Marks of Madness

As the Allied invaders rooted deeper into the private life of Hitler's Reich, they bared some nauseous Nazi secrets:

Slaves & Skulls. In an insane asylum near Limburg they discovered a "murder factory" for "mercy killings." One of six in Germany, it had been set up for the disposal of unruly and overage slave laborers. Some 15,000 were gassed and cremated before nearby villagers complained of the polluted air. The next 5,000 were poisoned. SS men performed the daily executions. They celebrated their 10,000th killing, staffmen said, with a bacchanalian orgy, using the scoured skulls of victims as brandy flasks.

Only the sane were slain. The others were let loose in underground dungeons that dripped water, echoed to the flapping of bats' wings. Reported an Allied officer who visited the dungeons: "Crazy men, dwarfs and giants jumped at us. They laughed and screamed and followed us around in packs."

Some Still Breathed. In a concentration camp in Nordhausen--for foreign political prisoners--U.S. troops found 3,000 loglike bodies stacked in an acre of ground. Most were dead, but among them lay men who still breathed. G.I.s who had fought across Europe stared incredulously. A brigadier general turned away.

Burghers & Beasts. At a concentration camp in Ohrdruf, which few of Ohrdruf's burghers had ever been allowed to see, the Americans shared their horror. They took the Buergermeister and 40 citizens to the camp, to see the hundreds of bodies sprawled in pits, piled against the walls. The Germans found it hard to believe. Conceded one: "It's the work of beasts." That night the Buergermeister and his wife hanged themselves.

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