Air raids on Rees

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British dud at Rees (1943)
Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks , chief of British XXX. Corps , on March 26, 1945 with its field commanders on the destroyed market square in Rees

The air strikes on Rees were part of the Allied air strikes during World War II . The city of Rees on the Lower Rhine was attacked several times from the air. The first bomb fell on Rees on May 10, 1940 and fell on the Fährkopf. On July 20, 1944, bombs hit a butcher's shop and the goods handling department of the Kleinbahn. Six people died. Another six people died in an attack on September 11, 1944, as well as in another air raid on November 23, 1944. On the evening of October 23, 1944, bombs fell on the edge of the (old) town center, in the area where the goods are handled Stadtgarten and the Bust nursery. One woman died in the attack. Nine people lost their lives in a night attack on December 11, 1944 when the hospital's nursing home was hit.

history

In February 1945 the population of Rees had already been warned. There were air raids every day , and shelter was sought in cellars and bunkers as aircraft formations were crossing the city. Several air raids on other cities on the Lower Rhine had taken place, so it was only a matter of time before Rees was also bombed. Many people had already left the city and sought refuge outside of the city. It is estimated that of the city's 4,900 residents, only about 1,600 stayed in the city at night. On February 14, 1945 there was another attack in which nine people were killed.

Two days later, on Friday, February 16, 1945, Rees was bombed so massively by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) at 12:00 noon that 76% of the city area was destroyed and 32 people died. This day is considered to be the “blackest day” in Reeser's almost 800-year history.

465 dead and 85 missing from Rees fell victim to World War II.

Allied bombing raids on the Lower Rhine (February 1945)

Importance as a target

The attacks on Rees served to prepare the Allies for the Rhine crossing on the Lower Rhine ( Operation Plunder ), which took place on March 23, 1945 in Wesel , Xanten and Rees. Two days later, on March 25, 1945 (Palm Sunday) at 12:00 noon, the Rees-Groin forced labor camp was liberated and the German soldiers still present were taken prisoner.

The air raid on February 16, 1945

In the air raid on Rees on Friday, February 16, 1945 shortly after 12:00 p.m., 32 people died. 76% of the houses in the city were destroyed.

There had been tense unrest among the population for days. It was known that an attack on the city was imminent. It was also known that British and American troops fought on the other side of the Rhine and were preparing to cross the Rhine. Around noon, eyewitnesses saw a bomber squadron with fighter protection flying parallel to the Rhine towards the east at Rhine kilometer 838 on the left bank of the Rhine. Since Allied bomber units crossed the city every day, no one suspected that this unit would attack the city. The squadron crossed the Rhine, turned around and came from the direction of Aspel and Groin on Reichsstraße 8 (today B 8 ) towards the center of Rees.

About ten minutes before the attack, an air raid alarm had sounded at the town hall with the hand siren - there was no more electricity in the city in February 1945 . The people fled to the nearest cellar. High-explosive and incendiary bombs exploded in Dellstrasse, Kapitelstrasse, Rünkelstrasse, on the Westring, on the church square. It was hardly possible to extinguish it because too many houses were burning and the Rees fire brigade was deployed in Oberhausen that day and, also due to the bombing of Wesel, only arrived in Rees in the evening. After this attack, the population fled the city to the already overpopulated areas in the area.

During the attack on the city, the town hall, the Protestant and Catholic churches and the last two city gates, the Rhine and crane gates, were destroyed. The hospital could be saved. In the late afternoon the sick and wounded were brought in a long train in their mobile beds via Reichsstrasse 8 to the Aspel monastery.

Remembering the Nazi era and the Second World War

To commemorate the victims of National Socialism and the Second World War, there are various memorial sites in Rees' public space:

  • In the Reeser Stadtgarten there is a memorial that commemorates the bombing on February 16, 1945. Basalt stone chunks represent the bombed church towers of St. Mary's Assumption in the center.
  • At the bus station, a memorial commemorates the Jewish citizens who came from Rees and who fell victim to the Nazi regime. There, too, the approx. 5,000 forced laborers are commemorated, mainly men from the Netherlands , who had to build defensive positions in the Rees area from late 1944 to March 1945.
  • The Cologne artist Gunter Demnig commemorates the victims of the Nazi era on 34 stumbling blocks across the city .
  • A display case on Melatenweg reminds of the Rees-Groin forced labor camp.

Literature and Sources

  • Hermann Voß: Memories of the Destruction of the City of Rees , in: RESSA - Reeser Geschichtsverein: Reeser Geschichtsfreund No. 13/2020 , Rees 2019, pp. 89–99.
  • Martin Willing: March 23rd - start of the Allied major offensive with crossing the Rhine (Chapter 16), In: Bloody Winter. The last weeks of World War II. Kevelaer 2012. (published on the Internet atblattus.de)
  • Horst Boog , Werner Rahn , Reinhard Stumpf, Bernd Wegner : The German Reich and the Second World War . Volume 6: The global war - the expansion to the world war and the change of initiative 1941 to 1943 . Edited by the Military History Research Office of the Bundeswehr . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-421-06233-1 .
  • Helmut Schnatz: The destruction of the German cities and the victims. In: Hessian State Center for Political Education: The bombing war and its victims. ( Memento from September 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (= Polis. No. 39). Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 44. (PDF)
  • Jörg Friedrich: The fire. Germany in the bombing war 1940–1945. 2nd Edition. Propylaeen publishing house, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-549-07165-5 .
  • Ruben Thiel / Johannes Gohl / Kai Kempkes / Benedikt Rösen, The situation towards the end of the war in the Rees area. Everyday life in National Socialism . Rees 1983 (107 A4 pages).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. the chronicle of the Reeser history of the history association Ressa ressa.de ( Memento of the original from June 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ressa.de
  2. ↑ see also: Michael Scholten, end of the war 70 years ago. "Like a huge death torch" , from: rp-online.de, May 9, 2015.
  3. ↑ See: H. Voss: Memories of the Destruction of the City of Rees , in: RESSA - Reeser Geschichtsverein: Reeser Geschichtsfreund No. 13/2020 , Rees 2019, pp. 89-99.
  4. ↑ See below the list of air raids on the Lower Rhine in the first half of February 1945.
  5. ↑ See the chronicle of the city of Rees: rees-erleben.de
  6. ↑ See above all: Martin Willing: Bloody War. The last weeks of the world war .
  7. ↑ See also: Air raids on Wesel
  8. ↑ See H. Voss: Memories of the Destruction of the City of Rees , in: RESSA - Reeser Geschichtsverein: Reeser Geschichtsfreund No. 13/2020 , Rees 2019, pp. 89-99.
  9. ↑ See: Dennis Breuer, The resistance at the Rhine crossing of the Allies , in: Reeser Geschichtsverein (ed.), Reeser Geschichtsfreund No. 10/2017, Rees 2016, pp. 16–24.
  10. ↑ See: rp-online.de