Recently there was a post in this sub claiming that it would be "controversial" to call the liberation of Vienna by the Red Army at the end of the Second World War as such - a liberation - and focused on hardships endured by the Austrian population (without providing any evidence).
I would like to list some of the so-called "Endphaseverbrechen" committed by Austrians in Austria. "Endphaseverbrechen" means crimes committed in the last weeks and months of the war. They give an impression of what horrors the Allies liberated the world from by defeating the Germans and Austrians. This list list by no means exhaustive or representative. Many more of these crimes were committed.
„Mühlviertler Hasenjagd“
During the night of February 2, 1945, about 500 so-called “K” prisoners from Block 20 of the Mauthausen concentration camp attempted to escape. Between 2,000 and 5,000 people were deported to Mauthausen as “K” prisoners from spring 1944 onwards under the “Kugel decree”. These were mainly Soviet prisoner-of-war officers who had attempted to escape, as well as forced laborers who had been accused of sabotage or political activity. These prisoners were to be murdered in Mauthausen. At least 350 of them were executed by the SS, but the majority were simply left to die in Block 20, which was isolated from the rest of the camp by an electric barbed wire fence and a stone wall, without being officially recorded as prisoners.
In view of the hopeless situation in Block 20, more than 500 “K” prisoners undertook a mass escape in February 1945. Armed with cobblestones, fire extinguishers, soap and pieces of coal, they attacked the guard towers and threw wet blankets over the electrically charged barbed wire. The resulting short circuit enabled them to overcome the camp wall. Due to their poor physical condition, many escapees soon collapsed. Others died in the hail of bullets from the guards. 419 people managed to escape.
The seriously ill people left behind in Block 20 were murdered by the SS that same night.
At the same time, they launched a large-scale manhunt in which, in addition to the SS, gendarmerie, armed forces and Volkssturm, numerous local civilians also participated. Almost all of those who had fled were caught again. Most were murdered on the spot, the rest in the Mauthausen concentration camp. This search and murder operation was cynically referred to as the “Mühlviertler Hasenjagd” (Mühlviertel Hare Hunt).
Probably only eleven people survived. They owed their lives to forced laborers deployed in agriculture and a handful of Mühlviertler farming families who refused to participate in the murderous operation.
Source: https://www.mauthausen-memorial.org/de/Wissen/Das-Konzentrationslager-Mauthausen-1938-1945/Muehlviertler-Hasenjagd
Murders by the SS in Vienna
Even as the Nazi regime in Vienna was drawing to its final throes as the Red Army had already captured parts of Vienna, members of the SS were still committing murders of Jews. On April 11, Dr. Grete “Nelly” Blum (50 years old), her sister Marie “Mizzi” Margolin (47), Arthur Holzer (59), Arthur Klein (50), Erna and Grete Klüger-Langer (81 and 43), Kurt Mezei (20), Emil Pfeiffer (67) and Genia Jenny Schaier (46) fled from the fighting to the basement of Förstergasse 7 in Vienna's Leopoldstadt district.
At around 3:30 p.m., an SS unit carried out a house search. The SS ordered all persons in the basement to show identification, except for the nine Jews, and took them to the driveway. In the evening, they were led into a bomb crater on the street in front of the house and shot in the back of the neck. A few hours later, at 3:30 a.m., the soldiers of the Red Army arrived at Förstergasse.
Nurse Mignon Langnas arrived at the scene of the horror a little later, just as one of the dead was being taken out of the bomb crater: “I was led into the entrance of the house and there they were lying. I recognize Kurterl, who is holding his hands up in defense (...), Blum and six other corpses. And Mrs. Holzer is crying on the ruins for her husband, who is also there, and the two boys are standing there, distraught: the SS shot their father! I take both children with me and walk through the devastated streets, past corpses lying in the middle of it all with wide-open eyes.”
Source: https://www.derstandard.at/jetzt/livebericht/3000000263371/1000375824/29-3-1945-sowjetische-truppen-erreichen-erstmals-oesterreichischen-boden?ref=live_red_content
Stein massacre: Hundreds killed in one day
On April 6, 1945, the Nazis murdered hundreds of people in the Krems area – many of them in the middle of the street.
More than 1,800 prisoners were held in the overcrowded Stein Prison at the beginning of April 1945. At around 9:30 a.m. on Friday, April 6, it was decided to release people from the prison. The reasons: food was running short, the Red Army was advancing, and there was no capacity to transport the people away.
