Air raids on Heilbronn
The air raid on Heilbronn on December 4, 1944 by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) destroyed around 62 percent of the urban area of Heilbronn , including almost the entire historic city center. Around 6500 people were killed.
Due to the destruction in the Second World War , the then large medium-sized town , which had 77,000 inhabitants in 1939, lost almost 40 percent of its population. Towards the end of the war in 1945, the city on the Neckar only had 47,000 inhabitants. In the course of the war there were numerous smaller air raids on Heilbronn both before and after this heaviest attack.
Starting position
Heilbronn became a frequent Allied target in the air war in World War II . The railway lines, the Heilbronn freight station and the canal port near the city were of a certain strategic importance, as was the industry in one of the most important industrial cities in Württemberg, which as the war progressed largely served the war economy. The army ammunition plant in Siegelsbach was in the immediate vicinity and, in the later years of the war, several armaments factories were relocated to the tunnels in the Neckar valley . Heilbronn was not a priority target for Allied bombers, but was on the route of the units flying in from northwest to southwest Germany and was often an alternative target when the weather or strong air defense made an attack on another target impossible.
As in the whole of the German Reich , the blackout ordinance was in effect in Heilbronn from May 1939, which stipulated that windows and doors were to be covered so that they were impervious to light after dark. The clearing of the attics and the creation of shelters had already been decreed in May 1937. Heilbronn was assigned to Air Protection Class I by the Luftgau Command in Stuttgart . Since the construction of high-rise bunkers was therefore initially prohibited, the numerous deep wine cellars in the old town were mainly converted into air raid shelters . After the outbreak of war, Police Director Heinrich Wicke ordered the cessation of private residential construction on September 4, 1939 and the deployment of all construction workers to expand the air raid shelters.
An observation point for the Stuttgart Air Guard Command was set up on the Wartberg , which passed reports on incoming aircraft to the command center. There were also aerial observers on the Knorr company silo and on the tower of the Augustine Church . The local air raid protection line posted a double post on the tower of Kilian's Church . In September 1939 there were several aerial alarms because unknown aircraft were sighted near the city. The Reserve Flak Department 253, which had been called up in August 1939 (after the Heilbronn Infantry Regiment 34 had moved out to the Siegfried Line ), gave several alarm shots, but was withdrawn to Laupheim in the spring of 1940 . Only a light anti-aircraft battery was left to protect the city.
At the end of May 1940, a municipal siren system was ready for use, which was used for the first time in the early morning hours of June 4, 1940. In the summer of 1940 heavy flak was temporarily back in Heilbronn. In the autumn of 1940 the Theresienturm (formerly General-Wever-Turm) was built, a high bunker on the Theresienwiese , in addition there was an underground bunker on Kaiser-Friedrich-Platz and one on Industrieplatz. Apart from a few shelters for shelters, no further bunker systems were built, as the old cellars in the city center were considered safe enough due to their depth and their massive walls. Inner city cellars were connected by openings and ordinances were issued that determined how the exits were to be secured. It was completely neglected that some of the massive-looking basements only had ceilings ten centimeters thick in places, which would not be able to withstand the stress of a collapsing building.
Attacks until the summer of 1944
The first air raid on Heilbronn took place on the night of December 16-17, 1940. The dropping of three high-explosive bombs and about 100 stick bombs destroyed 20 houses in the old town and damaged about 70 others. There were three dead and around a dozen injured. Two days after the attack, heavy flak came to Heilbronn at short notice, but was quickly recalled to the fronts, so that in future only light flak units or so-called "home flak" operated by students were available for the air defense.
