Air raids on Wuppertal
During the Second World War , the city of Wuppertal was the target of in the nights from May 29th to 30th, 1943 (so-called air raid on Wuppertal- Barmen) and from June 24 to 25, 1943 (so-called air raid on Wuppertal- Elberfeld ) two heavy air strikes . During these air raids, large areas of the Wuppertal districts of Barmen, Elberfeld and Ronsdorf were destroyed by bombs by the British Royal Air Force and the subsequent firestorms . Allied aircraft carried out numerous other smaller air raids on Wuppertal. In total, more than 6,500 people died in Wuppertal during the Second World War as a result of Allied air raids; 38 percent of the built-up city area was destroyed.
The way to the air raid on Wuppertal
With the air raid on the German city of Essen on March 6, 1943 , the British bomber command began the so-called " Battle of the Ruhr ". The attacks were carried out in accordance with the UK Area Bombing Directive . By May 1943, a total of 150 high-explosive bombs and 4,000 incendiary bombs had fallen on Wuppertal . Up to that time, 27 people had died, 11 houses had been destroyed and 14 houses had been badly damaged. In contrast to other cities in the west of the German Empire, Wuppertal had been spared air raids until then. The elongated, built-up valley of the Wupper is located in a hilly area, mostly under a hood of haze, which was difficult to approach with the navigation instruments of the Royal Air Force at the time , so that the bomb load hit its target with accuracy . “Our city is hidden under fog” or “This is where Pastor Niemöller's father lives ” were the rumors and slogans that kept some people from Wuppertal safe when they wondered why the city had not yet been significantly attacked. Since the British wanted to bring the industry of the Ruhr area to a standstill with the Battle of the Ruhr , but Wuppertal's industry was considered a supplier to the armaments industry, massive air raids on Wuppertal were inevitable in the long term.
The decision to launch an air raid on Wuppertal was made by the British bomber command in the early afternoon of May 29, 1943. Everything now depended on the aircrafts ready for action and the weather. The inner city of the Barmen district was set as the target of this first major attack. The pilots were instructed to approach Wuppertal from the southwest and to maintain a course of 68 degrees over the city area. In this way, the Royal Air Force hoped that the bomber stream would then fly over the districts of Vohwinkel and Elberfeld to the destination of the city center of Barm and that all bombs triggered too early would at least hit the districts of Elberfeld and Vohwinkel.
The air raid on Wuppertal-Barmen
In the evening hours of May 29, 1943, 719 aircraft took off with the destination Wuppertal. Only 34 of these machines had an explosive-only charge. Almost all of the others had half explosive and half incendiary bombs on board. The total weight of the bombs transported to Germany that night consisted of 920 tons of high explosive and 1,014 tons of incendiary bombs. The assault unit included 292 Avro Lancaster , 185 Handley Page Halifax , 118 Short Stirling , 113 Vickers Wellingtons and eleven De Havilland DH.98 Mosquitos . 33 machines (ten Halifaxes, eight Stirlings, eight Wellingtons, seven Lancasters) did not return to their bases from the attack. A large number of them were shot down by German night fighters ( interceptors ).
The German " Mammut " and " Wassermann " radar devices located the bomber formations over eastern England around 11:30 p.m., whereupon the first night fighters started a short time later and the anti-aircraft divisions were alerted. While the stream of bombers after entering the German-controlled area was now recorded and monitored by many air traffic control stations and radars, the British bombers flew over the Dutch coast with a course towards Cologne. During this phase, 62 British bombers turned back due to (alleged or actual) technical defects; the other machines, divided into five waves, continued to head for their destination. On May 30, 1943 at 12:14 a.m., an air raid alarm was triggered in Wuppertal . While the British bomber groups had strayed a bit and were now approaching Wuppertal from a south-south-west direction, eleven British De Havilland Mosquito aircraft had taken off from Wyton to approach Wuppertal individually and throw off luminous markings, the so-called Christmas trees , every six minutes . The mosquitos were guided to their destination by the radio navigation system " Observer Bombing Over Enemy ", or Oboe for short . In this way, the first mosquito reached Wuppertal at 12:47 a.m. and set four red marks there. At 12:49 a.m., the first planes dropped numerous incendiary bombs on Barmen.
The machines of this first wave consisting of 50 aircraft, which the English called "fire-raisers", dropped a special bomb mixture which, after their explosion, was to show the way for the following squadrons. Of the British aircraft crews, 611 later stated that they believed they had hit the city of Wuppertal. An evaluation of night images showed, however, that only around 475 aircraft had dropped their bomb load within a five-kilometer radius of the target. That night the German interceptors reported 15 kills. Other British planes crashed near Aachen, Maastricht, Hasselt and Jülich. Later evaluations showed that the target accuracy (concentration of bombs dropped) was the most accurate in aerial warfare up to that point . The targeted area bombardment of the inner city area of Barm resulted in a firestorm that could not be effectively fought due to the low level of operational readiness of the fire brigade, which was favored by the weekend. The British occupied downtown Barmer with around 1,700 high-explosive bombs and around 280,000 incendiary bombs. After this major attack on Barmen, 2,732 dead were recovered from around 3,900 to 4,000 totally destroyed houses (726 men, 1,544 women, 434 children and 28 foreigners). This number of total deaths was later corrected to 3,380. Up to this point in time, these were the worst loss of life in a single air raid on the German Reich. According to an analysis by the British Air Force, 80 percent of the built-up area was destroyed by the fire. Five of the six largest factories and 211 other industrial facilities were completely destroyed.
