Air raid on Sondershausen

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On April 8, 1945, 3 days before the occupation by American ground troops, downtown Sondershausen in Northern Thuringia was badly hit by an attack by the 9th Air Force . 97 twin-engine bombers with 113 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs destroyed 40% of the city and killed at least 181 residents. A further 50 bombers with a bomb load of over 100 tons missed their intended target Sondershausen and instead attacked Nordhausen , Sangerhausen and the village of Dachwig .

The situation in and around Sondershausen at the beginning of April 1945

An entrance to the bombproof castle cellar

In the weeks leading up to April 8, large groups of bombers flew over the city almost every day. The corresponding air raid alarms drove the residents into the air raid shelter . As in all German towns, there were air raid shelters in residential, commercial and public buildings, in hospitals and factories. In addition, there was a large brewery cellar and cellar under Sondershausen Castle in Sondershausen . Up to 4,000 people have sought refuge in these areas, especially since the devastating air raids on neighboring Nordhausen on April 3 and 4, 1945 and the approach of the US Army . They lived here, including their former princess, under primitive conditions. But even deliveries took place here.

At the beginning of April 1945, German military and paramilitary units took up positions in the vicinity of the city, on the heights of the Windleite and the Hainleite . Barriers were also set up on the access roads. The teams consisted of scattered Wehrmacht soldiers , Volkssturm , Hitler Youth and the Air Force Music Corps based in Sondershausen . The armament came partly from the First World War. Although the military leadership and NS district leaders were willing to defend themselves, no positions were prepared in the city itself. At the time of the air strike on April 8, there were almost no soldiers left in Sondershausen. They were stationed in the barracks and in the stables until the departure for the surrounding area at the beginning of April.

On April 6, US troops occupied the heights of the Windleite at the Heidehaus service station, cutting off the connection from Sondershausen to Nordhausen via Reichsstraße 4 . By April 7, American advance units advanced to Schernberg in the Hainleite.

The air raid on April 8, 1945

US fighter aircraft Douglas A-20 "Havoc" ("Devastator")
US bomber Douglas A-26 "Invader" ("Intruder")

Sondershausen was bombed at the request of the command of the American ground troops, who had advanced far from the west of the city. The major attack was carried out by four bomber groups (Bombardment Groups) of the 9th Bombardment Division of the 9th Air Force . They flew with twin-engine, light bombers of the types Douglas A-20 "Havoc" and Douglas A-26 "Invader". The crews have been portrayed as having been in combat since the Normandy invasion in June 1944. The 19th Tactical Air Command provided escorts with its fighters . The 152 bombers, loaded with 221 tons of high-explosive bombs (weighing 227 and 454 kg) and incendiary bombs, took off in two groups on the afternoon of April 8 between 3:15 and 4:15 p.m. from a distance of 600 km from two bases in Laon and two other bases in northern France . Every bombardier on the bomb sight had a photo with his target in Sondershausen in front of him. The four groups of bombers approached the city from the west and oriented themselves on Reichsstrasse 4. The cloud cover was thin above the target, but it was clear near the ground. This corresponds to the description of Superintendent Hartz in Sondershausen: "Sunday was a clear sunny day, without any cloud in the sky".

The attack in detail

  • 386th Bombardment Group (BG): Of the 37 invaders (with a bomb load of 67,000 kg) 3 were missing on the flight and one had to make an emergency landing, so 33 were used. Only 6 machines were able to unload their 10,800 kg high explosive bombs on the first approach over Sondershausen, but this already led to considerable dust and smoke development over the city and poor visibility for the following bombers. Only the castle tower was sticking out of the cloud of smoke. The BG was split up: 17 Invaders flew on to the secondary destination Sangerhausen and 5 to Nordhausen . The performance of the 386th BG was rated "poor" by the 9th Air Force.
  • 416th Bombardment Group: of the 39 invaders with a bomb load of 70,700 kg, 27 aircraft dropped their 49,000 kg multi-purpose bombs on Sondershausen, 6 bombed Nordhausen again as a secondary target and 6 wanted to attack Bad Frankenhausen as an alternative target (but probably hit Sangerhausen). The hit performance on targets in the city center of Sondershausen was rated as "good".
  • 410th Bombardment Group: the 38 A-20 Havoc carried 51,600 kg of bombs. 32 of the machines were able to hit Sondershausen with 43,500 kg (192 pieces) of multi-purpose bombs. The result was rated "excellent" by the 9th Air Force.
  • 409th Bombardment Group: the 38 Invaders had loaded 51,600 kg of incendiary bombs, corresponding to 228 incendiary bomb containers of 227 kg each. Each container contained 110 incendiary bombs of 1.8 kg each. 32 machines hit Sondershausen, which had already been largely destroyed by explosive bombs, with 43,500 kg of incendiary bombs. 6 Invaders chose the village of Dachwig, north of Erfurt, as a "destination of opportunity". With regard to Sondershausen, the result was classified as "good to very good performance".