From August to November 1941, four more nights of bombing followed, but they only caused limited damage. Individual fighter-bombers also targeted the railway lines around Heilbronn during the day . Air alarms were raised 33 times in 1942, but the reported bombers mostly had other targets. Only on May 7, 1942, large quantities of explosive and incendiary bombs fell on the city center, with more than 150 houses destroyed or damaged and seven people killed. These were the first attacks in accordance with the new "statement to carpet bombing" ( area bombing directive ) of the Air Ministry on 14 February 1,942th
At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, the Americans and the British agreed to "share tasks" with regard to the bombing of German cities. On the one hand, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) should be responsible for bombing the transport hubs and key industries, and on the other hand, the Royal Air Force should be responsible for bombing the city centers. In the future, the Americans flew relatively precise attacks on individual strategic targets (arms factories, train stations, airfields, ports), while the British, on the other hand, relied on massive attacks in large groups, with extensive bombing with a mixture of high-explosive bombs and incendiary bombs with the aim of targeting the attacked cities completely destroy. While numerous devastating attacks on other German cities took place in 1943, things remained relatively quiet in Heilbronn. Air alarms were triggered 71 times, but in 1943 there was only one attack on August 28 in Heilbronn.
In January and February 1944, a two-week demonstration of the extinguishing of British phosphorus incendiary bombs took place in Heilbronn . On February 25, 1944, a discarded full fuel tank fell on the avenue . At the end of April 1944, the Allies dropped counterfeit food stamps over the city, the use of which was made a criminal offense. Occasionally incendiary ammunition was dropped again and again . Air alarm was almost commonplace. In July 1944, the shop opening hours were extended. If planes attacked for over an hour in the morning, the lunch break did not begin until 2 p.m. In the summer of 1944, Heilbronn's cultural workers were drafted into the Wehrmacht , and the theater and orchestra ended. The Heilbronn police director ordered the removal of easily flammable decorative materials from the city's shop windows. On August 5, 1944, Gauleiter Wilhelm Murr was satisfied with the air raid precautions. By the beginning of September, 160 air alarms had already been counted in 1944.
Air raid on September 10, 1944
The Allies had already dealt intensively with Heilbronn as a possible target of an air raid in the spring and summer, published aerial photographs for internal use in May 1944 and published a Target Information Sheet on June 27, 1944 , which specifically targeted the Heilbronn marshalling yard and the Heilbronn canal port called. The city thus became the target of the intensive attacks on the German transport system in autumn 1944.
At the beginning of September there was an air alarm almost every day and the city was on the way of the bombers to the Nuremberg target. On September 8th there was four air alarms: from 1:45 a.m. to 2:31 a.m., from 11:34 a.m. to 12:42 p.m., from 2:38 p.m. to 3:48 p.m. and from 10:30 p.m. to 11:42 p.m. On September 9th there was only an alarm from 10:20 am to 11:55 am. On the morning of September 10, 1944, around 100 aircraft of the 8th Air Force flew an attack on the aircraft factory near Günzburg with an alternative destination in the marshalling yard in Ulm . However, since there was thick cloud cover over both targets, Heilbronn was the second alternative target. It was cloudless here and the attack was carried out on sight. Shortly after 11:30 a.m., the bombing of the Heilbronn railway stations and ports and the marshalling yard in the corner between the Württemberg Northern Railway from Stuttgart to Heilbronn and the Kraichgau Railway began . The Americans carried out their attack exclusively against the militarily relevant facilities named in the Target Information Sheet . Due to the size of the bomber formations, the ballistics of the incendiary bombs and the geographic conditions, surrounding civilian targets were also hit. The “carpet of bombs” on September 10th therefore extended from the adjacent residential areas at the marshalling yard via the Heilbronn Südviertel with the Südbahnhof and Heilbronn main train station to the Heilbronn Kilian's Church and the town hall in Heilbronn city center. 406 500-pound cluster bombs , 736 250-pound cluster bombs and 26,400 four-pound stick bombs were dropped. The advance warning was signaled at 12:26 p.m. and the all-clear at 1:11 p.m. Over 300 houses were destroyed or uninhabitable in this attack. 281 people lost their lives and more than 400 injured had to be treated. The Allied evaluators described the damage achieved in view of severely damaged stations with broken tracks and 80 to 100 severely damaged or destroyed wagons as "very good results".
