The End of the War in Moosburg Research and Documentation © Historian Dr. Dominik Reither, M.A. Publication in the Moosburger Zeitung April 2020 on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Stalag VII A on April 29, 1945 Dr. Dominik Reither is a member of the Stalag Moosburg e.V. association, which is dedicated to researching and documenting the history of the POW camp Stalag VII A and its consequences. Note: The translation was done by automated means and may contain errors or misinterpretations. The original German text is binding. *** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) *** 2020-04-25 The end of the war in Moosburg (I): The fronts collapse Moosburg end of April 1945 By Dr. Dominik Reither In April 1945 the end of the war became apparent in Moosburg, as everywhere in Bavaria. The situation of the German troops was hopeless. Inadequately equipped and shrunken units were confronted with an allied superiority of men and material, which in the meantime also had unrestricted air sovereignty. The situation in the Reich Since the summer of 1944, German troops had been retreating in the west, south and east and had soon reached the borders of the Reich. On October 21, 1944 the American forces were able to occupy Aachen, the first major German city. In January 1945, the Red Army had reached the Oder, and on March 7, 1945, the US Army crossed the Rhine. The defense in the West had collapsed, one town after the other on the Rhine was occupied by Americans and British. On April 25, 1945, the Red Army had completely surrounded Berlin. Near Torgau on the Elbe River, American and Soviet troops had met on the same day - Germany was thus divided into two halves. The situation in Bavaria By the end of April 1945, Bavaria, too, had long been a combat zone. After crossing the Rhine, American troops had advanced south and east along the Rhine and Main. On March 25, 1945, American troops entered Bavarian soil near Aschaffenburg and have since occupied Bavaria from north to south. After the conquest of Franconia, the 7th Army under General Patch crossed the Danube near Dillingen on April 22nd and thus reached the area of Wehrkreis VII (Southern Bavaria between Danube and Alps). It now began with the conquest of the western parts of southern Bavaria with the important intermediate destination Munich, while the 3rd US Army under General Patton turned to the Bavarian southeast. The American forces also advanced rapidly in Bavaria. They could quickly bypass German resistance nests or smash them by means of superior air forces. The Bavarian highways, blocked by refugees, members of evacuated services and scattered soldiers, represented a greater obstacle to the advance than the German troops, according to some historians. Power structures In this situation, chaotic power relations prevailed in many places in Bavaria. The services of the Wehrmacht were overwhelmed by the situation and difficult to reach because of the frequent changes of position, and effective military leadership was hardly possible. State and local authorities, departments of the Reich which had been transferred to the south, party organizations and organs such as the Hitler Youth and the Gauleiter, police leaders, the Volkssturm and various SS units exercised power, together or against each other, and Page 1 of 24 organized "defensive measures". In this tangle of confusing power structures, often exacerbated by the rapid collapse of the German lines of defense, there was always scope for individual officials and officers to make independent and far-reaching decisions. However, there was always the danger of summary execution if another commander or power holder judged an order to be treason or cowardice in the eyes of the enemy. Americans on the Danube On 26 April the front ran along the Danube in the south-eastern part of Bavaria, with an arc around Regensburg. The advancing 3rd US Army was confronted by the XIII SS Army Corps. This was subordinated to the 1st German Army, which was to defend the Danube and the South German area. The space between Freising and Dingolfing was assigned to the XIII SS- Armeekorps. To this corps also belonged the 38th SS Grenadier Division Nibelungen, which withdrew in the direction of Landshut/Moosburg. The 38th SS-Division Nibelungen consisted largely of 16- and 17-year-old Hitler Youth, who fought with great fanaticism. An analysis of the General Staff of the 3rd U.S. Army on the basis of intensive aerial reconnaissance showed that the American troops were confronted only with widely scattered German infantry in small numbers, which was no longer able to form a unified line of defense. Organized resistance was no longer possible, field artillery was virtually non-existent, the German Air Force was only sporadically