Summary: The April 8 airstrike started at 5.30 p.m. and ended at 6:58 p.m. Of the 152 bombers launched with 221 tons of bombs, 97 machines with 113 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs hit the town of Sondershausen. The "fluttering" of the attacking bombers, partly due to the smoke-related obstruction of view, probably saved Sondershausen from complete destruction with twice the bomb load. There was no longer any German air defense. The German positions in Windleite and Hainleite had not been bombed. In the city itself there were almost no German soldiers left at the time of the bombing.

The destruction in the city

The "largely destroyed city" presented a "picture of horror" for the population.

Destroyed or damaged:

Residential and commercial streets: Almost all of Lohstrasse (both sides), Leopoldstrasse and Bebrastrasse (partially), Marienstrasse between Elisabethstrasse and Friedrichstrasse, the intersection of Marienstrasse / Nordhäuser Strasse / Lohstrasse, Güntherstrasse (especially the western part), and the upper Richard -Wagner-Strasse, Karlstrasse / Elisabethstrasse at the corner of Karlstrasse, Hospital / Catholic Rectory, Conrad-Röntgen-Strasse. The commercial infrastructure in the city center was destroyed. The town houses in Sondershausen were mostly simple, two- to three-story buildings with pitched roofs, mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Typical residential buildings in the city center (2016)

Public buildings: The hospital area, the domain (stable building), the barracks (one destroyed, two more burned out), the rent office, the tax office, the state bank, the Volksbank, the party house of the NSDAP (formerly Hotel Münch), the Hotel Tanne, the municipal fire brigade, the officers' mess.

Of 1,545 buildings, at least 624 were destroyed or damaged. The city lost 750 homes, leading to homelessness.

The railway line to Bad Frankenhausen was interrupted. A bridge was destroyed.

Cultural buildings: The two-storey orangery of the palace, built in 1709 with a hipped roof, was completely destroyed. The stately building between Marstall and Burgweg on the southern edge of the park was used for social purposes and court festivals. The Castle Sondershausen itself burned in various places, especially in the West Wing, but was deleted. The carousel building and the court theater were damaged. The pleasure garden in front of the castle looked like a desert, a crater landscape, the magnificent beech trees had been torn out. The castle park also had many bomb craters.

Debris and bomb craters blocked most of the streets. The city was on fire. The Sondershausen fire brigade did its best to counter the sea of ​​flames and was supported by the fire brigades from 13 surrounding villages. The fire fighting was made considerably more difficult by artillery fire and a lack of water. Bomb hits had completely destroyed the main feed line from the Margarethen source to around 40 meters. The castle fountain, which had remained intact, could only be used in part, as the urban pipeline network was interrupted in many places. The smell of burning lingered in the valley for days.

The bomb damage in Sondershausen was estimated at over 9 million Reichsmarks.

The period from April 9 to 11, 1945

A two-day artillery bombardment on April 9 and 10 caused further casualties and damage, particularly in the city center and the lower town. "Enemy alarm" was triggered on April 10 at 5:00 pm. On April 11th at 0.30 a.m., artillery shelling began again on the city. The following occupation of Sondershausen on the morning of April 11 took place almost without resistance. There were isolated exchanges of fire with retreating German soldiers at Göldner, in the area of ​​Planplatz, the Hospitalchaussee and near the Catholic Church.

