Death on the Transport to Dachau

The Allied troops’ unstoppable advance on Berlin enabled many prisoners, including Georg Maus, to hold out despite their suffering. Weakened by heart attacks and edemas and emaciated from poor and inadequate food, his body gave cause for utmost concern.

Rumors sprang up that the Nazis were going to take all of the prisoners from Berlin to concentration camps, in “protective custody” before the Allies’ clutches. Their evacuation began on February 7, 1945, first in barges on the Elbe, then in boxcars with sixty to sixty-five people apiece. The intended destination was Dachau concentration camp. Around Plauen in the Vogtland, Georg Maus died in the arms of fellow prisoner Charles Körner in the night of February 14 to 15, 1945.

His corpse was unloaded from the train in Hochstadt am Main and at first probably lay on a railroad embankment approximately five days before being buried in the cemetery. In 1960, Georg Maus’s remains were reinterred at Flossenbürg Memorial Center.

Today, a short street bearing his name in Idar-Oberstein commemorates the courageous teacher who remained steadfast in his faith.