When Hitler’s suicide became public, obedient compatriots followed his example all over the Reich. Honor demanded it—or the fear of consequences. In the city of Neubrandenburg, for example, there were over 600 spontaneous suicides, in the little town of Neustrelitz 681—over 100,000 in Germany as a whole. Thirty-five army generals, six Luftwaffe generals, eight navy admirals, thirteen Waffen-SS generals, five police generals, eleven of the forty-three Gauleiter, leading heads of the Gestapo and of the Reich Security Main Office, some senior SS and police leaders: they all fled reality,
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