
WW2 footage. German Wartime Newsreel (Die Deutsche Wochenschau Nr. 739, 02-Nov-1944) Nemmersdorf in East Prussia (today's Mayakovskoye, Kaliningrad Oblast) was one of the first pre-war German villages to fall to the advancing Red Army on October 22, 1944 at 07:00 hours and the scene of a war crime perpetrated by the Soviet army against German civilians. A Russian military unit, the 25th Guards Tank Brigade of the 11th Guards Army, tried to take the Angerapp bridge but soon found it was facing strong German forces, with heavy artillery shelling and even a Luftwaffe plane strafing them. A number of Soviet soldiers found an improvised bunker, occupied by 14 men and women. When the German civilians refused to leave the bunker, they were shot at short-range (one woman, Gerda Meczulat, survived). Meanwhile, although they managed to destroy a number of German tanks, the Soviet brigade was unable to take the bridge or hold onto the village, and after incurring heavy losses (around 200 killed), left the village after a few hours' occupation. Germans accused the Soviet Army of killing tens of civilians at Nemmersdorf. Nazi propaganda claimed that many noncombatants, including about 50 French PoWs, had been summarily shot, and others were alleged to have been killed by blows with shovels or gun butts.
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