Richard Bessel's Analysis

War is nothing but death, there is no victory in war just death. Death of a nation, death of a generation, death of a time. In this article Richard Bessel provides some very grim and horrifying statistics about the end of the war for the German people and Nazi’s. Bessel’s basic main point of the whole article was to highlight the idea and the fact the Nazi required death for the end of the war. This would be the ultimate sacrifice they preached strongly about as Hitler took control over Germany in 1934. First Bessel will paint a picture of the death toll in 1945. Stating that “the greatest cause of death in Germany in early 1945 was military action on the ground” (Bessel 51). He will also go on to say that the last year of the war also had terrible results for the German people as well. In stating that military action claimed the highest amount of lives during the last year of the war is a tad misleading. Bessel will provide evidence that a lot of the “military action” will be German on German actions. This could have been the Nazi’s feeling the pinch of the Soviet troubles alongside the east front of Prussia. It could have also result from the influence from the Allied bombing of German towns.

Bessel provides just some examples of how Nazi’s and the Reich will justify execution of their own. Few examples of this are Nazi regime that would retreat if catch would be executed, looters could and would be shoot (Bessel 53). According to Bessel the very last issue of the newspaper Stargarder Tageblatt the headline read “On Adolf-Hitler-Square the Hanged are Swinging in the Wind” (Bessel 53). The Nazi’s had turned death into a normal house hold thing, this is just proof of it. These bodies were that of corpses of “cowards” (Bessel 53). Showing the German people there was no loyalty just