Railway accident at Berg am Laim

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In the railway accident of Berg am Laim exploded on 8 May 1945 on the marshalling yard Munich East in Munich district of Berg am Laim parts of a train , the ammunition was loaded. Eleven people died.

Starting position

The Second World War ended in Europe on May 8, 1945 . Due to the destruction of the war, Deutsche Reichsbahn traffic had come to a standstill, trains stopped where they could no longer go or where the staff had left them. There were also numerous trains in the marshalling yard in Munich 's Berg am Laim district for which nobody felt responsible and whose cargo was not known. Including a train loaded with explosives , powder kegs , grenades and other ammunition .

the accident

The civilian population looted the trains. Powder barrels were emptied, the gunpowder now lying around was accidentally set on fire - perhaps by a discarded cigarette - and exploded next to artillery ammunition and tank wagons with flammable liquids, which in turn exploded. The shock wave of the explosion and parts of destroyed freight wagons flying around caused severe damage to the area. Buildings within 500 meters were on fire.

consequences

Immediate consequences

Eleven people died and an unknown number were injured. 70% of the apartments in the railway settlement on Truderinger Strasse were damaged and some of them were subsequently uninhabitable.

The Munich professional fire brigade was in action with 10 extinguishing groups . They coupled and pushed apart wagons of the ammunition train themselves in order to prevent further explosions, because railway workers were no longer on site. During the work, more explosives continued to explode in the area. Twelve American ambulance vehicles and many GIs helped and made large quantities of bandages available to the hospitals that admitted the injured.

Reception -… 117 dead?

Due to the situation at the end of the war - newspapers no longer appeared, the administration had stopped working - the accident is only documented reliably to a very limited extent and the sources are poor. This is how the rumor could arise that there were 117 or even almost 300 deaths, making the accident one of the worst in the history of the German railroad. It was certainly one of the worst civil accidents and one of the largest fires outside of the war in the history of Munich. However, all sources that are close to the time of the accident report a much lower number of fatalities. The closest source speaks of 11 victims: The local pastor and contemporary witness Friedrich Jacob reported to his bishop explicitly of "8 Catholics, 3 Protestants" who were killed, i.e. 11 dead. A report by the Munich fire brigade stated nine years after the event: "[...] several people were killed ", a formulation that would be completely inappropriate with 117 or even " around 300" deaths.

literature

  • Herbert Feldmann, Ilse Feldmann: War experiences on the home front - contemporary witness reports. In: Willibald Karl (Ed.): Villages on the brick country . Munich 2002, ISBN 3-934036-90-2 , pp. 200-207.
  • 75 years of professional fire service in the state capital of Munich, 1879–1954 . Munich 1954.
  • Friedrich Jacob: War and invasion report to the Archbishop's Office in Munich . In: Peter Pfister : The end of the Second World War in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising . The invasion reports in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising . Part 1. Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-7954-1761-9 , p. 239.
  • Christl Knauer-Nothaft, Erich Kasberger: Berg am Laim. From the beginnings of the settlement to the modern part of Munich . Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-937200-16-3 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ 75 years of professional fire service. P. 20, speaks of the "Munich East Railway Shunting Area".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jacob.
  2. ↑ Herbert Feldmann, p. 206.
  3. ↑ a b c d 75 years of professional fire service. P. 20.
  4. ↑ Knauer, p. 338.
  5. ↑ So: Knauer-Nothaft, p. 337, citing an unpublished church chronicle.
  6. ↑ This is how a contemporary witness recalls, more than 50 years after the event, quoted in Herbert Feldmann, p. 207.
  7. ↑ See: Bibliography.


Coordinates: 48 ° 8 '3.8 "  N , 11 ° 38' 27.9"  E