The Forgotten Cities

[Roberto]

Everyone knows about Dresden and Hamburg, but what about other German cities where Allied bombing led to similar bloodbaths? What is known about these? Is there any comprehensive city-by-city account of the destruction and death wrought by Allied bombers in Germany during World War II?

I found the following so far in Herbert Schwan/Rolf Steininger, Besiegt, besetzt, geteilt, 1979 Stalling Verlag GmbH, Oldenburg-München-Hamburg:

Page 71

Am Nachmittag des 25. März 1945 besetzen amerikanische Truppen das von Bomben schwer zerstörte Darmstadt.
In der Nacht zum 12. September 1944 hatte ein Großangriff englischer Bomber die Innenstadt in Trümmer gelegt. 200 Luftminen, 500 Sprengbomben und 300 000 Brandbomben wurden abgeworfen. Die Bilanz: 12 300 Tote, 70 000 Obdachlose von insgesamt 115 000 Einwohnern. Auf 100 registrierte männliche Opfer kamen in Darmstadt 181 Frauen - der höchste bekannte Prozentsatz in deutschen Großstädten.

My translation:

On the afternoon of 25 March 1945 American troops occupy Darmstadt, heavily destroyed by bombs.
In the night to 12 September 1944 a major attack by English bombers had turned the inner city to ruins. 200 aerial mines, 500 explosive bombs and 300 000 incendiary bombs were dropped. The balance: 12 300 dead, 70 000 homeless of a total of 115 000 inhabitants. For every 100 registered male victims there were 181 women in Darmstadt - the highest known percentage in German cities.

Page 101

In Magdeburg, das am 18 April 1945 von der 2. US Panzerdivision eingenommen wird, ist das Bild nicht anders als in fast allen sonstigen deutschen Großstädten, die jetzt den Alliierten in die Hände fallen. Noch stehen überall an den Häusern die Durchhalteparolen der NS-Propaganda. Allein der schwere Luftangriff am 16. Januar 1945 hat 16 000 Menschen das Leben gekostet und fast die gesamte Altstadt zerstört. Von den rund 100 000 Wohnungen existiert fast die Hälfte nicht mehr. Aber auch hier ist wie in vielen anderen Städten das Industrieviertel weniger getroffen.

My translation:

In Magdeburg, which on 18 April 1945 is taken by the US 2nd Armored Division, the picture is not different from what it is in almost all other German cities that are now falling into the hands of the Allies. There are still the "hold out" - slogans of NS - propaganda everywhere on the houses. The heavy air attack on 16 January 1945 alone took the lives of 16 000 people and destroyed almost the entire old city. Of the 100 000 dwellings almost half no longer exist. But here also, as in many other cities, the industrial sector is the one less hit.

Any further information on these or other cities is greatly appreciated. I would be especially interested in a particularly deadly daylight attack on the city of Würzburg that took place in April 1945, shortly before the end of the war. Does anyone know something more about this attack?

[Erik E]

You should really take a look here!
http://www.wuerzburg.de/aktuelles/schic ... lstag.html

Erik E

[Gwynn Compton]

Dresden and Hamburg are the most famous no doubt because of the ferocity of the firestorms which allied bombing created there. The only other city to my knowledge in the Second World War which had a comparable firestorm due to bombing was Tokyo.

It takes a certain mixing of conditions for a firestorm to start, and this is why the cases of Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo are so closely studied, as understanding what caused such massive firestorms to form, is crucial to preventing them happening in the future.

This is not to say that other cities didn't experience firestorms, infact if my memory serves me correctly, Coventry suffered from a firestorm in 1940 killing some 30,000 people, it's just the scale of Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo has made them the focus of studies into allied bombing of civilian areas.

[Erich]

let me include some possible older figures for you gents. This from the early 1970's and I would assume there were more individual attacks by RAF Bomber Command than what I have listed on these cities in Germany.

these are for major attacks and not for minor, because for Berlin and Magdeburg for examples there were plenty more tha what I have here.

