70 years since the End of the War – Historical Documents in the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the cessation of hostilities we now present a number of historical documents – leaflets, photographs and assorted archived items that form part of the material in the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek and relate to different aspects of the final years of the war and the end of fighting.

The signing of the unconditional capitulation was of little interest to ordinary people, since for many of them the war had already ended with the occupation of their towns by the Allies from the autumn of 1944 onwards. Photographs of American troops of occupation are held at the Hessian State Archives and include pictures of US soldiers crossing the Rhine.

The State Archives of Baden-Württemberg and Hesse and the Municipal Archives of Heilbronn also contain leaflets and other archived items showing counter propaganda printed by the Allies:

‘In the course of their swift advance across Germany American troops have overrun infamous Nazi concentration camps and repeatedly found evidence of atrocities that in their sadism and structured perpetration shock and disgust the hearts of mankind.

In acts of diabolical cruelty hundreds of thousands of people have been gassed, tortured, bludgeoned to death and burnt alive. Evidence of these deeds has been further confirmed in multiple accounts by survivors of the camps. […]

 
Not only men have been killed; women, elderly people and even children have fallen victim to the arrogant racism of Hitler’s inhuman henchmen in the extermination camps at Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Celle, Ohrdruf, Dachau, Kislau and Vaihingen. The crime of those who perished so miserably was that they were Russians, Poles, Jews, French or Czech. Others were tortured simply for subscribing to the simple ideals of human liberty and dignity.

Denial is useless. The National Socialists and their execution assistants have heaped crimes upon themselves for which there can be no atonement. The consciences of Germans across the country cannot but be weighed down by a terrible feeling of guilt.’ (Text of 'Whose guilt?')

More photographs and documents on concentration camps in the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek

The end of the war was associated with loss and destruction as much as with liberation and hope. Many German cities lay in ruins, their infrastructure and supply lines devastated. The Municipal Archives of Karlsruhe hold large stocks of aerial photos taken by the Americans of wartime destruction. The Saxon State and University Library (SLUB) likewise owns a large collection of aerial photographs, many of which show the bombed-out city of Dresden.

Amidst the ruins people began to build new lives. In 1945 one father of three daughters in the ruined city of Chemnitz sewed teddy bears for his girls. The bears, ‘Fritzl’ and ‘Hansl’, can today be seen in the Museum Europäischer Kulturen (Museum of European Cultures). ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ was also the slogan of the other object pictured, a steel helmet colander