Open city

A banner identifies Manila as an 'Open City' (1942)

In martial law, open city refers to a city or town that is not defended and therefore may not be attacked or bombed. The basis is Article 25 of the Hague Land Warfare Regulations , which does not use the term open city: It is forbidden to attack or shoot at undefended cities, villages, dwellings or buildings by whatever means.

Deviating from this, the term open city is also used as a synonym for unpaved city.

Examples

Some cities that were declared open cities during World War II :

• Brussels 1940
• Paris 1940
• Channel Islands 1940
• Belgrade at the beginning of April 1941, but the air raid on Belgrade took place on April 6, 1941
• Manila 1942
• Rome , on August 14, 1943 from Italy after Vittorio Emanuele III escaped . from Rome declared an open city in front of the advancing German troops (see: Axis case )
• Rome , declared an open city by the Italian government on July 31, 1943 and again by Albert Kesselring in early June 1944 , and occupied by Western Allied troops on June 4, 1944
• Chieti on March 24, 1944
• Assisi through a collaboration between city commandant Colonel Valentin Müller and Bishop Giuseppe Placido Nicolini in June 1944
• Orvieto on June 14, 1944
• Florence on July 3, 1944, announced by the German side, but de facto not recognized by both warring parties
• Athens on October 11, 1944
• Ahlen in March 1945 by senior medical officer Paul Rosenbaum
• Göttingen on April 8, 1945 by Otto Hitzfeld
• Flensburg was declared an open city by the OKW on May 4, 1945 and has been gradually occupied since May 5. Without order, the population removed the roadblocks that were still in place on May 6th to use them as firewood. The Mürwik special area , where the last imperial government under Karl Dönitz resided , initially remained unoccupied .

See also

• Rome, open city
• Carl J. Burckhardt and the "open city" Lübeck

literature

• Wolf R. Born: The open city, protection zones and guerrilla fighters . ISBN 978-3-428-04112-1 .
• Ernst Schmitz: The “open city” in the current martial law . In: German Law (Issue A) . No. 51/52 , 1940 ( PDF, 11 pages ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ROME DECLARED OPEN CITY . In: Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld .: 1878-1954) . Rockhampton, Qld. August 16, 1943, p. 1 ( gov.au [accessed June 4, 2019]).
2. ↑ Francesco Santucci: With courage and energy to rescue Assisi. The German doctor Valentin Müller and the rescue of the city in World War II. German by Josef Raischl. Editrice Minerva, Assisi 1999, ISBN 88-87021-18-X ; Summary under Summary ( Memento from February 17, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
3. ↑ Göttingen City Archives. Chronicle for 1945 , Retrieved on: May 31, 2017
4. ^ Writings of the Society for Flensburg City History (ed.): Flensburg in history and present . Flensburg 1972, p. 409.
5. ↑ Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Ed.): May '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 210 f.