Air raids on Leipzig
The air raids on Leipzig caused severe damage to the city of Leipzig during World War II . The attacks were carried out by units of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). A total of 11,427 tons of bombs were dropped on Leipzig , 6,206 tons by the RAF and 5221 tons by the USAAF
The heaviest air raid was carried out in the morning hours of December 4, 1943 by the British RAF and claimed over 1,800 lives. The city center was largely destroyed, while the industrial plants only suffered temporary production losses and were later partially relocated or decentralized.
In the air war of World War II about 6,000 people have died in Leipzig.
Importance as a target
In the "Greater German Reich" of 1939, the "Reichsmessestadt" Leipzig was on the list of the largest German cities with over 700,000 inhabitants in sixth place, including Vienna .
Particularly important for the warfare was the Erla machine works with the assembly and parts production of Bf-109 fighter planes in its four Leipzig factories Heiterblick (Plant I; Wodanstraße), Mockau Airport (Plant II; Vierzehn-Trees-Weg), Abtnaundorf ( Plant III; Theklaer Str./Heiterblickstraße) and Pfaffendorf (Plant V in the worsted spinning mill north of the Congress Hall ). As another major air armament company, the Großzschocher- based Allgemeine Transportanlagen-Gesellschaft manufactured aircraft parts and complete machines ( Ju 52 / 3m and Ju 88 / Ju 188 ) at seven locations in Leipzig . In Wahren , the Büssing - NAG plant (until 1926 Dux-Automobil-Werke ) built engines and chassis for 8-wheel armored scout vehicles ( Sd.Kfz. 231 / type GS, from 1943 Sd.Kfz. 234 / type ARK). The at Leipzig Portitz newly built in the 1930s Mitteldeutsche Motorenwerke (starting in 1939 with headquarters in diving ) built Junkers - aircraft engines ( Jumo 205 , Jumo 211 and Jumo 213 ) and parts for the jet engine Jumo 004 . In addition to smaller factories such as Opta-Radio (formerly Körting ) in Stötteritz , the main HASAG factory in Paunsdorf (today's Leipzig Science Park ) was of great military importance. The third largest German armaments company at the time produced ammunition for infantry ( caliber 7.92 ), anti- aircraft guns and light on-board weapons, as well as the fist cartridge and bazooka for fighting tanks.
A considerable amount of troops and material was transported by the Deutsche Reichsbahn via the Leipzig railway junction with its two marshalling yards, Wahren and Engelsdorf .
It was not until after two British area bombings of Leipzig in October and December 1943 that the now US air raids also targeted the armaments industry in the north of the city.
Attacks
Plans and first attacks
Due to the long approach route from Great Britain, Saxony was considered relatively safe from air raids, but this changed in the course of 1943 with the increased use of heavy four-engine planes of the types Stirling , Halifax and Lancaster at the RAF. As early as August 1940 there were plans to bomb Leipzig under the code name "Haddock" ( haddock ) in the files of the British RAF Bomber Command . The deputy of Arthur Harris , Commander in Chief of Bomber Command, was Air Vice-Marshal Robert Saundby , who, as an avid fisherman , provided a fish code to all of the German cities that were coming into selection . An air raid to mark the opening of the Leipzig Trade Fair on August 25, 1940 or immediately afterwards was expected to result in a demonstration of British air power on the visitors from all over Europe. However, the twin-engine bombers launched on the night of August 25th to 26th 1940 did not find the city of Leipzig.
On March 27, 1943, a major fire was triggered by emergency drops by a British aircraft in Gohlis . On the night of August 31st to September 1st there was a weak British attack that hit Eutritzsch and Schönefeld and resulted in four deaths.
October 20, 1943
For this first planned area bombing of Leipzig, 350 four-engine long-range Lancaster bombers of the British RAF were launched in eastern England , of which 287 reached the city. The planned target of this evening attack from 8:56 p.m. to 9:34 p.m. was the city center. However, due to poor visibility and dense clouds, the 1085 tons of bombs dropped in particular hit the southern and eastern parts of the city and suburbs such as Stötteritz , Engelsdorf , Paunsdorf and Sommerfeld . However, a total of 6,250 damaged areas were registered in other parts of the city, at the main train station, in the graphic quarter and in the clinic quarter (45 destroyed and 1,872 damaged houses). 38 people died and 681 were injured. The RAF registered the fragmented attack as a failure.