Wuppertal-Ronsdorf
This air attack was intended to hit the districts of Vohwinkel and Elberfeld, but due to a German defensive maneuver, the British bombers were diverted from their planned course and mistook Ronsdorf for Vohwinkel. In Ronsdorf, which was hit by chance in this attack, whole rows of half-timbered houses burned down in 20 to 30 minutes. The cityscape there was characterized by uniform two- to three-story slid-up residential buildings, almost all of which were destroyed in this air raid. Today there is almost no old house in the center of Ronsdorf, only the Reformed School Ronsdorf and a few neighboring buildings, including the Reformed Pastorate Ronsdorf , the former parish hall at Kurfürstenstraße 4 , the Waterhüsken , the residential building at Kniprodestraße 6 , and the Ronsdorf post office , the bandweaver school , the Ronsdorf rectorate school , the Luther Church and the Ronsdorf Reformed Church have been preserved.
The air raid on Wuppertal-Elberfeld
Until the summer of 1943, the Elberfeld district was largely spared from damage from air raids. By this time, fewer than ten people had been killed by around 70 high-explosive bombs and 5,000 incendiary bombs in the western districts of Wuppertal. Contrary to British expectations, the heavy air raid on Wuppertal-Barmen in the night of May 29th to 30th 1943 had only caused relatively little damage, since a large part of the "bombing misses" did not, as was the case by the Royal Air Force intended to hit downtown Elberfeld.
After the Barmer attack, the population of Elberfeld now also expected attacks on their district. Nevertheless, many residents of the destroyed Barmen district did not let themselves be deterred from moving from their destroyed apartments to relatives or friends in Elberfeld.
After the British bomber groups had destroyed their target Barmen, but Elberfeld had been spared, the British high command ordered a new attack. For this purpose, 630 aircraft were provided by the bomber command on June 24, 1943, which launched the attack on Elberfeld the following night. The assault force included 251 Avro Lancaster, 171 Handley Page Halifax, 98 Short Stirlings, 101 Vickers Wellingtons and nine De Havilland Mosquitos.
The planned flight route was almost identical to that of the attack on Wuppertal Barmen. The German air raid warning centers received the first reports of flights over the Scheldt estuary around midnight. This entry of the British bomber units lasted until June 25, 1943 at 1:07 a.m. while the first bombs detonated in Wuppertal. Due to tactical bombing, the target for the German defense remained unclear until the end. Only at 1:11 a.m. did the warning center in Duisburg believe that Wuppertal was probably the main target. Around this time the first "Christmas trees" could be seen in the sky above the valley. Almost at the same time, the bombing with high explosive and incendiary bombs began. The bomber formations had arrived punctually, coming from the southwest, via Solingen over the target. According to the British attack report, 1,082 tons of high-explosive bombs and 1,220 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped over the target area that night. In this way, around 3,000 residential buildings were destroyed and 2,500 were badly damaged. The wildfire reached an extent of 12 km². In addition, 1,900 people were killed, including 716 men, 1,046 women, 62 boys and 79 girls.
30 bombers missed their targets in Wuppertal and unloaded their cargo further west. Nevertheless, the analysis by the British Air Force revealed a destruction of 94 percent of the Elberfeld buildings.
On 30./31. January 1944, 22 mosquitos attacked Elberfeld, and on March 8, 1945 bombs fell on Elberfeld again.
Wuppertal-Cronenberg
During the air raid on Elberfeld on June 25, 1943, parts of Cronenberg were also destroyed. On May 21, 1944, the Allied powers launched another air raid on Cronenberg.
The air raid on Wuppertal-Vohwinkel
On December 31, 1944, between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., 155 Lancaster bombers launched into the attack on Vohwinkel. The goal was the railway systems. Due to the thick cloud cover, the bombers had to drop their 1,500 high-explosive bombs from a great height. Of these, 250 bombs reached their destination, 40 of them at Wuppertal-Vohwinkel train station . Seven houses were destroyed and 26 houses were badly damaged. There were four dead to mourn.
Due to the previous day's failure, 141 Lancaster bombers launched another attack in the early evening of January 1, 1945. When visibility was good, they came from the southwest and dropped 1,010 high-explosive bombs and one incendiary bomb. 106 houses were destroyed, 192 people died, including 30 Flemings in a Reichsbahn warehouse . The Wuppertal-Vohwinkel train station was deliberately attacked, with a large part of the track systems, some signal boxes, bridges and 200 freight cars being destroyed. 100 freight cars and 70 passenger cars were damaged. The suspension railway terminus including the workshop and the suspension railway line were also badly hit.
