Air raids on Worms

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The city of Worms was repeatedly the target of Allied air raids during the Second World War , after selective bombs had been dropped over the city area as early as the First World War . The two heaviest air raids in February and March 1945 destroyed large parts of the city center, the industrial areas south of it and the railway facilities in the vicinity of the main station . In total, around 700 residents of Worms were killed in the air raids in World War II.

First World War

In the night of July 6th to 7th, 1917, about twenty bombs were dropped on Worms, most of which hit the field.

Second World War

Overview

The first air raid on Worms during the Second World War took place on June 20, 1940; 70 sheep were killed in the open field. At least three more attacks followed by the end of 1940, leading to damage to buildings and infrastructure. For the following years from 1941 to 1945, an incomplete list by the city archivist Fritz Reuter documented 21 moderate and severe attacks, almost all of them with fatalities. The attacks of 8./9. September 1944, from 5./6. January, February 21 and March 18, 1945.

The first evacuation measures began in the summer of 1943 in the city, which officially had around 58,000 inhabitants after the incorporation in 1942. In the autumn of 1944 they were tightened and the schools closed; Children and their mothers in particular were housed outside of the city as part of the extended children's area. Movable cultural assets were stored in bunkers or taken to depots outside the city. By February 1945 about 20,000 people had left the city.

Strategic assessment of the allies

The British Ministry of Economic Warfare compiled lists of almost all cities in Germany with a categorization of targets under the title The Bomber's Baedeker in 1943 and 1944. In the 1944 edition, which contains an entry on Worms, no military targets such as barracks, railroad facilities or Rhine bridges are mentioned; the leather industry dominates industrial facilities, and infrastructure facilities such as the port and gas works are also listed. The possible targets specified for Worms were classified in category 3 at most. In an instruction of the British "Combined Strategic Target Committee" to the RAF Bomber Command on February 8, 1945, Worms and 16 other cities are named as an alternative target of industrial importance that should be attacked if the bombing of the ten main targets in the Berlin area and in Central Germany should not be possible.

Attack from 8./9. September 1944

The successive attacks by the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) on September 8 and 9, 1944 were directed against the industrial facilities in the south-west and the railway facilities in the north-west of the city. The residential areas along Valckenbergstrasse and west and east of the marshalling yard were also hit by the bombs of the 2nd Bomb Division of the Eighth Air Force . 56 people died in the buildings destroyed by explosive and incendiary bombs .

Attack from 5./6. January 1945

The 3rd Bomb Division of the Eighth Air Force bombed the railroad locations in the northwest of the city again on January 5 and 6, 1945. The attack claimed 71 lives in the adjacent residential areas.

Attack on February 21, 1945

The target areas of the attack on February 21, 1945 were the densely populated city center, the industrial facilities south of it and the railway facilities in the north-west of the city center. The bombardment began at 8:27 p.m. and lasted until 8:47 p.m. The RAF Bomber Command deployed 36 Lancaster and 288 Halifax bombers and 16 Mosquito escort aircraft from the 4th and 6th Bomber Group and the Pathfinder Force . The bombers dropped around 361 tons of high-explosive bombs and 575 tons of incendiary bombs, mainly stick bombs but also phosphor canisters , on Worms.

239 people died that night and from injuries sustained in the bombing. The bombing sparked a firestorm in parts of the city center . Attempts to extinguish the fire that were supposed to contain the developing wildfire could only be carried out in isolated cases and were mostly unsuccessful. The southern and eastern parts of the city center and the industrial facilities to the south of it (Cornelius Heyl AG, Lederwerke Doerr & Reinhart , municipal gas and electricity works) were largely destroyed.

Attack on March 18, 1945

During the daytime raid of March 18, 1945, USAAF units of the Ninth Air Force attacked the northwestern city center and the adjacent railway systems in twelve successive waves. 320 tons of high-explosive bombs were dropped on the target area, which reached as far as the railway bridge .

The railway facilities were badly hit by the bombing: All tracks and signal boxes, the depot and the buildings of the freight station and the railway maintenance office were destroyed, the station building of the main station and the neighboring railway post office were badly damaged. At least 141 people lost their lives in the destroyed buildings in Neuhausen and the northwestern city center; the recovery of the dead could only be completed after ten weeks.

consequences

As a result of the air raids, around 25,000 apartments had been destroyed in Worms by the end of March 1945, and around 15,000 residents were homeless. The total death toll from all attacks is estimated at 700. It is not possible to give an exact indication, especially for the last attack on March 18, 1945, the figures available differ significantly, presumably due to the immediately following occupation of the city by American troops.