Berlin 24
Bochum 6
Bonn 5
Bremen 15
Brunswick 5
Köln 21
Dortmund 9
Duisberg 18
Düsseldorf 10
Emden 5
Essen 28
Frankfurt am main 11
Hagen 4
Hamburg 17
Hannover 16
Karlsruhe 6
Kassel 6
Kiel 10
Magdeburg 4
mainz 4
Mannheim/Ludwigshaven 13
München 9
Münster 6
Neuss 4
Nürnberg 11
Oberhausen 3
Osnabrück 5
Saarbrücken 4
Stuttgart 18
Wilhelmshaven 9
Wüppertal/Barmen 3

give it some thought......

E

[Roberto]

You should really take a look here!
http://www.wuerzburg.de/aktuelles/schic ... lstag.html

Erik E

Just the info I was looking for. Thanks a lot!

[Roberto]

This is not to say that other cities didn't experience firestorms, infact if my memory serves me correctly, Coventry suffered from a firestorm in 1940 killing some 30,000 people, it's just the scale of Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo has made them the focus of studies into allied bombing of civilian areas.

You are mistaken about Coventry:

Coventry
November 14 /15, 1940
This industrial city of 125,000 was the target of a particularly devastating attack by German bombers on the moonlit night of November 14/15, 1940. 449 bombers dropped 150,000 incendiary bombs, 503 tons of high-explosives (1,400 bombs) and 130 parachute sea-mines (causing extensive blast damage) on Coventry.

More than 550 people died with another thousand seriously injured during this massive air-raid and the subsequent raging fires. 50,749 houses ended up being destroyed or heavily damaged with the ruins of St. Michael's Cathedral becoming a powerful symbol of the ruthlessness of German bombing policies.

From the viewpoint of strategic bombing Coventry was a legitimate target possessing considerable industrial facilities dedicated to Briitish aviation.

Air raids lessened somewhat as British night fighters became more effective but continued until the Spring of 1941. Also, while London was still a target many other industrial cities were bombed as well such as Bristol and Southampton. From the end of September 1940 to May 1941 the Germans launched 71 major air raids on London and 56 against other cities. Mounting German losses and Hitler's need to consolidate his aircraft for the upcoming Operation Barbarossa (invasion of Russia) effectively put an end to the Blitz.

The suffering and cost both in human terms and property was tremendous. Some 40,000 people died during the Blitz while 46,000 more were seriously wounded, in addition around a million dwellings and homes were destroyed or damaged. But the Germans had achieved very little militarily with the Blitz on London. Actually the British cause was greatly helped since many countries now felt far more inclined to side with and assist Great Britian in fighting NAZI Germany, especially the United States of America.

Source of quote:

http://danshistory.com/ww2/west.html

The worst bombing attacks carried out by the Luftwaffe did not hit Britain,
but the cities of Warsaw, Belgrade and Stalingrad.

The air attack on Stalingrad, the most intensive on the whole Eastern Front, was the highlight of von Richthofen’s career after Guernica. On that day [August 23rd, 1942], the planes of the 4th Air Fleet flew a total of 1,600 sorties and dropped 1,000 tons of bombs, losing only three planes. According to some estimates, there were 600,000 people in Stalingrad, and 40,000 were killed during the first week of bombardment.
The reasons for there being so many civilians and refugees on the Western bank of the Volga were typical of the regime. The NKVD had requisitioned all river boats and gave a very low priority to the evacuation of the civilian population. Thereafter, Stalin decided that panic was not permitted and refused authorization for the inhabitants of Stalingrad to be evacuated across the Volga. That, in his opinion, would force the troops, but particularly the local militia, to defend the city more desperately. “Nobody worried about the human beings”, commented one of the boys who stayed behind with their mothers. “We were also cannon fodder”.

Source of quote:

Antony Beevor & Artemis Cooper, Stalingrad
Translated from page 135 of the Portuguese edition.

[Roberto]

16 March 1945
A City’s Fateful Day

Through rubble and ashes out into time

Würzburg on Main, the city of wine and fishes, of churches Gothic and Baroque, where every second house is an irreplaceable cultural monument, was after thirteen hundred years of existence destroyed by incendiary bombs within twenty five minutes. The following morning the river Main, in which the country’s most beautiful city had mirrored itself, slowly and coolly flowed out into time through rubble and ashes.