The Heilbronn fire brigade and the security and emergency services could not get the numerous fires in the city under control on their own, so volunteer fire brigades from Gronau , Lauffen , Untereisesheim , Schwaigern , Weinsberg and other places moved in. Fighting the fire took several days, just extinguishing the town hall, which had caught fire, took three days. Since the responsibility for fighting the fire, depending on the object to be extinguished and the troops deployed for it, partly lay with District Manager Drauz , Police President Karl d'Angelo and Air Protection Officer Wasmer, there were delays due to a conflict of competence. In Böckingen, a large number of cattle had also been injured by bomb fragments, which is why the veterinarians of the security and emergency services had to slaughter for several days.
Air raids September 27 to October 30, 1944
In the summer and autumn of 1944, the Allies set up their radio navigation system called OBOE in northern France and Belgium. The southern German targets were about 500–600 km away from the transmitter. Since radio signals of the frequencies used propagate linearly and do not follow the curvature of the earth, aircraft had to be guided over the target area at a height of around 10,000 meters, for which the light and almost completely wooden mosquito aircraft appeared to be most suitable. The mosquitos were each equipped with a 4,000-pound bomb (so-called air mine ). From the end of September to the end of October test and exercise attacks were carried out on various southwest German cities, in addition to Heilbronn also on Aschaffenburg, Darmstadt, Pforzheim and Karlsruhe. Since no air raid alarm was triggered for individual aircraft and the aircraft could not be heard because of their very high altitude, the bomb hits mostly came as a complete surprise for the population.
On September 27, 1944, at 9:30 p.m., the first OBOE-guided attack by six mosquitos on Heilbronn began, three of which bombed the railway systems and two of the city center. On September 28, around 9:00 p.m., five mosquitos scored three hits on the railway systems. On September 30, at around 8:40 p.m., six aircraft flew to the city again, with one hit on the railway systems and at least two hits on the city center. On October 1, around 8:30 p.m., two of six mosquitos attacked the city center, while the remaining four planes dropped their bombs in the surrounding area. On October 4, at around 10:00 p.m., three of the five planes approaching on that day were bombed and one mosquito was lost. On October 12, around 5:00 a.m., four aircraft flew to the city center. On October 30, at around 8:20 p.m., three successful bombs were dropped over the marshalling yard.
It was speculated whether the pilots, popularly known as “Bombenkarle”, could be emigrated Jews from Heilbronn ( Ritchie Boys ), as the high-flying pilots were assumed to have precise local knowledge due to ignorance of radio navigation.
Air raid on December 4, 1944
On the evening of December 4, 1944, 282 Lancaster bombers of the 5th bomber group of the RAF and ten escort aircraft flew to the city of Heilbronn in loose formation. Simultaneously, sham attacks were carried out on the Ruhr area in order to deceive the German air defense . The approaching aircraft were between 18:49 and 18:57 for the first time by German radio meters north of Saarbrucken captured. At 7:10 p.m., the German defense reported "Fast bomber northeast of Heilbronn" , long-range night fighters were probably recorded on their way to the German night fighter airfields in Schwäbisch Hall or Kitzingen , who were also supposed to divert the German air defense in the run-up to the attack. On the evening of December 4th, it was very cloudy, which led to a change in the approach altitude of the aircraft.
At 7:18 p.m. the first Lancaster machine of the first marker association of the 83 Squadron under Lieutenant Pereira flew at an altitude of around 4500 meters over Heilbronn and threw green proximity markings. Half a minute later he was followed by another Lancaster under Lieutenant Phillip. This dropped ten 1,000-pound high-explosive bombs with long detonators and turned to fly back. Then around 7:20 p.m., light bombs were dropped in order to orientate the mosquito bombers of the 627 Squadron, which had meanwhile arrived, when red and yellow burning so-called “target indicators” (TIs, target markers, red for the city center, yellow for the marshalling yard) to facilitate. Lieutenant Duncan threw green target markers over the city from another Lancaster at about 7:20 p.m., as well as a flash bomb that exploded at a height of about 600 meters and made it possible to photograph the target area. Then a lot of light bombs were dropped, which made the target area bright as day. The light bombs were originally supposed to be dropped for ten minutes, but the approaching bomber pilots called the light effect "excellent" as early as 19:23, so that "Master Bomber" Maurice A. Smith, who with his Mosquito DZ 518 over the city center circled, already at 7:27 pm ordered: "Come in and bomb, red TIs as planned".
