Bunker systems on Heligoland are blown up

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The bunkers on Heligoland were blown up on April 18, 1947 at 1 p.m. The explosion , known by the British as Operation Big Bang or British Bang , was 6.7 kilotons of explosives, almost half as strong as the Hiroshima bomb , making it the largest non-atomic explosion that was intentionally generated by humans. The aim of the demolition was to destroy the bunker and military facilities on the North Sea island of Helgoland. Due to the enormous amount of explosives, it also appeared possible to completely destroy the entire island, which was not the aim of the action, but was accepted. However, the porous sandstone that makes up the island allowed the shock wave to escape; thus only the southern tip of the island was destroyed by the blast, the northern tip suffered considerable damage.

background

Due to its location in the center of the German Bight , near the mouths of the Weser , the Elbe and the Kiel Canal , the waters around the island of Helgoland were the scene of the four naval battles of 1849 , 1864 , 1914 and 1917 . In 1807 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland occupied the island that had previously belonged to Denmark . In 1890, the German Empire exchanged German territorial claims in Africa for the island of Heligoland in the so-called Helgoland-Sansibar Treaty in order to develop it into a sea ​​fortress and later a naval base. According to the provisions of the Versailles Treaty, Article 115, the fortress was to be destroyed after the First World War. The work lasted from 1920 to 1922, but was not as thorough as originally planned, the basic construction was retained. During the Nazi era (1938) the never completed “ Lobster Claw Project ” was started to turn the island into a military counterweight to the British naval base in the Bay of Scapa Flow . After the end of World War II, the island was reoccupied by the British and served as a blasting and training area between 1945 and 1952.

Demolition

In April 1945 the approximately 2500 inhabitants were evacuated by the German Wehrmacht after a large bomb attack . On May 11, 1945, the island was occupied by British soldiers. Despite many protests from the residents of Heligoland, the British began preparations to blow up the island in 1947. They filled the submarine bunkers in the southern harbor and the tunnel labyrinths with leftover ammunition from the world wars. Since the preparations took longer than planned, the original date of March 31st could not be met.

On April 18, 1947, exactly two years after a major attack by the British on Heligoland with around 1000 bombers, the bomb was detonated by the Royal Navy . 4000 were approximately stacked torpedo heads , nearly 9,000 water bombs and more than 91,000 grenades verschiedenster caliber . The demolition was triggered by British pioneers aboard the HMS Lasso from a distance of about 17 kilometers. The British staged this demolition for the German public; there was a separate brochure. Almost 20 journalists watched directly from the sea steamer Danzig . A minor explosion preceded it to scare away the birds. The actual explosion occurred a few minutes later. A huge jet of fire and tons of rock shot into the sky. The tremors could still be felt in Cuxhaven, 70 kilometers away. The smoke mushroom rose about nine kilometers, according to other sources one kilometer, in the air. The explosion shook the base of the island to a depth of several kilometers.

consequences

The island survived the demolition, but the southern tip of the island, the rubble of which is today's central plateau, was blown away. Parts of the cliffs also collapsed, and countless craters were created. However, the port facilities and coastal defense walls remained intact; the civil air raid shelters that were spared attract up to 10,000 tourists a year. The only building that survived the demolition was the flak tower , today's Helgoland lighthouse . The detonation could be seismographically registered in Germany and used to examine the earth's crust. It was not until 1952 that after protests by residents, the Heligoland were allowed to repopulate their island. Today, on the anniversary of the demolition, a memorial service will take place in the civil protection bunker.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Katja Iken: Island blasting in the North Sea - Hell-Go-Land! Spiegel-online, April 18, 2017, accessed April 18, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Claude Fröhle, Hans-Jürgen Kühn: Offshore fortress Helgoland. A journey of discovery through military history . Part 1: 1891-1922 , Herbolzheim 1998, p. 69.
  3. ↑ NDR. April 1945: Heligoland in a hail of bombs , from: August 22, 2012; accessed on: January 19, 2019.
  4. ↑ Der Spiegel : Island blasting in the North Sea Hell-Go-Land! , dated: April 18, 2017; accessed on: January 19, 2018.
  5. ↑ Heligoland must be destroyed. In: Der Spiegel. 2/1947.
  6. ↑ Video of the demolition. BBC (Youtube)
  7. ↑ Gregor Haake: The day on which Heligoland defied the megabomb. In: one day . on: Spiegel online . April 13, 2007 ( online )
  8. ^ Jan Rüger: Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea. Oxford 2017, chapter 9.
  9. ↑ April 18, 1947: The military facilities on Heligoland are blown up.
  10. ↑ The day on which Heligoland defied the megabomb. on: Spiegel online.
  11. ^ Regina Kusch, Andreas Beckmann: Fortress, seaside resort, laboratory. Helgoland's development after the big bang. In: Deutschlandradio . April 18, 2007 (online at: dradio.de )
  12. ↑ Lighthouses on the North Sea islands. ( Memento from September 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) on: nordwestwind.de
  13. ^ GA Schulze: Beginnings of Crustal Seismics. ( Memento from June 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive )