Operation Gomorrah

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Gomorrah (in English: Operation Gomorrah ) was the military code name for a series of air strikes carried out by the Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Eighth Air Force of the USAAF in the Air War of World War II from July 24th to 3rd August 1943 were executed in Hamburg . They were the heaviest in the history of the air war to date. Favored by special weather conditions, the area bombardment sparked a devastating firestorm , especially in the eastern parts of the city , which killed an estimated 34,000 people.

Hamburg, Eilbeker Weg, after the bombing of Operation Gomorrah (between August 1943 and 1945)

Naming

The military code name refers to a Bible passage in Genesis 19:24:

"The LORD caused sulfur and fire to rain down from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah "

- Gen 19.24  Lut

This was intended to give the operation the character of a heavenly criminal court, not least in response to the German air raids on British cities in 1940/41 .

prehistory

The attacks on Hamburg were preceded by an agreement between the Western Allies and Stalin . Stalin had insisted on a second front in the west of Germany. The western powers did not want to initiate this attack with ground troops and had offered air strikes on German cities as a compromise. In particular, the area bombing of civil targets (inner city, residential areas and others) by the RAF took place on the basis of the " Area Bombing Directive " issued by the British Air Ministry on February 14, 1942 . At the same time, Air Marshal Arthur Harris was named commander of the RAF Bomber Command.

A week-long heat wave and drought contributed to the bombs triggering firestorms .

Decisive for the success of Operation Gomorrah was the deactivation of the German "Würzburg" / " Würzburg-Riese " radio measuring devices for guiding the night fighters , fire control of the heavy anti-aircraft guns ( Hamburg flak towers ) working on a frequency of 560 MHz ( wavelength 53.6 cm ) and control of the flak headlights . For the first time, the RAF used " Window ", the English name for radar decoy based on tinfoil strips . The 26.8 cm long (half wavelength) strips made of tinfoil disrupted the “Würzburg” radar devices massively. The English command company " Operation Biting " had already found out their frequency, structure and mode of operation in February 1942 .

The bombing

Picture from the night raid of the RAF on 24./25. July 1943
A Lancaster dropped on October 15, 1944 ( Operation Hurricane ): first radar decoys (left), then incendiary bombs and an air mine (right) on Duisburg.
US weekly newsreel "United News" reported in August 1943 about the destruction of Hamburg
American B-17 “Flying Fortress” of the 384th Bombardment Group during the attack
Industrial facilities as preferred USAAF destination

Attack waves from July 24th to August 3rd, 1943

Operation Gomorrah resulted in five night raids by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and two day attacks by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF).

The attacks began in the night of July 24th to 25th 1943 with the bombing of Hamburg by 791 RAF bombers . Due to incorrectly thrown target markings (target point was the St. Nikolai Church in the city center ), the damage caused by 2,300 tons of bombs extended over a fairly wide area. Nevertheless, there were widespread wildfires in the city center, in Hoheluft, Eimsbüttel and Altona. Some northwestern suburbs were also hit. "The air raid protection command estimated the number of deaths to be around 1500 [...] There were no more precise determinations for the first major attack." Twelve British bombers did not return.

On the afternoon of July 25, 1943, about 90 to 110 American bombers (91st, 351st, 381st Bombardment Groups (BG) [= 1st Combat Bombardment Wing (Bomb Wing)], 303rd, 379th, 384th Bombardment Groups [= 41st Combat Bombardment Wing (Bomb Wing)]) industrial plants and targets in the port of Hamburg . They sank several ships and hit several oil companies. Due to the heavy smoke from the previous night raid by the RAF, many targets could not be found. In this first daytime attack, the USAAF dropped about 186 tons of high explosive bombs within ten minutes and lost fifteen B-17 bombers as a result of violent defensive measures by anti-aircraft guns and fighters. The 381st Bombardment Group (BG) was only able to drop its bombs during the return flight to the North Sea via Heide (Holstein) .