deployed, and there was hardly any tank and artillery activity. The replacement and logistics system of the Wehrmacht had collapsed, as had its communication channels. Reinforcements and supplies had been overrun and cut off by advancing US troops. The German soldiers facing the Americans were largely inexperienced. Some units capitulated to the advancing Americans instead of fighting. On April 26th alone, the 3rd US Army took over 7000 prisoners. However, the Americans reckoned with increasing German resistance the further south they advanced. Still in the evening of April 26th, troops of the 3rd US Army crossed the Danube without major difficulties after taking Ingolstadt. They were able to repel a German counterattack without any problems. Thus the last natural obstacle on the way to Moosburg was overcome. The Americans were only a good 60 kilometers away from the town. Moosburg in April 1945 In Moosburg, too, the effects of the war were already being felt massively in various ways before the end of April 1945. Evacuees had already come to Moosburg during 1944. These were people who had been brought to the countryside from the bomb-prone areas of the Reich, especially the big cities. By 31 December 1945 886 men, women and children had been brought to Moosburg in this way. In addition, the first refugees, inhabitants of the areas east of the Oder and Neisse, who had left their homes in fear of the Red Army, were already arriving in Moosburg. In 1944 several makeshift homes were built for them in the Bonau, among others on Stadtbadstraße. With the influx of evacuees and refugees, the war became a direct experience for the people of Moosburg. Many young Moosburgers had been drafted into the Wehrmacht, some for years. By the end of April 1945 more than 200 of them had already fallen and more than 100 others were missing. It can be assumed that they also perished in the war, but their death could not be documented in the chaos of the fighting, especially during the collapse of the German fronts from summer 1944 onwards. Memorial crosses were erected at the war memorial for those who died - every day the people of Moosburg were reminded how many fellow citizens had already lost their lives in Page 2 of 24 the war. In spring 1945 the end of the war was approaching in Moosburg and its surroundings. The fact that the fronts were drawing nearer was shown, among other things, by the fact that in the last months of the war several military hospitals were moved from Silesia to Freising. In March the International Red Cross had established a base in Moosburg. Several trains brought food to the town, which was distributed by trucks to various camps. In addition there were the air raids on Landshut, Freising and Erding in March and April 1945 and the low-flying attacks on trains and vehicles. War now also became a deadly reality in Moosburg and the surrounding area. Situation in Stalag VII A The end of the war also made itself felt in the Stalag. The German leadership had prisoner- of-war camps evacuated, especially before the collapsing Eastern Front, so that no prisoners fell into the hands of the enemy. Therefore, thousands of prisoners of war have been coming to Moosburg since the end of 1944. Among them were about 12,000 officers, including 2,000 air force officers from Stalag Luft III (Sagan in Silesia) as well as the entire officers' camp at Eichstätt. Because the railway traffic had partially collapsed, they often had to march long distances with insufficient supplies, and arrived in the Stalag exhausted and often sick. There are no longer any official figures on the occupancy of the camp from these weeks. Figures on how many prisoners were in the camp at the end of the war vary between 27,000 and 130,000, the former having been later revised upwards, the latter including prisoners of war in subcamps. Probably between 70,000 and 80,000 prisoners were housed in the Stalag at the end of the war. Several months earlier, on December 1, 1944, 75,400 POWs had already been in the Stalag area, about 20,000 of them in the camp itself. In order to accommodate the new arrivals, the camp administration confiscated tents for 30,000 people. They also increased the occupancy of the barracks. Contemporary witnesses also report that the camp was completely overcrowded, which is confirmed by pictures showing how numerous prisoners crowded between barracks on the camp grounds and obviously had to camp outdoors. In times of an increasingly chaotic situation, the camp management had to provide for an ever increasing number of people. Since it was difficult to bring supplies to the Stalag due to the extensive destruction of the transport infrastructure and the low-level air raids, the Red Cross food parcels were particularly important.