After the previous supporter bombs (light bombs, target markers and time-delayed explosive bombs), the actual bomb load fell. The Lancaster PB 251 under Lieutenant Colonel Fugger dropped a first 4,000 pound high explosive bomb and 1,800 4 pound stick incendiary bombs from a height of 3,800 meters at around 7:29 p.m. By 7:38 p.m., around 1,200 tons of bombs fell on the city.
The Bomber Command Summary of Operations lists the following amounts of bombs that were dropped over the city area:
- 5 pieces of 12,000 pound high explosive bombs
- 168 4,000 pound high explosive bombs
- 573 pieces of 1,000 pound high explosive bombs
- 192 pieces of 500 pound high explosive bombs
- 191 multipurpose 500 pound explosive bombs
- 10 pieces of 1,000 pound marker bombs (3 green, 3 red, 4 yellow)
- 3 pieces of 250 pound marker bombs (green)
- 35,550 4-pound stick incendiary bombs (237 containers of 150 each)
- 208,350 4-pound stick incendiary bombs (loose from bulk boxes)
- 1,204 light bombs
The attack directed against the marshalling yard began at 19:32 and lasted until 19:55. The pilots who were supposed to fly to the marshalling yard often had difficulties recognizing the yellow target markings against the background of the already brightly burning city, so that they also unloaded their bomb load over the city center. Very few pilots saw where their bombs fell, as clouds of smoke blocked the view of the earth after the first impact. A total of 380 bombs fell over the marshalling yard.
The proportion of almost 66 percent of the total number of bombs dropped is remarkable. Arthur Harris , the British Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command at the time , later stated that many of the German cities had already been badly burned by previous bombings, so that towards the end of 1944 the Royal Air Force preferred to use high-explosive bombs again in order to maximize destruction . Neither Heilbronn nor Freiburg im Breisgau, which was also bombed with a strong explosive effect a week earlier during Operation Tigerfish, showed correspondingly large fire damage, so that the reasons for the composition of the bomb load during the attack on Heilbronn are unclear.
The entire old town was completely destroyed by the attack on December 4, 1944, and the peripheral areas were badly damaged. What the pressure of the detonations did not damage fell victim to the flames. Of the hundreds of historic buildings in the city, only about two dozen have survived, most of which have been rebuilt.
The German air defense could do little to counter the attack: two flak positions on the Neckar and 14 German Junkers Ju 88 night fighters fought against the British bombers under Commander Ernst Wallner. Wallner and two crew members died near Winzerhausen. The RAF lost eleven of their 282 machines.
The population, who were still numerous in the Heilbronn city center at the end of the working day on this Monday evening, fled to a high bunker (General-Wever-Turm), two underground bunkers (on Industrieplatz and Kaiser-Friedrich-Platz) and in the 54 public air raid shelters , which are considered safe and which can accommodate 13,945 people. However, the inner city became a deadly trap because of the incendiary fire that raged from around 8 p.m. Those who first sought refuge in the basements and tried to leave the city during the " firestorm " were burned in the streets. The people who remained in the basement died of carbon monoxide poisoning or the collapse of air raid shelters.
After the war, serious allegations were made against the NS mayor Heinrich Valid and the district leader Richard Drauz, who had failed to pass on to the population the knowledge gained during the air raid on Kassel in October 1943, for example, that leaving the city immediately would result Air raid offered the greatest chance of survival. Instead, the order was given in Heilbronn to go to the shelters and stay there until the all-clear, which led to many victims of suffocation.