At the same time, on July 25, 1943, around 60 American bombers (94th, 95th and 100th Bombardment Groups [= 13th Combat Bombardment Wing (Bomb Wing)] and 388th Bombardment Group) flew over the greater Hamburg area in the direction of the Baltic Sea, around Kiel and the flak Bombing artillery school Rerik on the Wustrow peninsula . Four B-17 bombers were shot down.

At noon on July 26th, 71 US bombers attacked targets in the port of Hamburg. The Neuhof power plant was also hit. About 150 people died in the two daytime attacks.

The fourth attack as part of Operation Gomorrah was a disruption mission by six British Mosquito aircraft on the night of July 26-27, 1943; he only caused property damage.

During the second major raid by the RAF on the night of July 27-28, 1943, 739 bombers were used. The focus of the bombing was in the districts east of the city center. A firestorm developed from the wildfires (favored by the heat and drought) . The gale-force winds that hit the ground further fueled the surrounding fires. The districts of Rothenburgsort , Hammerbrook and Borgfelde were almost completely destroyed; There was also major destruction in Hamm , Eilbek , Hohenfelde , Barmbek and Wandsbek . About 30,000 people died in this attack.

The third major raid by the RAF on the night of July 29th to 30th, 1943, flew 726 bombers. They mainly bombed the districts of Barmbek , Uhlenhorst and Winterhude . Despite extensive wildfires, there was no firestorm, although Barmbek was a similarly densely populated and built-up district as Hammerbrook. The number of victims can only be estimated; one source assumes about 1000 dead.

As part of Operation Gomorrah, the RAF deployed 740 bombers on the night of August 2 to 3, 1943 for the seventh and final attack, which reached Hamburg during a severe thunderstorm. The bombing was therefore largely untargeted. There were several large fires (for example in the Hamburg State Opera ), but no wildfires. Nothing is known about the number of victims of this attack; it was likely to have been significantly lower than in the first or third major raid by the RAF.

Attack technique

The RAF used a mixture of aerial mines , high explosive , phosphorus and stick incendiary bombs for the bombing .

First of all, air mines and high explosive bombs were dropped. The explosive bombs were supposed to destroy the water, gas and communication lines running under the streets, which made it impossible to coordinate fire-fighting operations and fight fires. In order to allow the explosive bombs to penetrate as deeply as possible, they were often equipped with a delay detonator so that they did not detonate on impact, but only deep in the ground or in house cellars.

At the same time, the enormous air pressure of the air mines ("block hackers") covered roofs and destroyed all windows and doors of surrounding houses. The phosphorus and stick fire bombs were able to ignite the exposed wooden roof trusses and also got through the destroyed windows directly into the apartments, whereby the fires spread via the almost exclusively wooden staircases to the floors below and - favored by the broken window panes - also received enough oxygen. The buildings usually burned out completely.

Attempts to extinguish the fire were thwarted by the fact that about a quarter of an hour after the main attack, another wave of bombers arrived to keep the fire-fighting forces in the shelters. The large-scale fires only became possible because of the extinguishing and rescue measures that started much too late.

This technique was later called " Hamburgization " by the Allies and was also applied to other cities. This procedure was previously tested in Lübeck .

The attacks were always directed against one sector of the city. The central starting point was the 147 meter high tower of the Nikolaikirche . The ruin was partially demolished in 1951; the tower and some parts of the wall were left as a memorial . In the crypt there is a permanent exhibition on Operation Gomorrah.

The existing air raid shelters for the protection of the population could only offer limited protection in 1943, as larger and larger bombs were used during the war.

Firestorm

By the morning of July 27, 1943, temperatures were already over 30 ° Celsius. The temperature rose to 32 ° Celsius. On the night of July 27-28, 1943, this rare weather situation favored the “atmospheric” firestorm. The rising very hot combustion gases from the beginning fires penetrated the cooler air masses above it up to an altitude of around 7000 meters. As a result, a single atmospheric chimney formed over Hammerbrook and Rothenburgsort , which neither happened before nor later because this weather situation did not occur during other bombing raids on German cities. The velocities of air masses close to the ground due to this chimney effect were not achieved again in other cases. In this way, the fires had already become uncontrollable in the initial phase. People were thrown into the fire, burning beams and objects thrown through the air, trees up to a meter thick uprooted, flames and flying sparks swept through the streets like snowstorms. The speed of the firestorm reached hurricane strengths up to an estimated 75 meters per second (270 km / h). The firestorm stalled between 5 and 6 a.m. A seven-kilometer-high cloud of smoke that made the sun invisible lay over the city on July 28, 1943.

