Helmut Schnatz

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Helmut Schnatz (* 1933 in Koblenz ) is a German historian and historian who has authored several books on the subject of aerial warfare in World War II .

Life

His mother Wilhelmine Schnatz moved with him and his sister on October 15, 1944 from Koblenz to Boppard in order to save herself from feared further air raids. There, on November 6, 1944, the 11-year-old witnessed the first air raid on Koblenz , which he researched scientifically decades later.

Schnatz studied German and history at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and the Philipps-Universität Marburg and received his doctorate in German. Until 1995 he taught at high schools in Bitburg , Linz am Rhein , Buenos Aires , Boppard and Koblenz. For more than 40 years he researched battle reports from German and allied units and published books and articles on them, so that today he is considered a leading expert on them. He also works with the ordnance disposal service . He refuted rumors that low-level aircraft attacks on people accompanied the air raids on Dresden on February 13 and 14, 1945, as legends. He met protests when his results were presented in Dresden in 2000.

Schnatz was a member of the Historians' Commission, which evaluated all available sources on the number of victims of the air raids on Dresden from 2004 to 2009. Its task was to determine the quantities of dropped ammunition of the RAF over German cities, the absolute number of fatalities caused by them and the rate of fatalities per ton of dropped ammunition. This was intended to establish a realistic framework for the possible death rate in the two RAF air raids on February 13, 1945. Other historians on the commission have re-examined the oral tradition of alleged low-level attacks using new methods, including searching for ammunition in open spaces in Dresden. They confirmed Schnatz's research results based on RAF files: During the night raids of February 13th, there could have been no low-level attacks, the oral tradition has other causes. The specialist book by Schnatz Tiefflieger about Dresden? (2000) as well as his essay The Destruction of German Cities and the Victims were evaluated by the commission.

Publications

  • as editor: Papal pronouncements on state and society. Original documents with German translation (= texts on research. Vol. 12). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1973, ISBN 3-534-04645-5 .
  • The position of the city of Koblenz in the Allied bomber offensive of late 1944. In: Yearbook for West German State History. Vol. 1, 1975, ISSN  0170-2025 , pp. 373-403.
  • The air war in the Koblenz area in 1944/45. A description of its course, its effects and background (= publications of the parliament's commission for the history of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Vol. 4). Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1981, ISBN 3-7646-1774-8 .
  • Low-flying over Dresden? Legends and Reality. Böhlau, Vienna et al. 2000, ISBN 3-412-13699-9 .
  • About the air raids on Trier, Ehrang, and Konz-Karthaus in 1944/45. In: Heinz-Günther Borck (Hrsg.): Festschrift for Franz-Josef Heyen on his 65th birthday (= yearbook for West German regional history. Vol. 19, ISSN  0170-2025 ). Verlag der Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, Koblenz 1993, pp. 555–600.
  • The air war over Absurdistan. Myth-Making, Reception, and Eyewitness Reactions in the Air War history of World War II. In: Information for the history and social studies teacher. H. 70, 2005, ISSN  0930-7672 , pp. 16-33.
  • The comparative investigation of the fatalities of the British air raids (area bombings) on German cities. In Rolf-Dieter Müller (Ed.): The Destruction of Dresden February 13th to 15th, 1945. Expert opinion and results of the Dresden historians' commission to determine the number of victims (= Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarian Research. Reports and Studies. No. 58). V & R Unipress, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-89971-773-0 , pp. 101-118.
  • The air raid on Swinoujscie on March 12, 1945. In: The Golm and the Tragedy of Swinoujscie. War graves as a signpost between the past and the future. Nordlicht-Verlag, Karlshagen 2011, ISBN 978-3-9809640-6-7 , pp. 169–188.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rhein-Zeitung, December 3, 2011: 130 air mines in an attack: The day when Koblenz was destroyed
  2. ↑ Herbig.net: Schnatz, Helmut ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.herbig.net
  3. ↑ Tobias Goerke (dpa / Pfälzischer Merkur: Popular air war researcher )
  4. ^ Günther Bittner: I am my remembering: About autobiographical and collective memory. Königshausen & Neumann, 2006, ISBN 3-8260-3433-3 , p. 129
  5. ↑ Hannes Fricke: Who can remember when, why and what - and who can talk about their memories? Memory and cultural change. In: Memorable Writing - Perspectives and Controversies. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, ISBN 3-11-023098-4 , p. 126 ; Lars-Broder Keil , Sven Felix Kellerhoff : German Legends. About the 'stab in the back' and other myths of history. Christoph Links, 2002, ISBN 3-86153-257-3 , p. 139
  6. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller, Nicole Schönherr, Thomas Widera (eds.): The destruction of Dresden on 13./15. February 1945: Expert opinion and results of the Dresden Historical Commission. V&R Unipress, 2010, ISBN 3-89971-773-2 , p. 101
  7. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller, Nicole Schönherr, Thomas Widera (eds.): The destruction of Dresden on February 13/15, 1945: Expert opinion and results of the Dresden Historical Commission. 2010, p. 49
  8. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Müller, Nicole Schönherr, Thomas Widera (eds.): The destruction of Dresden on February 13/15, 1945: Expert opinion and results of the Dresden Historical Commission. 2010, p. 229
personal data
SURNAME Schnatz, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German teacher and historian
DATE OF BIRTH 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Koblenz