December 4, 1943
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prehistory
As it had done throughout 1943, the Royal Air Force launched an air raid on Berlin on the night of December 2-3. The German night fight had meanwhile adjusted and shot down 40 bombers. The following night Leipzig was the target, the approach route being designed in such a way that the German air defense remained in the dark about the target of the bomber fleet for as long as possible and the attack did not take place until the early hours of the morning. Such tactics, which are more dangerous for the bomber units, were not expected on the German side, since the bombers would then have to fly back in the beginning of daylight and would be easier to fight by fighter pilots.
course
The route of the bomber association, 527 four-engined bombers of the types Halifax and Lancaster , crossed the coast of the mainland over the Zuidersee , then led in an easterly direction over northern Germany to Berlin and turned south over the city of Brandenburg . Between 3:50 and 4:25 a.m., 442 bombers dropped a total of almost 1,400 t of high explosive and incendiary bombs . Specifically, there were 280,000 stick bombs , 12,500 phosphorus incendiary bombs , 312 phosphorus canisters , 450 high-explosive bombs and 310 mine bombs . The air raid alarm was given at 3:39 a.m. and the all-clear was given at 5:32 a.m.
In the densely built-up city center, a firestorm developed after the attack through the confluence of over 5,000 individual fires . According to the assessment of the general inspector for fire extinguishing, Hans Rumpf , who happened to be in Leipzig at the time of the attack, its intensity even exceeded that of the Hamburg firestorm during " Operation Gomorrah ". The night before, the Leipzig fire police had to send half of their forces to Berlin to help. The fire brigades summoned from the surrounding area were often unable to fight fires effectively because their hoses did not fit the special connections of the Leipzig hydrants , of which only around 30% had been converted to standardized connections. The water supply also collapsed due to the massive pipe destruction.
Victims and damage from December 4th
In the British air raid on December 4, 1943, 1,815 people were killed and 60 remained missing. In addition, almost 4,000 people were injured. This number of victims is lower than expected for such a severe attack, as many residents did not adhere to the order to stay in the cellars until the all-clear, but instead fled or fought fires in good time. 806 seriously injured and 3749 slightly injured were registered. 114,000 Leipzig residents were left homeless.
In the city center in particular, many historical buildings fell victim to the bombs, such as the Old and New Theater , the New Stock Exchange , the ship of the Johanniskirche , the Alte Waage , the Matthäikirche , the Museum of Fine Arts , the Main Post Office , the Crystal Palace and the Augusteum , the main building of the university. The roof of the old town hall burned out; a concrete ceiling pulled in during a renovation at the beginning of the 20th century prevented the floors below from burning out. Furthermore, the destruction of 1,067 commercial buildings, 472 factory buildings, 56 schools, 29 exhibition halls and 9 churches was recorded. Of the 92 institutes at Leipzig University, 58 were hit and partially or completely destroyed. Of the 32,500 residential buildings, 15,200 were affected, of which over 5000 were completely destroyed or severely damaged and over 10,000 were moderately damaged. The arms industry suffered little damage.
According to the preliminary official final report of December 30, 1943, mainly the city center within the ring, the areas immediately adjacent to the west, north and east as well as the entire southern suburb were severely affected. The adjacent areas in the north and east were slightly affected, while no damage had occurred in the outer west, south-west and north-west. Around 140,000 people were left homeless.
February 20, 1944
Double attack : During the so-called Big Week , Leipzig was one of the first targets to be attacked by British and US bombers. On February 20, 1944, between 3:15 and 4:20 a.m., residential areas in the south ( Connewitz ) and residential and industrial areas in the south-west of Leipzig ( Schleußig and Großzschocher ) were hit by the RAF . In this British night raid with over 700 (820) four-engine bombers, mostly Lancaster, almost 2300 tons of bombs fell. On the afternoon of the same day, 239 B-17 “Flying Fortress” of the 8th Air Force dropped 843 tons of bombs on the aircraft works and the surrounding area at Mockau Airport in the northeast of the city. The heavy bombers were accompanied by hundreds of long-range fighter planes / fighter bombers, as had always been the case since late 1943: P-51 Mustang , P-47 Thunderbolt and P-38 Lightning . Among other things, the (second) Gewandhaus was destroyed by the attacks . It also affected the University of Music , the Imperial Court , the university library and large parts of the music district and residential areas.
A total of about 972 people were killed and 1658 were wounded - most of them in the British night raid. As a result of the US daytime attack, some of the factories affected were severely damaged, for example 65% of the Erla machine works in Heiterblick . In May 1944, aircraft production at Erla was still not fully operational again, while the other affected operations were back to work by then.
