Air raid on the Aarhus Gestapo headquarters
The air attack on Gestapo headquarters in Aarhus was flown on October 31, 1944 with 24 De Havilland DH.98 Mosquito of the Royal Air Force (RAF) on Gestapo headquarters in Aarhus , which was located in a building at Aarhus University .
history
Since autumn 1943, Gestapo work under the head of the Sipo branch in Aarhus, Kriminalrat Schwitzgebel, had proven to be particularly effective and successful. The southern Jutland region III of the Danish underground movement was largely rolled up several times and 145 arrests were made in September alone. Therefore, the British secret service Special Operations Executive (SOE), together with a special unit of the RAF, planned a targeted air strike based on the model of similar attacks on Gestapo buildings in the Netherlands and France . The Gestapo buildings and documents were to be destroyed and at the same time the prisoners were given the opportunity to escape.
On the morning of October 31, 1944, 24 British mosquito bombers suddenly appeared in low flight and destroyed the university buildings used by the Gestapo. Of the 106 employees at the Sipo branch, 39 were killed and 12 prisoners managed to escape.
Because of this experience, the Germans moved prisoners from Vestre prison to the top floor of the Shellhaus, the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen.
literature
- Matthias Bath : Danebrog against the swastika, The resistance in Denmark 1940-1945 , Wachholtz 2011, ISBN 978-3-529-02817-5
Web links
- Interview with RAF officer Edward Sismore , participant in several attacks on Gestapo headquarters a . a. Aarhus (English)