Air raids on Ulm

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During the Second World War there were heavy air raids on Ulm . The heaviest air raid took place on December 17, 1944, in which hundreds of people were killed or injured . Around 25,000 people became homeless as a result of this attack on Ulm alone . By the end of the war, 1710 aerial warfare victims had been recorded and 81% of the historic old town had been destroyed. Only 1,763 of the 12,756 buildings in the city remained intact. The Ulm Minster stopped and towered over the surrounding ruins.

1940 to autumn 1944

A first air raid hit Klingenstein a few kilometers west of Ulm on June 4, 1940 , killing 5 people. The number of air raids rose in the following years from 11 (1941) to 19 (1942) and continued to increase in 1943. However, bombing remained the exception and caused damage to property at best. From the end of February 1944, the number of air raids increased considerably both at night and during the day. On March 16, 1944, the first daytime attack took place, led by a USAAF fleet (on the return flight from an attack on Augsburg ), which killed 10 people. From July 1944, further air raids took place, with the Ulm freight station (intersection of important railway lines from the Rhine via Munich to the oil fields in Romania and the theater of war in Italy) and the Magirus works (production of heavy military vehicles and fire extinguishers) as important individual targets. An attack on August 9, 1944 claimed 57 victims, and on September 10 and 13, 49 and 32 dead respectively.

December 17, 1944

The attack on December 17th was the only major attack by the British Bomber Command on the city center of Ulm under the Area Bombing Directive . On the outskirts of Ulm there were several facilities that were important to the war effort: the Magirus-Deutz and Kässbohrer truck factories as well as Wehrmacht barracks and depots. A total of 1,449 tons of bombs were dropped during the 25-minute attack. The main target area was the city center ( Münsterplatz ). Ulm's old town was selected as the core area of ​​the attack, as the proportion of wood in the total building mass was highest here. It thus represented the ideal target area for igniting a firestorm . From here, the area to be bombed extended westwards to the industrial areas and railway facilities. Large parts of the old town, the Gallwitz barracks and several military hospitals and industrial plants were destroyed. The air attack proceeded as follows: Before the bombardment, the target area was illuminated with light elements (so-called Christmas trees) and demarcated from mosquito high-speed bombers by red and green markers. This was monitored by a master bomber flying at high altitude, which was connected to the marker pilots via radio. Then the master bomber checked the Ulm target area again on a deeper flight path, determined the exact approach heights and directions and released the attack. First, thousands of high-explosive bombs and dozens of air mines were dropped. The roofs were torn open and windows were destroyed by the pressure waves from the explosions. Then tens of thousands of stick bombs were dropped over the target area, which fell into the torn roof trusses of the houses and set them on fire within a very short time. Within a short period of time, thousands of smaller building fires expanded into one major fire, which - favored by the overall weather situation and wind direction - led to the emergence of a firestorm. The attack of December 17, 1944 was carried out with 317 Avro Lancaster bombers and 13 light de Havilland Mosquito bombers of No. 1 Bomber Group and No. 8 bomber group of the RAF. Two Lancaster bombers were shot down by German flak. The attack officially claimed 707 lives. 613 people were wounded.

1945

Further attacks hit Ulm from February to April 1945, which caused considerable destruction even in areas of the city that had not yet been hit. On February 22, 1945, 206 people were killed, including at least 155 in the collapse of a public air raid shelter in the Söflingen district . An even larger fleet than on December 17, 1944, bombed Ulm on March 1, 1945, killing 479 people. Further attacks followed, increasingly also by low-flying aircraft with on-board weapons. Another 91 people died on April 19, 1945. Only the occupation of the city on April 24, 1945 by Allied troops advancing from the west meant the end of the bombing.

See also

literature

  • Rudi Kübler: December 17, 1944: The destruction of Ulm . 1st edition. Verlag Klemm + Oelschläger, Ulm 2019, ISBN 978-3-86281-147-2 (140 pages).
  • Jörg Friedrich: Der Brand , Ullstein Verlag, Munich, 2002
  • Hans Eugen Specker, Irene Specker: The air raids on Ulm . In: Hans Eugen Specker (ed.): Ulm in the Second World War . Research on the history of the city of Ulm, Vol. 6, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, 1995. ISBN 3-17-009254-5 , pp. 409–457.
  • Elvira Lauscher: Ulm im Wandel , Wartberg Verlag, 2011. ISBN 978-3-8313-2239-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Royal Air Force Campaign Diary December 1944 ( Memento of October 3, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Friedrich, Jörg, 2002, title: Der Brand, Ullstein Verlag, Munich. P. 523 f.
  3. ^ Royal Air Force Campaign Diary December 1944 ( Memento of October 3, 2006 in the Internet Archive )