It is believed that over 6,500 people died within half an hour of the bombing, including around 1,000 children under the age of 10. The exact number of victims in the bombing is unknown, as hundreds were burned to death or had shrunk to half their normal height in the heat and could not be identified. Due to the heavy rain of sparks and the bombs with time detonators, further fires broke out throughout the night, so that access was only possible after hours, and in some places only after days.
The city hospitals were destroyed; however, the nursing staff had managed to save most of the sick. Only in the eye department and in the children's clinic were there any fatalities. In the Karlsgymnasium , which had been converted into a military hospital , which had only been occupied with wounded from the front in Alsace the evening before the attack, very few were able to save themselves when the building burned. On the day after the attack, 600 to 800 people with burns, smoke and carbon monoxide poisoning, inflammation of the mucous membranes, etc. went to the municipal rescue centers on Wilhelmstrasse and Kaiser-Friedrich-Platz, which had survived the attack slightly damaged. Very many injured people were brought to the completely overcrowded sanatorium in Weinsberg , which had been converted into an emergency hospital .
When the fires went out, the clean-up and rescue work began, for which helpers from the surrounding towns were called in. On the evening of December 5th, loudspeaker vans announced 4,000 dead and 3,000 injured. However, since numerous refugees were staying in the city , similar to the air raids on Dresden in February 1945 , rumors circulating among the population of up to 25,000 dead. On the orders of district leader Richard Drauz, the state police were used to rescue the dead , and they put together rescue teams under the command of a police officer, for which about 50 prisoners from the Neckargartach subcamp were called in . The police took over the seizure of the valuables found on the dead. The dead were first taken to the city cemetery, where their number increased so much that burial in the cemetery itself was out of the question. Since the morgue in the cemetery quickly proved to be too small, the dead were stored outdoors. Also, not enough coffins could be provided, although around 1,000 coffins were delivered from Stuttgart, Ulm and other cities. A commission under the cemetery administrator Ruf inspected a site adjoining the cemetery to the south (the former Schliz property), but also decided that there was not enough space here. Finally, the decision was made to create a cemetery of honor on the edge of the forest in the Köpfertal near the city . The dead were brought to the Köpfertal on transport vehicles. District leader Drauz forbade the burial of those killed in the attack in existing family graves or in external cemeteries, in some cases privately initiated transports of corpses had to be reversed. On December 6th, work began on the cemetery of honor, where ten collective graves were laid on 120 ares, in which at least 5,000 dead are buried.
From December 8, the air raid shelters in the city center were opened and the dead were rescued. 600 people died in the Ehrmann cellar in Klostergasse (Klosterkeller) and 200 people in the Wüst cellar in Lammgasse. In some cellars, the sudden lack of oxygen must have surprised those present, as cellars were often found in which the dead were found sitting in their places without any signs of attempting to escape or panic. In other air-raid shelters, on the other hand, there were probably disputes about whether or not to stay or attempted to escape, as blows and blows were found on the dead and groups of 30 to 40 people were found.
The recovery of the bodies took over three weeks and dragged on until after Christmas 1944. Many dead could not be recovered in particularly badly damaged streets. In the area of Untere Turmstrasse, where the ruins of the city wall buried the cellar, skeletons are still suspected to be in the ground.