Leonhard Frank, from: Die Jünger Jesu

Death rises up into the sky

They took off on the early evening of 16 March 1945, between 17 and 18 hours. The elite squadron of the Royal Air Force, Bomber Group No. 5, together with Bomber Groups No. 1 and No. 8, gathered at Reading, to the north east of London: more than 500 death-carrying planes. Bomber Group No. 5 was considered the most experienced and precise squadron in the air war against Germany. It bombed Heilbronn, Darmstadt, Königsberg, Braunschweig, Munich and Kassel. On 13. February 1945 it carried out the terrible first strike against Dresden.

Why?

The war initiated by the Germans cost the lives of more than 20 million citizens of the USSR, 4.5 million Poles, almost one million French – about 60 million people lost their lives in the Second World War. In “concentration camps” six million Jews were systematically killed, also Sinti and Roma, political prisoners and handicapped people.

Air Marshall Sir Arthur Travers Harris, called "Bomber-Harris", had in 1942 taken over the command of the British “Strategic Bomber Units". Like British prime minister Winston Churchill Harris thought to break the German civilian population's will to resist through the destruction of greater German cities. All German cities with more than 100.000 inhabitants became targets of the bomber fleets.

"Greatest danger for Würzburg"

Spring came early into the city in 1945. The people of Würzburg are enjoying the 16th of March, a warm, cloudless day. Many think that they have the worst behind them. 334 bombing alarms they already experienced in this war. British and American bomber pilots have already brought death to more than 400 people in the city.

It gets dark, the deadly fleet comes near. At around 21 hours the unit separated over nightly Crailsheim. About 280 machines fly to attack Nuremberg, while the 236 machines of Bomber Group No. 5 take the direction of Würzburg. At 19 hours a “small alarm” is issued in the city, at 20 hours the sirens are howling with all force. The people flee into cellars and air raid shelters. At 21:07 hours a communication of the Radio Listening Regiment West in Limburg/Lahn reaches the city: "Greatest danger for Würzburg".

The master of ceremony arrives

First comes the "master of ceremony”, a plane that marks the target area. "Christmas trees" the people of Würzburg call the luminous signals which at 21:25 hours show the bombers the way through the night.

At 21:30 hours the attack commences. In three waves 360,000 to 380,000 stick incendiary bombs, 180 to 220 explosive bombs weighing 500 kilograms each and an unknown number of canisters of petrol jelly are dropped. After 21:42 hours the bomber pilots turn away from the terribly hit city. From 200 kilometers of distance they can see burning Würzburg from the air.

Würzburg burns like a torch

At midnight the heat of the fires reaches temperatures between 1000 and 2000 degrees centigrade. A firestorm howls through the streets and alleys. A searing hot air suction destroys what has not been hit by the bombs. The fire sites grow ever closer together. The people flee out of their cellars in panic. They find refuge at the Main and in the Ringpark, which is spared from the inferno as through a miracle. About 82 per cent of living quarters, almost all public buildings, most cultural monuments and 35 churches are destroyed. About 5 000 people die in the sea of flames - thereof ca. 3 000 women and about 700 children and adolescents. They are burned, crushed by rubble or suffocated in cellars.

No more war!

Let us today remember in mourning the victims of all wars and the victims of violent regimes, and let us not lose sight of the manifold sequential relationship when doing so.

Peace to all dead. Peace to the dead of this city, and to us all a permanent warning and obligation to make ourselves aware every day that each offending word, each thoughtless treatment of another is the beginning of unrest. It us up to us all to work for peace.

Lord Mayor Jürgen Weber on 16. März 1995

"Women of the Ruins"

36,845 had been taken on as of 6. June 1945 for the county of Würzburg: 22,407 women and 14,438 men.

The women are the unsung heroines of postwar Würzburg. They removed rubble, fed families and raised children. In the archives there is little about them. They shoveled, carted and hammered in the burned city, first voluntarily and then in the General Labor Service ordered on 18 December 1945, since 8. March 1946 in the “Honorable Service".