Air raids on Wuppertal-Langerfeld
As early as July and August 1940, British aircraft dropped bombs on Langerfeld four times , but these hit wooded areas. On April 15, 1942, the first incendiary bombs fell on the inhabited area in Langerfeld. A ribbon factory and four farms were hit on the Ehrenberg and burned down completely. During the attack on Barmen and Ronsdorf on May 30, 1943, some of the 280,000 incendiary bombs dropped also fell over Langerfeld's south. Some houses on Ehrenberger Strasse were completely burned out by phosphorus.
On March 3, 1945, low-flying aircraft dropped bombs on the railway facilities and the Kohlenstrasse cemetery . In the afternoon, bomber groups attacked Schwelm . After 15 minutes the city center with its three churches was destroyed. On March 13, 1945 (almost four weeks before the occupation by American troops) 344 bombers flew to the east of Wuppertal between 3:40 p.m. and 4:20 p.m., with the railway systems as their destination. More than 3,600 high-explosive and 140,000 incendiary bombs fell on Heckinghausen, Oberbarmen, Langerfeld and in the west of Schwelm. The extent of the destruction was considerable. The public shelters withstood the attack, but the air raid shelter at the eastern portal of the Rauenthal tunnel was buried by a bomb. About 350 people were trapped here, only 270 could be rescued by the next day. Many people were also killed in the cellars of the apartment buildings. The clean-up work was very difficult due to the constant fire from low-level aircraft.
On March 19, at 5:00 p.m., American units attacked again. Again the extent of the destruction was enormous; Houses, factories, churches and schools lay in ruins. Roads, railways and bridges were destroyed. 120 people are said to have died in the two air strikes on March 13 and 19, other sources speak of 700 dead.
consequences
With the bombing of the inner cities of Barmer and Elberfeld in May and June 1943, the war also reached the so-called "home front". Despite the destructive consequences of the bombs, the many dead and the great suffering in the Wuppertal population, most of the so-called national comrades continued to support their leader . Although skepticism about the daily evocations of victory grew and there was increasing doubt about the honesty of the propaganda, there was hardly any active resistance against the government that was responsible for this war.
On April 16, 1945, American troops took Wuppertal without a fight. The Wuppertal balance from the Second World War: 12,000 Wuppertal people died as soldiers at the front or did not return home. A total of 7,000 civilians were killed in the air raids in Wuppertal. There were 2,700 air alarms, most of which drove the population into their cellars at night. 631,590 incendiary bombs, 58,320 phosphorus bombs, 7,527 high explosive bombs, 357 mines and 100 grenades fell on the urban area. 200,000 Wuppertal residents lost their homes, and another 100,000 were able to continue living in their partially destroyed apartments. 11,000 houses were not rebuilt due to their total destruction. The property damage amounted to 6 billion marks at the time. 6,583 members of the armed forces and 327 civilians were missing forever.
With a few exceptions, the historical building fabric in the main urban centers was destroyed or so badly damaged that many buildings from the Wilhelminian era had to be demolished. Culturally and historically significant buildings such as the Barmer Stadthalle and the world's second planetarium , as well as hundreds of old town houses , fell victim . The many unattractive perceived center areas today as Elberfeld and Barmen owe their appearance this destruction and the supposedly "modern" construction plans of the 1950s, of functional and unadorned building structures and creating wider road corridors for the growing especially fast establishment of private transport in view had. Considerations to tear down the heavily damaged suspension railway framework were quickly rejected.
See also
literature
- Norbert Krüger: The historic Wuppertal. Volume III: The Destroyed City. Dr. Wolfgang Black Publishing House.
- Herbert Pogt: Bombs on Wuppertal. Born-Verlag, ISBN 3-87093-063-2 .
- Stephan Schön (Hrsg.): Wuppertal in the fight against need. Hans Putty Verlag, Wuppertal 1947
Web links
- agvv.org , Vohwinkel time table
- wuppertal-vohwinkel.net , air strikes on Vohwinkel, eyewitness reports
- zeitspurensuche.de , The Second World War in Wuppertal
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e zeitspurensuche.de
- ↑ a b c RAF Bomber Command Campaign Diary May 1943 ( Memento of the original from March 15, 2012 on WebCite ) 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.
- ↑ Richard Overy: The Bomb War. Europe 1939–1945. Rowohlt, 2014, ISBN 978-3-87134-782-5 , p. 468.
- ^ Wolfgang-mondorf.de , Ronsdorf, Cronenberg, Müngsten
- ↑ a b RAF Bomber Command Campaign Diary June 1943 ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2006 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.
- ↑ raf.mod.uk ( Memento from July 6, 2007), Bomber Command Campaign Diary January 1944
- ↑ wolfgang-mondorf.de , wuppertaler-postgeschichte
- ↑ a b c wolfgang-mondorf.de ( Memento of the original from May 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Wuppertal Kronik
- ↑ agvv.org , Vohwinkeler Chronology
- ^ Wuppertal-Vohwinkel.net , The historic Vohwinkel, air raids
- ^ Günther Voigt: Langerfeld. From the history of a district in Wuppertal. Ed .: Bürgererverein Langerfeld e. V., Wuppertal no year, 1990.
- ^ NS-Gedenkstätten.de ( Memento from October 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
