once the story got out and all the Germans knew what happened, they needed no other motivation to sell themselves high, no other proof of the seriousness of the situation, than these few words.
Remember Nemmersdorf was the most terrifying phrase the German soldier could hear.
There was no price too high to pay for Germany not to become a gigantic Nemmersdorf. As, in fact, it became.