More than two years passed after the devastating attack until the removal of rubble was handed over to private enterprises on 2 April 1947.

and reconstruction

"A ruin, a desolate burned out heap of rubble" the city was, wrote Gustav Pinkenburg, first lord mayor of Würzburg after the war.

Destroyed Würzburg should be left as Bomber Group No. 5 had left it, was the recommendation of Governor Wagoner, head of the American military government in Bavaria. He wanted to turn the city into a “Museum of War Devastation”. Opposite to Randersacker, on the Main, a new Würzburg should be built.

But the women and men of Würzburg did not abandon their home city. The city was still glowing from the fire when the first of them came back and began the reconstruction. Pinkenburg in an appeal on 1 May 1945: "Würzburg is not dead, Würzburg must live, Würzburg must arise anew!"

Only six houses on the Julius boulevard and one house in the Büttnergasse had survived the attack of 16 March. After Dresden and Pforzheim, Würzburg was the most destroyed city in Germany. Only 5 000 inhabitants had remained free of any damage.

Nine months after the attack the citizen registration service registered over 50 000 citizens, who crowded in one third of the previous living quarters.

Two and a half million cubic meters of rubble were taken in trucks to Main barges – an amount which as a cube would be as big as the Residence Square and five times as high as the Residence. House after house, street after street were rebuilt.

Like Phoenix from the ashes the city arose from its graveyard on the Main river

Translated from:
http://www.wuerzburg.de/aktuelles/schic ... lstag.html

[Erich]

And RAF bomber Command lost big time to the resourcefulness of the Luftwaffe's Nachtjagd arm. It was a slaughter/ One crew shot down 8 Lancasters alone. Luftwaffe crews claimed 36 Lancaster's and 2 Halifax's.
I am co-authoring an article with exclusive interviews from Luftwaffe crews for this air-action via New Zealand author/researcher Rod McKenzie.........too be published next year.

E

[imdkman]

It should be noted that over 3500 Allies, mostly Americans, were killed when the bombings of Dresden took place.....they were located at a nearby POW camp. Talk about a royal screw up.......not just the non military target and bombing of innocent people in Dresden, but to wack your own troops......schlecht........wonder why those who made this decision weren't convicted of War Crimes?

[Roberto]

It should be noted that over 3500 Allies, mostly Americans, were killed when the bombings of Dresden took place.....they were located at a nearby POW camp. Talk about a royal screw up.......not just the non military target and bombing of innocent people in Dresden, but to wack your own troops......schlecht........wonder why those who made this decision weren't convicted of War Crimes?

3,500 Allies, mostly Americans? That's interesting. Where did you read this?

[Roberto]

With a heavy attack on the Ruhr main city Essen in the night of March 5/6, 1943, the British bomber commander A.T. Harris started an air offensive against the Rhine-Ruhr area, which was to last for several month. Until mid-July 1943 nearly all larger cities in this region were almost continuously bombed. In a special operation in the night of May 16/17, 1943, the Bomber Command also carried out an attack on the reservoirs in the Sauerland, the hilly country to the south of the Valley of the Ruhr - the >Dambuster< raids, Operation >Chastise<. In the course of this mission the important Möhne-dam was destroyed. Its flood killed over 1,600 people in that night, mostly slave worker from Russia in the town of Neheim-Husten near the Ruhr river.

In May and June 1943 the >Battle of the Ruhr< increased. In two attacks on Wuppertal over 6,000 people lost their lives, in an attack on Cologne in the night of June 29/30, 1943, c. 4,500 people died. The attack on Wuppertal in the night of 29/30 May, 1943, caused the first example of a >firestorm< in the small streets of this city. The German fireworkers were not able to fight against these great fires - other examples of extreme >firestorms< as an result of Bomber Command raids were caused in Hamburg (July 27/28, 1943: c. 40,000 death), Pforzheim (February 23/24, 1945: c. 17,000 death) and Dresden (February 13/14, 1945: c. 35,000 death). All in all, over 15,000 people were killed in the >Battle of the Ruhr<. Among them were numerous foreign slave laborers, prisoners of war, an inmates of concentration camps, who worked in the industrial plants in the Ruhr cities and town. But the Bomber Command suffered losses too. More than 5,000 airmen lost their lives in >Ruhr raids< between March and July 1943.

