Military history of Wangerooges
During the Second World War and also in the First World War , Wangerooge was strategically the most important of the East Frisian islands , as the shipping channel to the Reichskriegsshafen Wilhelmshaven was on their east side . Therefore the island was strongly fortified .
Island attachment
The island had been equipped with gun batteries before World War II . These were large and medium-caliber artillery cannons against enemy sea targets, mostly on the north side of the island in the dunes, as well as anti-aircraft positions against air targets:
- Harle battery
- Battery Saline
- Jade battery
- Jade-Ost battery
- Battery Neudeich
- Battery east dune
- Battery Strandkbake
- Friedrich August Battery (interior of the island)
- Graf Spee Battery (island interior)
Each battery had two to six guns with associated crew, ammunition and command bunkers , so that there were around 100 bunkers on the island . During the Second World War, the island had a military crew of up to 5,000 navy and air force . The purpose of the facilities and the soldiers was, on the one hand, the defense against enemy sea targets, especially the protection of the fairway to the Imperial War Port of Wilhelmshaven, 30 kilometers to the south . In addition, Wangerooge was an air defense outpost against the Allied bomber formations approaching Germany (and the 30 kilometers south of Wilhelmshaven naval port ) .
Even in the last days of the war, Wangerooge was declared a fortress when the Allied troops advanced on the mainland . At the end of the war, the military crew of several thousand men consisted mostly of young naval helpers and old men who were disabled. They did, including the use of the island's population and foreign forced laborers , the jumps great efforts (digging of tanks and trenches , laying of about 10,000 mines ) to prevent a landing operation. The soldiers prepared for an invasion with ground fighting and set up flame thrower , machine gun and anti- tank gun positions.
Anti-aircraft defense from 1939
Armed conflicts between aircraft of the British Air Force ( RAF ) and the German flak units stationed on the island broke out on Wangerooge throughout the Second World War . Apart from low-flying attacks at the end of the war, the attacks were always aimed at military targets. After the British declaration of war on Germany on September 3, 1939, the first air raid near Wangerooge took place on September 4, 1939. It was directed against anchored warships, including the armored ship Admiral Scheer on Schillig- Reede a few kilometers south of the island. The attack, like another air raid on December 18, 1939 (air battle over the German Bight) on Wilhelmshaven, resulted in extremely heavy losses for the RAF. A high percentage of the attacking aircraft were shot down by anti-aircraft guns and German fighters , which had also started from Wangerooge. Due to these failures as a result of the obvious air superiority of the German Air Force , especially through fighter planes , at the beginning of the war, the British bomber command only flew its operations at night, and from October 1944 again during the day. In the further course of the war, the British and American material superiority soon became noticeable in the air. While bomber formations flew in during the first years of the war, around 100 aircraft, by the end of the day, streams of bombers of up to 1,000 planes roamed the island.
Air defense systems
The initial military successes against British aircraft attacks were also based on the new, top-secret radar technology . Various radio measuring devices of a flight reporting control unit with the code name "Wal" ( Würzburg , Freya and Wassermann radar devices ) were set up for direction finding as part of the Kammhuber line . As a result, targets up to 400 kilometers away could be recorded and your own interceptors, even when hunting at night , could be guided to the target. There were also numerous searchlights on the island - and other small-caliber flak positions , for example to protect the airfield against low-flying aircraft. The aircraft was also fighting the (Graspisten-) airfield Air Force on the island, on the Bf 109 - interceptor and minesweepers type aircraft Ju 52 of the Air Force were stationed. Today the airfield is a civil airfield .
During the war, there was nightly flak fire against incoming bombers almost every night . During the nights, up to 200 enemy aircraft flying into the Reich territory were located, which also dropped sea mines on the shipping lanes. The island's military installations have also been continuously targeted for disruptive attacks from individually attacking British aircraft; there was a major attack at the end of the war.
Major attack in 1945
When allied troops approached the mainland, the island was declared a fortress in the last days of the war . The several thousand men of the military crew made every effort (digging anti- tank trenches , laying about 10,000 mines ) with the help of the population to prevent an invasion .
On April 25, 1945 there was an air raid on Wangerooge by 480 British, Canadian and French bombers , whose target was the large-caliber anti-ship cannons. In only about fifteen minutes, over 6,000 high-explosive bombs fell in three waves of attack, which left a crater landscape and claimed about 300 lives. Over half of the houses in the island village were destroyed. From a military point of view, the air attack was a failure, because all the gun batteries were ready for action again after a few hours. Therefore, the Wangerooge fortress did not surrender after the attack. Only after the unconditional surrender for north-west Germany had been signed did the Second World War also end on Wangerooge on May 5, 1945 at 7 a.m. The military occupation took place from May 20, 1945 by Canadian troops.
post war period
Demilitarization
After the Second World War, the British occupation forces demilitarized the island and made the military remains unusable. The Jade barracks was used as a school camp. Many of the bunkers that had remained intact were blown up by the Allies in June 1945. Café Pudding now stands on a bunker on the beach promenade that has remained intact . In 1951 the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge created a cemetery of honor near the island village. Here 283 dead of the graves dug in different places were laid together. Until the 1970s, numerous remains of bunkers and bomb craters were still visible in the dunes . Since then, efforts have been made to remove these remains of the war for reasons of tourism. Today, there are hardly any remnants of the military past to be found, as they are covered with sand or overgrown by plants. In some of the bomb craters, ecologically valuable small biotopes have developed over the decades.
The formerly military airfield, the halls of which had also been destroyed by the occupying forces, could be restored from 1952 and put into operation for civil air traffic.
armed forces
The German Navy , established in 1956, set up a signal point in the coastal observation station on Wangerooge , which was built in 1876 in the west of the beach promenade. The station has been unmanned since 1968 and served as a directional radio station until it was disbanded in the late 1990s. Today the 35 meter high tower, which is one of the landmarks of the island, serves as a relay station .
The Bundeswehr-Sozialwerk operates two houses on Wangerooge for the recreation of soldiers and their relatives.
literature
- Hans Jürgen Jürgens: Testimonies from a disastrous time. A war diary about the events of 1939–1945 in the Wangerooge-Spiekeroog-Langeoog area and the situation in the Reich and on the fronts , CLMettcker & Sons, Jever 1989, 6th edition 2003, ISBN 3-87542-008-X .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Erik Kohl: Historical island picture. In: Inselrundgang.de. Retrieved October 15, 2019 .
- ↑ Last naval signal point decommissioned. In: Marineforum. 6/1997, p. 30.
- ↑ Theo Kruse: At Wangeroog we are allowed to leave Nest. In: NWZ online . March 28, 2014, accessed October 15, 2019 .
- ↑ Jade House and Clock House. In: bundeswehr-sozialwerk.de. Bundeswehr-Sozialwerk e. V., accessed October 15, 2019 .