Hans Linberger - survivor of Dachau
massacre
German soldiers surrender
to the Americans at Dachau.
The photograph above was taken on April
29, 1945, the day that the Dachau concentration camp was liberated
by the US Seventh Army. There were 358 German soldiers taken
prisoner, including around 200 who are shown in the photograph
above. On the left is a German medic carrying a Red Cross flag.
He was among the few who survived.
Another survivor was Hans Linberger,
who was one of the German soldiers that were forced out of the
SS hospital and lined up against a wall to be shot. In the photograph
below, which shows the scene of the shooting, the hospital building
is on the right.
Americans executing
German soldiers who had been dragged out of a hospital
The following article about Hans Linberger
was written by T. Pauli for Berkenkruis in October 1988.
Berkenkruis is the magazine of the veterans of the Flemish SS
volunteers in World War II; T. Pauli was the chairman of the
group in 1988 when this article was published. Pauli quoted from
the testimony given to the German Red Cross by Hans Linberger.
Begin quote from article in Berkenkruis,
October 1988, by T. Pauli:
Hans LINBERGER was wounded east of Kiev
when an AT-gun blew away his left arm and covered his body with
shrapnel. It was his fourth wound. After a long stay in the hospital
he was posted to the Reserve-Kompanie at Dachau, on the 9th of
March 1945.
On the 9th of April, 1945, the heavily
wounded laid down their weapons; they were no longer suited to
be put into action. They reported themselves to the head of the
hospital, Dr. SCHRÖDER, who sent them to the barracks. Evacuated
women and children were present in barrack right next to it.
Preparations to be evacuated were made, doctors, staff and caretaking
personnel all wore white coats and the German Red Cross-armband.
Occasional battle noise was heard from
SCHLEISSHEIM that day (April 29, 1945), but around 4:30 PM things
got quiet again. When suddenly single gunshots were to be heard,
LINBERGER went, holding a small Red Cross-flag, to the entrance
(of the hospital). (This occurred around noon.) As could be seen
from his empty left sleeve, he was badly injured. To the Americans,
who were pushing forward in battle-like style, he declared that
this was an unarmed hospital.
One Ami (sic) placed his MP against his
chest and hit him in the face. Another one said "You
fight Ruski, you no good". The Ami (sic) who
placed the MP (Machine Pistol) against his chest went into the
hospital and immediately shot a wounded man, who fell down to
the ground motionless. When SCHRÖDER wanted to surrender,
he was beaten so hard that he received a skull fracture. (Ami
was German slang for an American.)
The Americans drove everyone out to the
main place and sorted out anyone who looked like SS. All of the
SS men were then taken to the back of the central heating building
and placed against the wall. A MG (Machine gun) was posted and
war correspondents came to film and photograph the lined up men.
Here begins SS-Oberscharführer Hans
Linberger's testimony, under oath to the DRK (German Red Cross),
about the following events:
The comrade who was standing right
beside me fell on top of me with a last cry - "Aww, the
pigs are shooting at my stomach" - as I let myself fall
immediately. To me it didn't matter if they would hit me standing
or lying down. As such I only got the blood of the dead one,
who was bleeding badly from the stomach, across my head and face,
so I looked badly wounded. During the pause in the shooting,
which can only be explained by the arrival of drunken KZ-prisoners,
who, armed with spades, came looking for a man named WEISS. Several
of them (the wounded soldiers) crawled forward to the Americans
and tried to tell them that they were foreigners, others tried
to say that they never had anything to do with the camps. Yet
this man WEISS said: "Stay calm, we die for Germany".
Oscha. (Oberscharführer) JÄGER asked me, while lying
down, if I had been hit, which I had to deny. He was shot through
the lower right arm. I quickly gave him a piece of chocolate,
as we were awaiting a shot in the neck. A man wearing a Red Cross
armband came to us, threw us some razor blades and said "There,
finish it yourself". JÄGER cut the wrist of his shot
arm, I cut the left one, and when he wanted to use the blade
on me, an American officer arrived with Dr. SCHRÖDER, who
could barely keep himself standing, and the shooting was stopped.
This allowed us to drag away the wounded. I remember a comrade
with a shot in the stomach, who came to us at Dachau, in a room
of café Hörhammer, where all possible troops were
mixed together. On the road, we were spit upon and cursed at
by looters from the troop barracks who wished we would all be
hung. During this action (sic) 12 dead were left nameless. As
I later found out, documents and name tags had been removed on
American orders, and a commando (work party) of German soldiers
were supposed to have buried these dead in an unknown location.
During the shooting, the wife of a Dr. MÜLLER, with whom
I had been in correspondencer years before, had poisoned herself
and her two children. I was able to find the grave of these persons.
In this grave supposedly are buried 8 more SS-members, including
an Oscha. MAIER. MAIER had an amputated leg and was shot in another
area of the hospital terrain adjacent to the hospital wall. He
lay there with a shot in his stomach and asked Miss STEINMANN
to kill him, since he could not bear the pain any longer. His
dying relieved Miss STEINMANN from completing the last wish of
this comrade. In the proximity of the hospital/mortuary were
probably other comrades executed at the walls, as I later found
traces of gunfire there.
Later, as a prisoner of war, I was
pointed to a grave in the same hospital terrain, by the wife
of a former KZ-prisoner, who on All Saints Day in 1946 (November
1st) came near the fence and, while crying, remembered some children
buried in the grave. The children must have died after the collapse
(Zusammenbruch) when the Americans took over the camp. Further,
comrades from the Waffen-SS are buried in the same grave, as
could be concluded from a message of the Suchdienst (the German
MIA tracing service).