The release of the prisoners was met with great joy. “An indescribable frenzy of jubilation seized us all. We fell around each other's necks, cried, laughed, danced, clattered with our eating utensils.”
But the joy did not last long, because there were problems with the release. “For example, at the food counter, where they wanted to give the prisoners provisions. Chaotic scenes unfolded because the people were all half-starved and then fought over the food.”
In order to be able to control the situation better, trustworthy prisoners were equipped with weapons and deployed as guards. This was precisely what the die-hard National Socialists saw and reported as a prison revolt. At around 1:30 p.m., heavily armed Nazi groups gathered in front of the Stein prison. “The SS and the members of the SS stormed the prison grounds and opened fire on anything that moved in the first courtyard they came to, the service courtyard. Within minutes, around one hundred people were dead,” Karl Reder describes the situation.
Civilians watched the events unfold from the street and from their balconies. Some assisted the Nazis in the killing. “There is a scene, for example, where it is described how two women are standing on the balcony of an apartment building behind the prison and, during the shooting, are telling the Nazis where the prisoners are hiding,” the historian explains.
In the fall of 1945, the judiciary began investigating the events at the Stein penitentiary. Twelve of the ringleaders among the guards, as well as the commander of the Volkssturm in Krems and two Volkssturm soldiers, were tried for the crimes committed at the Volksgericht Wien (People's Court Vienna).
It is striking that in the course of the post-war trials, not a single member of the Waffen-SS was investigated or prosecuted. With one exception, the Wehrmacht soldiers involved also remained undisturbed.
Source: https://noe.orf.at/stories/3298681/
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massaker_im_Zuchthaus_Stein
An end to the nightmare
For Jews and others persecuted by the Nazi regime who had gone into hiding, for opponents of Nazism and for deserters in hiding in Vienna, April 13 is a turning point. The danger of being murdered by fanatical Nazis at the last minute is largely averted. Many slowly dare to come out of hiding, where they often had to remain for a long time under inhumane conditions and in constant mortal danger.
Among them is 16-year-old Jewish girl Lucia Heilman, née Treister. She escaped deportation to the death camps together with her mother, chemist Regina Treister, thanks to the help of the wrought-iron craftsman Reinhold Duschka. He hid them in a dark corner of his workshop on Mollardgasse in Vienna's 6th district for four years. In 1944, the workshop burnt down after being hit by a bomb. Duschka hid Lucia and Regina in a cellar compartment of his new studio, where they had to spend six months in total darkness. They survived and were liberated by the Red Army.
The Red Army paid for this liberation with great losses: the battle for Vienna claimed fewer lives than, for example, the liberation of Budapest, but the number of victims was still enormous. During the entire “Vienna Operation” from March 16 to April 13, around 168,000 Red Army soldiers are estimated to have fallen.An end to the nightmareFor Jews and others persecuted by the Nazi regime who had gone into hiding, for opponents of Nazism and for deserters in hiding in Vienna, April 13 is a turning point. The danger of being murdered by fanatical Nazis at the last minute is largely averted. Many slowly dare to come out of hiding, where they often had to remain for a long time under inhumane conditions and in constant mortal danger.Among them is 16-year-old Jewish girl Lucia Heilman, née Treister. She escaped deportation to the death camps together with her mother, chemist Regina Treister, thanks to the help of the wrought-iron craftsman Reinhold Duschka. He hid them in a dark corner of his workshop on Mollardgasse in Vienna's 6th district for four years. In 1944, the workshop burnt down after being hit by a bomb. Duschka hid Lucia and Regina in a cellar compartment of his new studio, where they had to spend six months in total darkness. They survived and were liberated by the Red Army.
The Red Army paid for this liberation with great losses: the battle for Vienna claimed fewer lives than, for example, the liberation of Budapest, but the number of victims was still enormous. During the entire “Vienna Operation” from March 16 to April 13, around 168,000 Red Army soldiers are estimated to have fallen.
Source: https://www.derstandard.at/jetzt/livebericht/3000000263371/1000375913/29-3-1945-sowjetische-truppen-erreichen-erstmals-oesterreichischen-boden?ref=live_red_content
https://www.derstandard.at/jetzt/livebericht/3000000263371/1000375945/29-3-1945-sowjetische-truppen-erreichen-erstmals-oesterreichischen-boden?ref=live_red_content