The RAF lost 78 of the machines deployed to anti-aircraft and anti-aircraft guns; it was one of their most costly ventures of the war.
Airplanes of the 8th Air Force flew further attacks on Leipzig's industrial and transport facilities from spring 1944 to April 1945.
May 29, 1944
28 Flying Fortresses B-17 dropped 70 tons of bombs on Leipzig.
June 29, 1944
90 B-17s dropped 215 tons of bombs on Leipzig.
July 7, 1944
308 B-17s dropped 748 tons of bombs on Leipzig and its surroundings. In this attack, other traffic systems were the target in addition to the main train station . A direct hit on a final arch caused the roof of the cross platform of the main station to collapse.
July 20, 1944
101 B-17s dropped 222 tons of bombs, especially on Leipzig- Mockau .
In total, around 505 people were killed in these four attacks.
December 6, 1944
For the first time, Leutzsch in the far west of the city and the adjacent suburb of Böhlitz-Ehrenberg were attacked by the US Air Force.
In the course of attacks on targets in the vicinity of Leipzig, such as the hydrogenation plants for the production of synthetic gasoline in Leuna , Böhlen ( lignite-petrol AG ) and Zeitz , bombs were dropped on Leipzig as an alternative target.
In February and March 1945 the air raids increased. Not a day went by without an air raid alarm. Companies, transport facilities and apartments have now been systematically destroyed.
February 27, 1945
On that day, the 8th Air Force, which had previously bombed mainly “point targets”, flew two consecutive area attacks with a total of 724 B-17s and 1947 tons of bombs over the entire city area, killing 1,044 people.
April 6, 1945
The 8th Air Force attacked Leipzig again: with 321 B-17s, hundreds of escort fighters and 829 tons of bombs. 367 (733) people were killed.
April 10, 1945
Now the British RAF launched another double attack . At the time of day 230 bombed Lancaster, Halifax and Mosquito , especially the targets Mockau and Engelsdorf . On the night of April 11th, 97 Lancaster and Mosquito followed with a focus on preserving . There were 337 dead.
In the last ten days of the Western Allied bombing war against Germany, which was officially ended on April 15, 1945, over 700 people died again.
On April 18, one week after the last major attack, the 69th Infantry Division of the 1st US Army took Leipzig.
consequences
More than 5000 - according to other information about 6000 people - fell victim to the air raids. Most of them were from Leipzig, but also evacuated, refugees from the eastern regions of the German Reich , members of the Wehrmacht, as well as forced laborers and prisoners of war .
A large part of the building stock in the densely built-up city center was badly damaged or completely destroyed. A total of 40% of the apartments and 80% of the exhibition stands were destroyed or badly damaged. The area between Richard-Wagner-Straße and Brühl and the area bounded by Katharinenstraße, Salzgäßchen, Schuhmachergäßchen and Reichsstraße were largely destroyed. This changed the appearance of the city center considerably. Between Katharinenstrasse and Reichsstrasse as well as Brühl and Böttchergäßchen, all the ruins were removed and the Sachsenplatz was built , which has been the location of the new Museum of Fine Arts since 2004 .
On Karl-Marx-Platz (since 1990 Augustusplatz ), all buildings on the east side, with the exception of the Europahaus , were badly hit in the air raids and were cleared. On the western side, the university church and the Kroch high-rise had only minor damage. While the Königsbau and Mehringhaus were being reconstructed, the ruins of the Museum of Fine Arts and the New Theater were torn down in the 1950s . The old building ensemble of the University of Augusteum , Albertinum and Johanneum was blown up together with the intact university church in 1968 to make room for the new Karl Marx University . The former location of the picture museum on the southern edge of Karl-Marx-Platz remained undeveloped for the time being, as the construction of a new auditorium maximum for the university was planned there in the 1960s . After the space was used for a concrete plant, which was created for the new university complex and remained in operation for several years after its completion, today's Gewandhaus was built there from 1977 to 1981 .
In the music quarter, which was the imperial court building destroyed by a third. After the renovation, the Museum of Fine Arts moved there in May 1952. The ruins of the Gewandhaus ( Neues Concerthaus ) not far away had an emergency roof and was structurally secured after the war, but was removed in 1968. Other historic buildings such as the tower of the Johanniskirche in the Ostvorstadt also fell victim to the demolition in the 1960s.