Previous
Testimony
of Hans Linberger in the original German
Execution
Account by Col. Howard A. Buechner
The
Killing of the guards in Tower B
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of Dachau
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Hans Linberger - survivor of Dachau massacreThe photograph above was taken on April 29, 1945, the day that the Dachau concentration camp was liberated by the US Seventh Army. There were 358 German soldiers taken prisoner, including around 200 who are shown in the photograph above. On the left is a German medic carrying a Red Cross flag. He was among the few who survived. Another survivor was Hans Linberger, who was one of the German soldiers that were forced out of the SS hospital and lined up against a wall to be shot. In the photograph below, which shows the scene of the shooting, the hospital building is on the right. The following article about Hans Linberger was written by T. Pauli for Berkenkruis in October 1988. Berkenkruis is the magazine of the veterans of the Flemish SS volunteers in World War II; T. Pauli was the chairman of the group in 1988 when this article was published. Pauli quoted from the testimony given to the German Red Cross by Hans Linberger. Begin quote from article in Berkenkruis, October 1988, by T. Pauli: Hans LINBERGER was wounded east of Kiev when an AT-gun blew away his left arm and covered his body with shrapnel. It was his fourth wound. After a long stay in the hospital he was posted to the Reserve-Kompanie at Dachau, on the 9th of March 1945. On the 9th of April, 1945, the heavily wounded laid down their weapons; they were no longer suited to be put into action. They reported themselves to the head of the hospital, Dr. SCHRÖDER, who sent them to the barracks. Evacuated women and children were present in barrack right next to it. Preparations to be evacuated were made, doctors, staff and caretaking personnel all wore white coats and the German Red Cross-armband. Occasional battle noise was heard from SCHLEISSHEIM that day (April 29, 1945), but around 4:30 PM things got quiet again. When suddenly single gunshots were to be heard, LINBERGER went, holding a small Red Cross-flag, to the entrance (of the hospital). (This occurred around noon.) As could be seen from his empty left sleeve, he was badly injured. To the Americans, who were pushing forward in battle-like style, he declared that this was an unarmed hospital. One Ami (sic) placed his MP against his chest and hit him in the face. Another one said "You fight Ruski, you no good". The Ami (sic) who placed the MP (Machine Pistol) against his chest went into the hospital and immediately shot a wounded man, who fell down to the ground motionless. When SCHRÖDER wanted to surrender, he was beaten so hard that he received a skull fracture. (Ami was German slang for an American.) The Americans drove everyone out to the main place and sorted out anyone who looked like SS. All of the SS men were then taken to the back of the central heating building and placed against the wall. A MG (Machine gun) was posted and war correspondents came to film and photograph the lined up men. Here begins SS-Oberscharführer Hans Linberger's testimony, under oath to the DRK (German Red Cross), about the following events: The comrade who was standing right beside me fell on top of me with a last cry - "Aww, the pigs are shooting at my stomach" - as I let myself fall immediately. To me it didn't matter if they would hit me standing or lying down. As such I only got the blood of the dead one, who was bleeding badly from the stomach, across my head and face, so I looked badly wounded. During the pause in the shooting, which can only be explained by the arrival of drunken KZ-prisoners, who, armed with spades, came looking for a man named WEISS. Several of them (the wounded soldiers) crawled forward to the Americans and tried to tell them that they were foreigners, others tried to say that they never had anything to do with the camps. Yet this man WEISS said: "Stay calm, we die for Germany". Oscha. (Oberscharführer) JÄGER asked me, while lying down, if I had been hit, which I had to deny. He was shot through the lower right arm. I quickly gave him a piece of chocolate, as we were awaiting a shot in the neck. A man wearing a Red Cross armband came to us, threw us some razor blades and said "There, finish it yourself". JÄGER cut the wrist of his shot arm, I cut the left one, and when he wanted to use the blade on me, an American officer arrived with Dr. SCHRÖDER, who could barely keep himself standing, and the shooting was stopped. This allowed us to drag away the wounded. I remember a comrade with a shot in the stomach, who came to us at Dachau, in a room of café Hörhammer, where all possible troops were mixed together. On the road, we were spit upon and cursed at by looters from the troop barracks who wished we would all be hung. During this action (sic) 12 dead were left nameless. As I later found out, documents and name tags had been removed on American orders, and a commando (work party) of German soldiers were supposed to have buried these dead in an unknown location. During the shooting, the wife of a Dr. MÜLLER, with whom I had been in correspondencer years before, had poisoned herself and her two children. I was able to find the grave of these persons. In this grave supposedly are buried 8 more SS-members, including an Oscha. MAIER. MAIER had an amputated leg and was shot in another area of the hospital terrain adjacent to the hospital wall. He lay there with a shot in his stomach and asked Miss STEINMANN to kill him, since he could not bear the pain any longer. His dying relieved Miss STEINMANN from completing the last wish of this comrade. In the proximity of the hospital/mortuary were probably other comrades executed at the walls, as I later found traces of gunfire there. Later, as a prisoner of war, I was pointed to a grave in the same hospital terrain, by the wife of a former KZ-prisoner, who on All Saints Day in 1946 (November 1st) came near the fence and, while crying, remembered some children buried in the grave. The children must have died after the collapse (Zusammenbruch) when the Americans took over the camp. Further, comrades from the Waffen-SS are buried in the same grave, as could be concluded from a message of the Suchdienst (the German MIA tracing service). PreviousTestimony of Hans Linberger in the original GermanExecution Account by Col. Howard A. BuechnerThe Killing of the guards in Tower BBack to Liberation of DachauBack to Table of ContentsHome |