Many historical buildings were destroyed or badly damaged, including the Trinity Church , Worms Cathedral , Pauluskirche , Martinskirche , Magnuskirche , Andreasstift , Friedrichskirche , Raschi-Haus and the Heylshof .

The reconstruction of the destroyed residential and commercial buildings was largely carried out in a modern style. The damaged public and religious buildings were reconstructed, some of them, however, in reduced forms and modernized inside.

literature

  • Tassilo Amesmaier: The devastation of Worms in the night raid by the Royal Air Force on February 21, 1945 . Verlag der Rheinhessische Druckwerkstätte, Alzey 2005, ISBN 3-87854-195-3 (not evaluated).
  • Jörg Koch : When Worms went under. February 21, 1945 . Wartberg, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2004, ISBN 3-8313-1481-0 .
  • Heinz Leiwig : Flier over Rheinhessen. The air war from 1939 to 1945 . 2nd Edition. Verlag der Rheinhessische Druckwerkstätte, Alzey 2006, ISBN 978-3-87854-170-7 .
  • Fritz Reuter : Worms in the bombing war and the destruction of the city in the spring of 1945. Facts, figures, reports . In: The Wormsgau . tape 14 , 1986, pp. 61-88 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History of the city: 20th century city ​​of Worms, accessed on January 25, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Jörg Koch: When Worms went under. February 21, 1945 . Wartberg, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2004, ISBN 3-8313-1481-0 , p. 13 f .
  3. ↑ Fritz Reuter: Worms in the bombing war and the destruction of the city in the spring of 1945. Facts, figures, reports . In: The Wormsgau . tape 14 , 1986, pp. 64 f .
  4. ↑ Jörg Koch: When Worms went under. February 21, 1945 . Wartberg, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2004, ISBN 3-8313-1481-0 , p. 19th ff .
  5. ↑ Jörg Koch: When Worms went under. February 21, 1945 . Wartberg, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2004, ISBN 3-8313-1481-0 , p. 27 .
  6. ↑ Fritz Reuter: Worms in the bombing war and the destruction of the city in the spring of 1945. Facts, figures, reports . In: The Wormsgau . tape 14 , 1986, pp. 65 f .
  7. ↑ The Bomber's Baedeker. Guide to the Economic Importance of German Towns and Cities, 2nd (1944) Edition ; Volume 2; P. 736
  8. ↑ Uta Hohn: The Bomber's Baedeker - Target Book for Strategic Bombing in the Economic Warfare against German Towns 1943-45 , in: GeoJournal 34 (1994), p. 223. doi : 10.1007 / BF00813827
  9. ↑ a b c d Heinz Leiwig: Flier over Rheinhessen. The air war from 1939 to 1945 . 2nd Edition. Verlag der Rheinhessische Druckwerkstätte, Alzey 2006, ISBN 978-3-87854-170-7 , p. 210 .
  10. ↑ Jörg Koch: When Worms went under. February 21, 1945 . Wartberg, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2004, ISBN 3-8313-1481-0 , p. 19 .
  11. ↑ Jörg Koch: When Worms went under. February 21, 1945 . Wartberg, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2004, ISBN 3-8313-1481-0 , p. 22 .
  12. ↑ Fritz Reuter: Worms in the bombing war and the destruction of the city in the spring of 1945. Facts, figures, reports . In: The Wormsgau . tape 14 , 1986, pp. 67 .
  13. ^ Ralph Häussler : Railways in Worms. From the Ludwig Railway to the Rhineland-Palatinate Clock . Kehl, Hamm am Rhein 2003, ISBN 3-935651-10-4 , p. 164 .
  14. ↑ Jörg Koch: When Worms went under. February 21, 1945 . Wartberg, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2004, ISBN 3-8313-1481-0 , p. 40 .
  15. ↑ History of the city: 20th century - city destruction 1945. City of Worms, accessed on January 25, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Gerold Bönnen : From the blossom into the abyss. Worms from the First to the Second World War (1914–1945) . In: Gerold Bönnen (Ed.): History of the city of Worms . 2nd Edition. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-8062-3158-8 , pp. 605 .
  17. ↑ Fritz Reuter: Worms in the bombing war and the destruction of the city in the spring of 1945. Facts, figures, reports . In: The Wormsgau . tape 14 , 1986, pp. 75 .