The 539,000 bombs on Leipzig left around 4.6 million cubic meters of rubble . A large part of the rubble railways drove to the former farm meadows in the southern suburbs and filled up the Fockeberg there. A third of this (around 1.5 million cubic meters) was used to build the central stadium in the mid-1950s .
An estimated 10 to 15 percent of the explosive and incendiary bombs dropped were duds , including many with long-term detonators . The air raids of the Second World War are still present today when they are found in the course of construction work or when evaluating old aerial photographs and cleared by the police's ordnance disposal service.
Burial and memorial sites
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By order of the Mayor of Leipzig, Alfred Freyberg , the victims of the Allied air raids on Leipzig were buried in a grove of honor on the southern cemetery. The massive number of deaths made it necessary to expand the cemetery from 63 hectares (1923) to 82 hectares. Alone after the heavy British night attack on 3rd / 4th December 1943 there were over 1800, a total of 4500 civilian victims, who were buried in the south cemetery. The original individual row graves with uniformly designed wooden crosses in the form of iron crosses have not been preserved. You can get an impression of their appearance from a photo from 1945 on an information board on the edge of the memorial for the bomb victims in the southern cemetery. The swastikas on the wooden crosses have been made unrecognizable. 3474 of the dead rest on what is now Department XXVIII. This is at the southeast gate of the cemetery.
Within the entire complex, an artistically designed partial cemetery was created in 1998 for 1,242 victims of the air raids from February to April 1945. Sixty large steles with the names of the dead named in groups form a St. Andrew's Cross , at the center of which a memorial was erected in 1998 . The three steles (for three years) in the top left corner give an overview of how many victims the city of Leipzig had to complain about in the bombings. For each of the years 1943, 1944 and 1945 there is an overview of the number of victims on which day. The architectural design of the entire complex, the central monument and the 60 individual steles including the font design was created by Dipl.-Ing. Ing.Jörg Hasse, the municipal garden monument curator of the Leipzig cemeteries from 1995 to 2001. He also initiated the international youth camp to repair the entire complex. The bronze sculpture created by Marie-Luise Bauerschmidt was originally not intended for the bomb victims' memorial in Leipzig, but was created before 1989 for a park. Due to the turmoil in 1989, this sculpture was initially not installed and was stored in the basement of the Monument to the Battle of the Nations. When designing the tomb, Jörg Hasse made this interpretation at that time: The "mourning youth" "looks searchingly up into the sky and thus points in the direction from which the misfortune came. His left hand points in the direction of the inscription ... “in order to be able to use the sculpture for this purpose. The inscription "THE BOMB VICTIMS OF THE CITY OF LEIPZIG 1943–1945", to which the young man points, was also designed by Jörg Hasse. This prehistory of the sculpture also explains why it is not - as is actually obvious - a young mother who is at the center of the facility, but a youth.
The partial cemetery described, organized by the city's green space and cemetery office, goes back in particular to the deployment of soldiers from the Bundeswehr from Erndtebrück in Westphalia and the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge with an international youth camp in 1998, as indicated by a memorial plaque on site. The Leipzig-Leutzsch reservist comradeship was also involved.
Elsewhere in the collective grave with the bombed dead is a high cross made of reddish granite with the inscription in the base: "THE VICTIMS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR CLAIM".
Adjacent to the bomb dead - on parts of Division XXVII - are the emphatically inconspicuous planted grave fields with German soldiers . They are not recognizable as such and without individual grave marks. Nine floor slabs together name around 600 names of those buried here, sorted according to the years of death 1940 to 1945. They were those who died in the Leipzig hospitals , but also victims of the air raids.
Most of the foreign bomb victims were buried in the East Cemetery in Leipzig .
Pictures of the gravesites of the bomb victims at the Südfriedhof Leipzig (July 2019)
Bomb victims and soldiers (WWII) in the south cemetery
Memorial cross "The victims of the Second World War accuse"
Floor plan of the partial cemetery from 1998
Stele with names of bomb victims April 6, 1945
Row of 60 steles, partial view
Panel: The Bundeswehr and Volksbund established this partial cemetery in 1998
Row graves with bomb victims
Mass graves with bomb victims
Mass graves with bomb victims
Partial view of the facility with the bombs killed in 1945 (photo from information board)
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literature
- Götz Bergander : Dresden in the air war. 2nd Edition; Böhlau Verlag, Weimar, Cologne, Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-412-10193-1 .
- Roger A. Freeman: Mighty Eighth War Diary. JANE'S, London, New York, Sydney 1981, ISBN 0 7106 0038 0 .