The material damage in the cities and towns on the Rhine and the Ruhr was immense. For example, an air raid on Dortmund in the night of May 4/5, 1943, within hours destroyed almost the whole city center with its medieval historical monuments. However, the great damages in the armaments factories were largely repaired by the fall of 1943. But the German Air Force was not able to defenced the Rhine-Ruhr area. Like the lost >Battle of Stalingrad< against the Sowjet army in January 1943, the >Battle of the Ruhr< had showed that the German Reich was on the way to lost the war.

Source of quote:

http://www.hco.hagen.de/ruhr/uk/uk-2.htm

After the outbreak of World War II on September 1st in 1939 and a year with fast success for the German Reich the first air-raids start in 1940 in Essen, too. Once again the ordinary people feel the effects of the war first. In winter 1941 e.g. the food is rationed another time. On March 5th, 1943 the city of Essen experiences one of the heaviest air-raid (see picture above). In this attack 461 people are killed, 1,593 are injured and about 50,000 inhabitants of Essen are made homeless. Until the end of the war in 1945 the city is completly in ruins and the number of inhabitants of Essens decreases to about 285,000. (In comparison to that: number of inhabitants in 1939: about 600,000)

Source of quote:

http://www.mwschule.de/en/essen/reich.htm

[Erich]

Medorjurgen :

Hope you don't mind that I add a little to the other side of the picture... ? By the way excellent materials you are posting.

For the brief line about Pforzheim on February 23/24, 1945, the only Luftwaffe night defence unit able to catch RAF Bomber Command was NJG6 which claimed 14 Lancasters. The NJG's were being hard pressed and limited in their areas of coverage......the end was in sight.

E

[Roberto]

Medorjurgen :

Hope you don't mind that I add a little to the other side of the picture... ? By the way excellent materials you are posting.

Thanks, though I don't know what you mean by "the other side of the picture". The purpose of this thread is to collect information about bombing attacks on German cities that, unlike the attacks on Dresden and Hamburg, are hardly known. I am interested in the perspective of the civilian population rather than that of the air defense, and while I have focused on the two cities I’m particularly attached to, Würzburg and Essen, any information about attacks on other cities is welcome.

[Erich]

No problem, a little confusion in my statement. Just wanted to share what the Luftwaffe's reaction was to the RAF during these raids. Will look forward to anything else you can come up with as to links on individual city attacks. I'll see what else I may have that could to your already thourough treatment.

E

[Roberto]

No problem, a little confusion in my statement. Just wanted to share what the Luftwaffe's reaction was to the RAF during these raids. Will look forward to anything else you can come up with as to links on individual city attacks. I'll see what else I may have that could to your already thourough treatment.

E

OK, good idea - you tell us about what happened in the air, and I'll see what I can find about what it looked like on the ground, or vice-versa, as appropriate.

Here's Frankfurt:

The Old Imperial Free City of Frankfurt am Main never went willingly into the unified Germany when it was annexed by Prussia in 1866. Yet go, it must, and only a few decades later it found itself caught up in the insanity of the Third Reich and the Second World War. Though the Allied air raids began in 1943, it wasn't until the night of March 22, 1944, the 112th anniversary of the death of Goethe, beginning at 2100 hours, that a most horrific end came to the venerable medieval city....a scene of death and destruction more hellish than anything Goethe's Mephistopheles could ever conjure.

There were 37 bombing raids during 1943-44. Together, these raids completely destroyed over half of the city, and all of its medieval core.
The major air raids:
Night of October 4/5, 1943 - East and northeast portions of the city
December 20, 1943 - The main station area and Sachsenhausen
January 29, 1944 - center of the city
March 18, 1944 - Altstadt, North End, East End, Bornheim and the University.
March 22, 1944 - Obliteration of the Altstadt, and 50% destruction of outlying areas
March 24, 1944 - major raid on the areas east of the Oederweg
December 29, 1944 - heavy raids on the Gallus districts and North End.

Source:
http://www.altfrankfurt.com/Spezial/Krieg/