Further attacks until the end of the war
From December 27, 1944 to March 31, 1945 there were another 49 air raids, mostly by individual fighter-bombers of the 1st Tactical Air Force. On the afternoon of December 29, 1944, 22 75-gallon napalm bombs fell on the yard. In the night from January 20 to 21, the Neckar bridges and again the marshalling yard were hit in particular. On February 2, two attacks were carried out on the marshalling yard about six hours apart. The station was also the target of attacks on February 11 and 15, 1945. On February 28, 1945, only leaflets with requests to surrender and permits for deserters fell on the city. On March 1, a major attack by 1,200 bombers and 400 escort fighters took place on twelve targets in southern Germany, one of which was again the Heilbronn marshalling yard. On March 25, with seven attacks by small fighter-bomber units, the most attacks within a day were counted. a. destroyed the gasworks that were still functioning until then. From the beginning of April, the attacks were not so much directed at the railway facilities, but focused on the Heilbronn barracks and the defensive positions on the Wartberg and in the Jägerhauswald with a view to the approaching front-line fighting. The last fighter-bomber attack on Heilbronn was on April 12, 1945, targeting troop units and supply camps on the Gaffenberg .
In total, the air raids on Heilbronn resulted in 5,100 of the previously 14,500 buildings being completely destroyed and 3,800 badly damaged. The official buildings and all property owned by the city in the inner city with the exception of the meat shop and the shooting house were destroyed, ten of the city's 14 schools were destroyed. The total damage to the town's property was put on August 12, 1948 at 77 million marks.
Commemoration
The first memorial service for the dead and their blessing took place in the Ehrenfriedhof on August 26, 1945. Every year until today, on December 4th, the victims are remembered in an hour of mourning. The city archive at Heilbronn Town Hall , which was destroyed to the ground in the air raid, was rededicated on December 4, 1963 as a hall of honor for the dead of the World War.
Not only the complete destruction and the subsequent reconstruction, but also the disposal of the rubble have left their mark on the cityscape. Unusable rubble from the city center was poured into the old arm of the Neckar near the Bollwerksturm, whereupon it completely disappeared in the area of today's indoor swimming pool and Europaplatz and the new site was built over. In the Böckingen district, the Böckingen lake was filled with debris from the war and drained; today the Böckingen sports fields are located there.
See also
literature
- Robert Bauer: Heilbronn diary sheets. Self-published, Heilbronn 1949.
- Hubert Bläsi, Christhard Schrenk : Heilbronn 1944/45. Life and death of a city (= sources and research on the history of the city of Heilbronn. Vol. 6). Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1995, ISBN 3-928990-53-5 ( Online as PDF; 22 MB )
- Erwin Bosler: From the days of horror in Heilbronn. Ernst Frantz publishing house, Metzingen 1950
- Wilhelm Steinhilber: Heilbronn. The hardest hours of the city (= publications of the archive of the city of Heilbronn. Vol. 7, ZDB -ID 504306-2 ). Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1961.
Web links
Notes and sources
- ↑ Jörg Friedrich: The fire. Germany in the bombing war 1940–1945 . 11th edition. Propylaea, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-549-07165-5 , p. 83
- ↑ Christhard Schrenk , Hubert Weckbach , Susanne Schlösser: From Helibrunna to Heilbronn. A city history (= publications of the archive of the city of Heilbronn . Volume 36 ). Theiss, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-8062-1333-X , p. 172 .
- ↑ Earlier versions of the article named 11:34 a.m. as the start of the attack, at which time the siren alarm was triggered. There is an on-board photo in the evaluation report SA 2689 that shows explosions as early as 11:32 a.m.
- ↑ Dates and figures from Heilbronn 1944/45, Life and Death of a City , s. Literature.
- ↑ Christhard Schrenk , Hubert Weckbach , Susanne Schlösser: From Helibrunna to Heilbronn. A city history (= publications of the archive of the city of Heilbronn . Volume 36 ). Theiss, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-8062-1333-X , p. 173 .
- ↑ Uwe Jacobi: Heilbronn, as it was . Droste, Düsseldorf 1987, ISBN 3-7700-0746-8 .
- ↑ The memorial book of the city of Heilbronn lists the names of 6,530 dead for this day.
- ↑ Bosler, s. Literature.
- ↑ This number is also mentioned by Robert Bauer in his Heilbronn diary sheets from 1949.
- ↑ Kurt Schatz: Ten years like a century. Heilbronn Chronicle 1944–1955 . Heilbronn 1955, page 4.