- Olaf Groehler : Death at dawn. In: Flieger-Revue H. 6/1984, S. 178-182 u. H. 7/1984 pp. 210-214.
- Olaf Groehler : bombing war against Germany. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-05-000612-9 .
- Birgit Horn: Leipzig in the hail of bombs - target "Haddock". On the effects of the Allied air raids on the city of Leipzig in World War II. Leipzig calendar. Special tape. Edited by the Leipzig City Archives. Schmidt-Römhild Verlag, Leipzig 1998, ISBN 3-7950-3906-1 .
- Birgit Horn-Kolditz: The night when death by fire fell from the sky. Leipzig, December 4, 1943. (German cities in the bombing war), Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2003, ISBN 3-8313-1340-7 .
- Mark Lehmstedt (Ed.): Leipzig is burning. The downfall of old Leipzig on December 4, 1943 in photographs and reports. Lehmstedt Verlag, Leipzig 2003, ISBN 3-937146-06-7 .
- Mark Lehmstedt (ed.): Leipzig in ruins. The year 1945 in letters, diaries and photographs. Lehmstedt-Verlag, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-937146-16-4 .
Web links
- Birgit Horn: Target "Haddock". Chronological listing of the bombing raids on Leipzig , viewed on May 25, 2018.
Individual evidence
- ^ Olaf Groehler : Bomb war against Germany. 1990, p. 432.
- ↑ Lehmstedt, 2003, p. 264.
- ↑ a b Groehler, p. 178.
- ↑ Fish code names , (British original, PDF; 292 kB), German translation (PDF; 214 kB), on: bunkermuseum.de ( Bunkermuseum Emden ), accessed on September 26, 2017
- ↑ Lehmstedt, p. 26 and Bergander, p. 404.
- ^ Olaf Groehler: Bomb war against Germany. 1990, p. 202.
- ^ RAF Bomber Command Campaign Diary, December 1943 ( Memento of July 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Olaf Groehler: Bomb war against Germany. 1990, p. 205.
- ↑ Groehler, pp. 178, 211.
- ↑ Lehmstedt, p. 263 and Groehler, p. 211.
- ↑ a b Groehler, p. 211.
- ↑ Jörg Friedrich : The fire. Germany in the bombing war 1940–1945. P. 348.
- ↑ Birgit Horn: 2003, p. 54.
- ^ AC Grayling: The Dead Cities. Were the Allied bombing war crimes? Munich 2009, p. 371.
- ↑ Lehmstedt, p. 35.
- ↑ wounds. 50 years after the destruction of Leipzig. (Catalog for the exhibition from December 4, 1993 to February 20, 1994 in the Old Town Hall in Leipzig), Verlag Kunst und Touristik, Leipzig 1993, ISBN 3-928802-34-8 , pp. 31–35.
- ^ Siegfried Hoyer; Lothar Rathmann (Ed.): Alma mater Lipsiensis. History of the Karl Marx University Leipzig. Edition Leipzig, Leipzig 1984, p. 268.
- ^ Olaf Groehler: Bomb war against Germany. 1990, pp. 208-209.
- ↑ Horn, p. 201 ff.
- ↑ Horn, p. 56.
- ↑ a b Groehler, p. 214.
- ↑ Horn, p. 57.
- ↑ List (PDF)
- ↑ Birgit Horn, 2003, p. 27.
- ↑ Birgit Horn: The night when death by fire fell from the sky. 2003, p. 27.
- ↑ Birgit Horn: The night when death fell from the sky by fire. 2003, p. 27.
- ^ AC Grayling: The Dead Cities. Were the Allied bombing war crimes? Munich 2009, p. 388.
- ↑ Groehler, p. 214 and Bergander, p. 409.
- ↑ Birgit Horn, 2003, p. 63.
- ↑ Lehmstedt, 2003, p. 264.
- ^ Post-war period: Museum and studio. bverwg.de, accessed on December 15, 2013 .
- ↑ Beate Berger: Retrospectives Leipzig 1989–1999. A chronicle. Ed .: City of Leipzig, the Lord Mayor, the Leipzig City Archives, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, ISBN 3-934565-23-9 , p. 1998.
- ^ Draft by Jörg Hasse for a memorial to the bomb victims
- ↑ Katrin Löffler, Iris Schöpa, Heidrun Sprinz: The Leipzig South Cemetery. In it page bomb victims of the Second World War. Messedruck Leipzig, 2000, ISBN 3-361-00526-4 , p. 175.