Air raids on Schmalkalden
Schmalkalden was in World War II, twice the target of attacks in England stationed 8th Air Force . This attacked the small town (11,000 inhabitants) on July 20, 1944 and February 6, 1945 with heavy strategic bombers dropping a large tonnage of high explosive and incendiary bombs . Despite many mistakes in the area, significant damage was caused to residential buildings, public buildings and industrial plants. 88 people (in what was then the urban area) died.
The attacks
The two day attacks - which can be described as relatively moderate - were carried out on July 20, 1944 and February 6, 1945 with heavy long-range bombers and accompanying fighters of the 8th Air Force, which had taken off from their bases in England. Both attacks were part of large-scale American air warfare operations against targets in central Germany.
The attack on July 20, 1944
The 2nd Bombardment Division of the 8th Air Force was to attack cities in Thuringia with 480 heavy four-engine bombers of the type B-24 "Liberator" and 47 fighter aircraft of the type P-47 "Thunderbolt" ("Mission 484"). The main destinations were Erfurt-Nord , Gotha and Eisenach . Part of this large association was looking for secondary destinations because of the weather conditions, including Schmalkalden. According to the war diary of the 8th Air Force, Schmalkalden was attacked by 80 B-24 bombers with a bomb load of 246 tons. This would have been enough to reduce the entire city to rubble and ashes, and that's not the case. The evaluation report SA 2344 of the United States Army Air Forces comes to the conclusion, according to the number and type of bombs dropped on Schmalkalden, that they came from 18-19 bombers.
After the observations and investigations in Schmalkalden itself (report of the mayor to the municipal council) the following picture emerges: Around 32 bombers (that would correspond to a bomber group, probably the 458th Bombardment Group) threw - after siren warning at 11.20 a.m. - from 11.30 a.m. at 7 a.m. 10 minutes from a height of 2,000 to 6,000 meters, they can see their bomb load. 355 explosive bombs, 546 funnels of liquid bombs INC 500lbs (very powerful bombs weighing 227 kg with a difficult-to-extinguish benzene-heavy oil rag incendiary mixture) and 60 duds were counted. There were also around 600 electron-thermite stick incendiary bombs (1.7 kg each), which fell mainly in the vicinity of the Näherstille. Of the total of around 1,500 bombs, the eastern and northern parts of the city in particular were hit with "very high property damage": residential houses (56 totally destroyed to moderately damaged), communal facilities, roads, bridges, water pipes, water tanks (on the Queste ) and medium-sized ones Industrial plants. Many false drops in the open area, especially as carpets in the area of the local mountain of the Schmalkaldener, the Queste directly to the east, and on the Weidebrunner Landstrasse prevented an even greater disaster for the city. Even today (2015) there are numerous large bomb craters in the forest of the Queste, which was largely devastated in 1944. The steel shell of one of the fragmentation explosive bombs used is on display in the Wilhelmsburg Museum . The bombers were followed by about 10 escort fighters who, as low- flying aircraft, fired at moving targets with on-board weapons.
55 people died as a result of the July 20 attack. For the 42 victims (including 9 children) who had been rescued by then, a death ceremony took place on July 22nd on the Altmarkt, which was followed by a funeral procession to the cemetery in Eichelbach. There the coffins in the area of the “Heroes' Grove” for the fallen of the First World War were handed over to the earth.
The abundant wood that was left during the bombing of the Quest was primarily used to support the existing public and private air raid shelters.
The attack on February 6, 1945
On this day the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Air Divisions of the 8th Air Force started with 1,383 (effectively 1310) "flying fortresses" of the type B-17 and 780 escort fighters of the type P-51 "Mustang" to attack targets in Saxony and ( today's) Saxony-Anhalt. The sky was cloudy. Secondary targets were shown in Thuringia. The 457th. Bombardment Group of the 1st Air Division received the order to attack Schmalkalden in visual flight as a "target of opportunity" with 4/5 and 5/5 cloudiness. 33 B-17 bombers dropped 77 tons of bombs from 2,000 to 3,000 meters in five minutes. The location of the bomb carpet suggested that the station was the main target. But bombs also hit the city center and the southwest of the half-timbered town (Altmarkt, Haindorfgasse, Entenplan, Sandgasse, Bahnhofstrasse). A large number of bombs also fell in the open area: in the districts of Schmalkalden, Aue , Näherstille and between Herrenbreitungen and Barchfeld . Overall, the bombs dropped on the city were 3–5 mine bombs (probably high-explosive cluster bombs), around 400 explosive bombs (half 227 kg, half 457 kg), 20 incendiary bombs and 8 duds. The property damage was considerably greater than in the first attack. The bombed industry included a crane building factory and a tool, cutlery and metal goods factory as well as the municipal gas works . Around 40 residential buildings were completely destroyed or were in danger of collapsing, 140 were moderately severely affected. The public buildings that were lightly or moderately badly hit included the historic town hall , the town church and the church of the dead , the Thuringian daily newspaper, the Reichsbank and the district office. The reserve hospital in the vocational school, recognizable with the Red Cross symbol, was bombed, as was the vicinity of the district hospital and the Wilhelmsburg restaurant (reserve hospital). The volunteer fire brigades of the surrounding areas helped with the fire fighting and with the rescue of buried people.
