Allied bombings on Switzerland

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The United States Army Air Forces bombed the Milchbuck area, Zurich-Oberstrass, on March 4, 1945
Federal Council decision on bomb damage of February 19, 1945 in the canton of Aargau

The Allied bombings on Switzerland during the Second World War are officially attributed to navigation errors. Another theory saw the cause in the arms deliveries by the SIG and other companies to the German Reich . This contemporary theory has now been clearly refuted, even if Winston Churchill has considered bombing the railway lines which neutral Switzerland allowed the Axis powers to use during World War II .

Single bombings

A total of 84 people died in Switzerland from British and US bombs between 1939 and 1945.

  • On the night of December 16-17, 1940, Basel and Binningen were bombed by the Royal Air Force . There were four dead.
  • On December 23, 1940, the Wipking railway viaduct in Zurich was bombed. One person died and others were injured. The Maag gear factory was hit by over 50 incendiary bombs. The actual target was supposedly the engine works Mannheim ( MWM , today Caterpillar Energy Solutions ); Due to bad weather, some pilots are said to have deviated from the course and mistakenly considered Zurich a suitable alternative destination. After the attack, rumors spread about a planned attack, as the Maag factory was supplying armaments to Germany and coal was being transported from Germany to Italy via this railway line.

In 1941 and 1942, there were hardly any Allied overflights over Swiss territory, partly because of the blackout measures that Switzerland had ordered following diplomatic pressure from Germany, which made it difficult for pilots to orientate themselves. In the course of 1942, the number of overflights increased again.

  • May 17, 1943: Bomb dropped over Oerlikon , Zurich
  • On the night of July 12th to 13th, 1943, Riggisberg was bombed by a British bomber with over 200 bombs with a total weight of 1.2 tons, which caused extensive property damage. It was an emergency release of the bombs, because the pilot wanted to rise over a storm cloud. The bomber was part of a squadron of around 100 British Lancaster bombers that crossed Switzerland from the north to the destination Turin in Italy at night , and it came as a result of the foehn situation with violent thunderstorms as well as fire with visible hits by Swiss air defense from the Col du Marchairuz from emergency drops u. a. over the Val de Ruz , near Flamatt , near Lutry and on the Schynigen Platte , which caused less damage. Two bombers crashed as a result of the shelling at Le Bouveret and Sion , and the crews were killed.

As of October 1943, the Swiss Air Force resumed its interception measures, which had been suspended since June 1940, also under German pressure, whereby attempts were primarily made to force Allied bombers to land in Switzerland.

Schaffhausen, inscription on the bay window: "Destroyed by airmen April 1, 1944, rebuilt 1944/1945"
  • In the bombing of Schaffhausen on April 1, 1944, the most momentous attack in the history of the Swiss federal state, 40 people were killed and 270 were injured, some seriously.
  • In October 1944, two people were injured in the air raid on Le Noirmont .
  • On November 9, 1944, US bombers dropped 20 high-explosive bombs over the Glattfeld hamlet of Rheinsfelden . Three dead and several injured were the result. The railway viaduct on the Winterthur – Koblenz line and several residential buildings were damaged. The Eglisau power plant near Rheinsfelden was not damaged.
  • On December 25, 1944, a signalman died when the bomb was dropped on Thayngen , nine pilots of a bomber squadron had confused Thayngen with Singen (Hohentwiel) .
  • On February 22, 1945 there were 9 dead and 15 seriously injured in the bombing of Stein am Rhein .
  • On March 4, 1945 at 10.19 a.m., six American Liberator bombers from the 392nd bomber squadron bombed the area of ​​the Strickhof agricultural school in Zurich-Oberstrass, 5 people died and 15 were injured. The pilots are said to have mistakenly mistaken the city for Pforzheim .
  • The Wolf freight yard in Basel was also officially mistakenly bombed by the US Air Force on March 4, 1945 .

See also

literature

  • Stefan Ineichen : Zurich 1933–1945. 152 locations. Limmat, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-85791-583-3 .
  • Jonathan E. Helmreich: The Diplomacy of Apology: US Bombings of Switzerland during World War II. In: Aerospace Power Journal. Summer 2000 ( maxwell.af.mil ).
  • Thomas Bachmann: The Swiss can't have it both ways. British violations of Swiss airspace from 1940–1945. Dissertation at the University of Zurich , 2004.
  • Matthias Wipf: The bombing of Schaffhausen - a tragic mistake. Meier Buchverlag, Schaffhausen 2019 (3rd edition), ISBN 978-3-85801-257-9 .
  • Jackson Granholm: The Day We Bombed Switzerland: Flying with the US Eighth Army Air Force in World War II . Airlife Publishing, 2000, ISBN 1-84037-135-8 , 264 pages, 51 b / w photos
  • Museum zu Allerheiligen (ed.): Art from rubble. The bombing of the All Saints Museum in 1944 and its consequences , Baden 2019, ISBN 978-3-03919-489-6 .

Web links

Commons : Allied bombings on Switzerland  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Peter Hug: Swiss armaments industry and trade in war materials at the time of National Socialism . 2002, p. 641 [1]
  2. ^ A b c Thomas Bachmann: Bombs fell on Zurich 60 years ago. ( Memento from May 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . March 4, 2005.
  3. Michael Bloch: Churchill: Bombs on Switzerland.
  4. Basler Nachrichten and Basellandschaftliche Zeitung from Wednesday, December 17th, 1940 http://raf.durham-light-infantry.ch/index.php/4-raf-durham/history/36-bombenabwuerfe-ueber-basel-und-binningen- from-16-17-december-1940
  5. Simon Eppenberger: When bombs fell on the Wipkinger Viaduct. In: Tages-Anzeiger of August 13, 2009.
  6. a b H. R. Kurz (Ed.): Switzerland in the Second World War. 1959.
  7. ^ A b Jonas Anderegg: The bombing of Schaffhausen - mistake or intent? Ebnat-Kappel, 2007, bannjongg.com (PDF; 752 kB).
  8. Few of the Berner Zeitung of July 12, 2013 talk about the bomb hail
  9. bombing in the cantons of Bern, Friborg, Neuchâtel and Vaud, 12 / July 13, 1943 on raf.durham-light-infantry.ch
  10. The bomb drop over Riggisberg (“Bombenabwurf-Büchlein”) available at www.riggisberg.ch
  11. ^ The bombs in Riggisberg on July 13, 1943 , Protar Volume 9 (1943)
  12. ^ Museum zu Allerheiligen (Ed.): Art from rubble. The bombing of the All Saints Museum in 1944 and its consequences , Baden 2019, ISBN 978-3-03919-489-6 .
  13. ^ Matthias Wipf: The bombing of Schaffhausen - a tragic error . Meier Buchverlag, Schaffhausen 2019, ISBN 978-3-85801-257-9 .
  14. ^ Swiss Film Weekly: Bombardment of the city of Schaffhausen on April 1, 1944
  15. ^ Franco Battel: The bombing - Schaffhausen 1944 - memories, pictures, documents. ISBN 3-908609-05-4 .
  16. 70 years of bombing the city of Schaffhausen. In: Schaffhauser Nachrichten. 2014.
  17. ^ Karl Hirrlinger: The bombing of Stein am Rhein on February 22, 1945 and its connections. In: Home pages of the historical association of Stein am Rhein. 6th year, 1982, quoted from Walter Hess .
  18. ^ René Teuteberg : Basel history. 2nd Edition. Christoph Merian Verlag, Basel 1988, ISBN 3-85616-034-5 , p. 376.