Fatalities

At the time of the air strike, there were 10,000 to 12,000 people in the city. Many had fled into the area. According to official information, 181 people (civilians) fell victim to the bombing and the 2-day artillery bombardment. 124 bodies were buried: 120 in row graves at the cemetery in Sondershausen, 4 in Bebra, Stockhausen and Jecha. 53 people went missing under the rubble. Due to the lack of coffins, the burials in Sondershausen took place partly in sheets and sheets, continuously individually in the common grave. A joint memorial service in the Trinity Church concluded the farewell to the dead.

"There are also documents in which the number of victims is estimated to be higher. The number 181 was determined from church registers in which the missing and buried people were recorded."

Burial and memorial site

Most of the 181 dead from the air raid and artillery fire in April 1945 were buried in a cemetery at the main cemetery in Sondershausen. Today it is located in the area of ​​an honorary grove, in the middle of which eight high granite steles form a circle. One of the steles bears the inscription: "The dead open our eyes to the living. All victims of war and violence. 1995". On the left side there are graves of soldiers, on the right side there are bomb victims. These are not named as such, but only recognizable to the knowledgeable on the date of death April 8, 1945. 40 of these bomb victims are named on tombstones by name and date of birth, 27 of them women. On the right-hand side, below the tombstones, there are two floor plates with the heading: "Rest in graves that can no longer be found": 54 names follow from the Second World War, 14 of them female. After that it will be soldiers and civilian bomb victims on this cemetery.

  • Grove of honor in the cemetery in Sondershausen (war cemetery Second World War)

  • Bomb victims in the grove of honor

  • War graves in the grove of honor

  • War graves in the grove of honor

literature

  • Thomas Blumenthal: Anatomy of an attack. The bombing of the city of Sondershausen on April 8, 1945 . Thesis. University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich, Faculty for Political and Social Sciences, Munich 2002
  • Bruno Falley: Streets and squares in Sondershausen in the past and present . Sondershausen 1993
  • Ulrich Hahnemann: When the war ended. The American occupation in Sondershausen . Booklet accompanying the exhibition in the Sondershausen Castle Museum. May 8 to September 11, 2005. Ed. Schlossmuseum Sondershausen
  • Home and destruction. April 8, 1945 in Sondershausen . Exhibition Schlossmuseum, Sondershausen 1995
  • Rudolf Zießler: Sondershausen (Sondershausen district) . In Fate of German Monuments in World War II . Edited by Götz Eckardt. Henschel-Verlag, Berlin 1978. Volume 2, p. 496

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedrich Hartz: April 8, 1945 . In: "Home and Destruction". Sondershausen 1995. p. 11
  2. ↑ Thomas Blumenthal: Anatomy of an attack. The bombing of the city of Sondershausen on April 8, 1945 . Munich 2002. p. 53
  3. ↑ Thomas Blumenthal: Anatomy of an attack. The bombing of the city of Sondershausen on April 8, 1945 . Munich 2002. p. 95
  4. ↑ Friedrich Hartz: April 8, 1945 . In: "Home and Destruction". Sondershausen 1995. pp. 11-12
  5. ^ Bruno Falley: Streets and squares in Sondershausen in the past and present . Sondershausen 1993
  6. ↑ Thomas Blumenthal: Anatomy of an attack. The bombing of the city of Sondershausen on April 8, 1945 . Munich 2002. p. 95 ff
  7. ^ Manfred Ohl: April 1945. The end of the war in Sondershausen . "Home and Destruction". Sondershausen 1995. p. 9
  8. ↑ Ulrich Hahnemann: When the war ended. The American occupation in Sondershausen . Booklet accompanying the exhibition in the Castle Museum, Sondershausen 2005
  9. ^ Manfred Ohl: April 1945. The end of the war in Sondershausen . In: "Home and Destruction". Exhibition in the Castle Museum 1995. Booklet p. 8
  10. ^ Manfred Ohl: April 1945. The end of the war in Sondershausen . In: "Home and Destruction". Booklet accompanying the exhibition in the Castle Museum 1995. pp. 8–9
  11. ↑ Friedrich Hartz: April 8, 1945 . "Home and Destruction". Sondershausen 1995. pp. 10-11
  12. ↑ Thomas Blumenthal: Anatomy of an attack. The bombing of the city of Sondershausen on April 8, 1945 . Munich 2002. p. 94

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