Air raids on Kaiserslautern
Air raids on Kaiserslautern were carried out during the Second World War from 1940 to 1944 on the Rhineland-Palatinate city of Kaiserslautern .
The city was close to the western front at the beginning of the war . During the subsequent war years up to around 1944, it played no role in the strategic planning of the Wehrmacht or the Allies . That changed no later than June 1944 after the Western Allied invasion of Normandy . Kaiserslautern increasingly moved into the strategic interest of the Wehrmacht and the Allies, especially because of its role as a railway junction and the important shunting yard at Einsiedlerhof . From here, trains with soldiers and material were assembled or passed through to the western front.
The first air raid on Kaiserslautern took place as early as 1940. This resulted in some damage, which can still be seen today, on the southern cemetery wall of the main cemetery opposite the Kleber barracks. The first fatalities occurred on September 3, 1941. In a night air raid at 12:30 a.m., a warehouse belonging to the Schreiber grocery store at the old freight yard was hit and four people were killed. The first real major attack occurred due to a misguided US Air Force squadron on January 7, 1944. Like other squadrons, it was supposed to attack Ludwigshafen .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hauptlorenz, E .: The Kaiserslautern area in aerial warfare: air defense - air protection - air raids 1939 to 1945 . In: Rauland (Hrsg.): Series of publications Stadtarchiv Kaiserslautern . 1st edition. tape 8 . City of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern 2005, ISBN 978-3-936036-10-7 , p. 27 .
- ↑ main Lorenz, E .: The Kaiserslautern area in the air war from 1939 to 1945 . In: Rauland, G. (Ed.): Series of publications of the city archive . 1st edition. tape 8 . City of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern 2005, ISBN 978-3-936036-10-7 , p. 37 .