Cultural buildings : “The historical buildings in the old town were significantly affected.” Parts of the market development; 2- to 3-storey, partly plastered half-timbered houses from the 16th to 18th centuries (as in Haindorfgasse). The post office on the market square from the end of the 19th century, on an angled floor plan with a tower at the kink and an excellent natural stone facade design, was destroyed on February 6, 1945, together with the neighboring building to the west - a residential and commercial building. The ruins were later removed and replaced by new buildings. The three-storey half - timbered building in the Franconian style at Lutherplatz 5 , from the 17th century, was destroyed. It was an eight-axis building with protruding upper floors and “Wilder Mann” and “Ladder” motifs in the framework.
33 dead and several seriously injured were mourned. Again, it was mostly women and older people, including children. There was again a ceremony of honor on the Altmarkt with musical accompaniment by the Volkssturm band and a funeral procession to the cemetery in Eichelbach.
Other places in southwest Thuringia that were bombed by the 1st Air Division on February 6th as "opportunity targets" were Ohrdruf , Eisfeld , Waltershausen , Friedrichroda and Steinbach-Hallenberg .
The damage to property and the number of casualties mentioned for both air strikes relate only to the area of the city at that time, not including the places that were later incorporated, such as Näherstille and Wernshausen.
Burial place
The 55 bomb victims from July 20, 1944 and the 33 bomb victims from February 6, 1945 were buried in the cemetery in Eichelbach (northwest of the Elisabeth Hospital). The grave site of the bomb victims is no longer specifically identified as such (2015) and is therefore not recognizable to visitors. It is located on a large lawn (below the cemetery church), in the middle of which there is a memorial from the GDR era with the text “To the victims of fascism and militarism”. After the fall of the Wall , four large stone slabs with the 180 names of the bomb victims and soldiers who died in Schmalkalden (information from the cemetery administration) were made and placed on the site as floor slabs. Of these 180 German war dead, 112 are soldiers, 21 civil men, 34 women and 13 children. Apparently only a part of the 88 bomb victims is recorded on the name boards.
Memorial on burial ground with bomb victims and soldiers, Schmalkalden cemetery
Bomb victims and soldiers in the cemetery, one of 4 floor tiles with names
Mass graves in the cemetery, stone slabs with 4 x 45 names on both sides below
literature
- Roger A. Freeman: Mighty Eighth War Diary . JANE'S. London, New York, Sydney 1981. ISBN 0 7106 00 38 0
- Lothar Günther: Missions and Fates in the Air War over Southwest Thuringia 1944/1945 . Wehry-Verlag, Untermaßfeld 2014. ISBN 978-3-9815-3076-6
- Wieland Jung: The air raids on Schmalkalden in 1944 and 1945. A documentation of the city and district archives . Schmalkalder history sheets of the association for Hessian history and regional studies eV Kassel, branch association Schmalkalden. Issue 2/1995. Schmalkalden 1995. ISSN 0946-5790 . Pp. 141-158
- Rudolf Zießler: Schmalkalden (district of Schmalkalden) . In: Fate of German Monuments in the Second World War . Edited by Götz Eckardt. Henschel-Verlag, Berlin 1978. Volume 2. pp. 528-529
Individual evidence
- ^ Roger A. Freeman: Mighty Eighth War Diary . 1981
- ↑ Lothar Günther: Missions and fates in the air war over Southwest Thuringia . 2014. pp. 231–232
- ↑ Lothar Günther: Missions and fates in the air war over Southwest Thuringia . 2014. p. 233
- ^ Wieland Jung: The air raids on Schmalkalden in 1944 and 1945 . 1995
- ^ Wieland Jung: The air raids on Schmalkalden in 1944 and 1945 . 1995
- ^ Wieland Jung: The air raids on Schmalkalden in 1944 and 1945 . 1995
- ^ Lothar Günther: Missions and Fates in the Air War over Southwest Thuringia 1944/1945 . 2014. p. 304 ff
- ↑ Rudolf Zießler: Schmalkalden . In: Fate of German Monuments in the Second World War . Edited by Götz Eckardt. Berlin 1978. Volume 2. pp. 528-529
- ^ Wieland Jung: The air raids on Schmalkalden in 1944 and 1945 . 1995. pp. 156-157
- ↑ https://www.wochenspiegel-thueringen.de/bpws/nachrichten/schmalkalden/art280396,5833583
