Air raid on Waldkappel

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Waldkappel station

In the air raid on Waldkappel in World War II , a few weeks before the German surrender, an ammunition train exploded at Waldkappel station in the Werra-Meißner district of northern Hesse . 17 people lost their lives.

On the late evening of March 31, 1945, Good Friday , a 400-meter-long freight train with 35 fully loaded freight cars rolled into the Waldkappel station on the Leinefelde – Treysa railway line . He came from the Hessisch Lichtenau explosives factory , which was operated by the Society for the Utilization of Chemical Products , a subsidiary of Dynamit AG (DAG) , and had loaded ammunition and explosives . One of the station Eschwege West in Niederhone requested locomotive that the train to Eschwege should consider, did not arrive because of a road suffered defect, and therefore the train was on the afternoon of Holy Saturday is still in the station Waldkappel that already for days repeated by low-flying aircraft of US Air Force had been attacked.

At 4:55 p.m. the train was shot at by two US low-flying planes. The cargo exploded. The multi-storey reception building of the station with waiting rooms and apartments was completely destroyed, as well as two freight shed , the hub and the adjacent farm buildings. Almost four kilometers of track and 14 points were destroyed.

There was also serious damage in the town center. The blast waves completely or partially covered the roofs of many houses, dented windows and doors, and a number of houses had to be evacuated. The church could no longer be used either. When the Waldkappel was finally captured by US troops on Easter Monday, the broken roofs that had fallen from the houses made the fires caused by tank and air fire spread.

literature

  • Reinhold Salzmann: The cannon railway - history and fate of a large railway project . In: Rund um den Alheimer , Volume 34 (2013), pp. 6–23 (7).

Web links

Coordinates: 51 ° 8 ′ 53.3 "  N , 9 ° 52 ′ 42.8"  E