Effects

Flakturm IV (air raid shelter) in Hamburg-St. Pauli (2004)

Types of death

It is often claimed that the oxygen consumption of the fires led to the suffocation of many people in air raid shelters or air raid shelters and that people died as a result of being stuck in the melting street asphalt. However, it was not the deprivation of oxygen in the shelters that caused deaths, but rather carbon monoxide or other toxic gases from the fire that had penetrated the cellars. These people were then found completely uninjured, as if asleep, but with all the symptoms of smoke inhalation .

Other influences on the people in the shelters caused their death: The air pressure of exploding air mines caused lung tears . The debris burning over the air raid shelters at around 1000 ° C heated the rooms so much that people suffered heat stroke and were often mummified . Hot water and drinking water pipes in the basements broke and people were scalded or drowned . The ceilings of the shelters broke beneath the collapsing buildings above them, causing fatal injuries or suffocation . These types of death were not limited to Hamburg, but affected most of the victims of the bombing war.

Save them from the fire storm could who branch off from the suction of the firestorm and it up to one of the parks or in a previously still soak his clothes with water Fleet was able to create or channel.

The observation, allegedly made in panic and chaos, that the asphalt had burned and people got stuck in it, is incorrect or was later misinterpreted. Brunswig states that, on the one hand, the streets in German cities were rarely made of asphalt, but were usually set in stone, and on the other hand, that the heat radiation from burning houses cannot develop the heat that would be necessary to ignite asphalt. The impression burning asphalt was loud Brunswig likely therefore that the British of 100 lb - incendiary bombs ( " phosphorus canister") originating sticky rubber burning on the streets. If you accidentally stepped on the rubber, your shoes would stick to it and you would struggle to get out. People with this rubber stuck to their bodies sometimes suffered very serious injuries, as attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful because of the rubber, which was constantly re-igniting, due to the added phosphorus. Brunswig also points out that the burning rubber on the body could be easily removed under water - for example in a water tub. However, this possibility of removing the burning, sticky mass should only have been given in rare cases quickly enough to avoid serious injuries.

Bomb victims

The number of victims of Operation Gomorrah cannot be precisely determined. By November 30, 1943, 31,647 dead had been recovered, of which 15,802 could be identified. The total number of victims is estimated at 34,000 dead and 125,000  injured .

Evacuation and escape routes

It turned out that the existing bunkers and shelters were completely inadequate. An evacuation was therefore initiated, which in some parts of the city, for example in Barmbek, was carried out in good time.

All residents who were not needed in armaments production had to leave the city. Most of the children were brought to safety in the countryside as part of the Kinderland transfer. After the attacks, around 900,000 Hamburgers fled the city to the surrounding area or to the “reception areas” in Bavaria and East Germany or Poland. As recently as December 1943, 107,000 Hamburgers were evacuated in Schleswig-Holstein, 58,000 in the Bayreuth district, 55,000 in Magdeburg-Anhalt, 45,000 in East Hanover and 20,400 in Danzig-West Prussia.

Large gathering places on the Moorweide and on the outskirts of the city have been set up. The bombed out were fed there. After the central Hamburg train stations were destroyed or damaged, the homeless ("bombed out") were evacuated from the more distant train stations Altona or Bergedorf, Schwarzenbek. They got there by trucks, buses and horse-drawn vehicles. There were also evacuations from the Elbe bridges to the east in barges. Initially, the Hamburg area in Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony was approached, later also more distant regions.

Recovery of the corpses

Until the end of the war, concentration camp prisoners were used for clearing rubble, recovering corpses, disarming unexploded bombs , building makeshift apartments and rebuilding industrial plants, and were thus noticed throughout the city. They had to work without helmets, without face masks and without gloves. 10,000 concentration camp prisoners were employed in the city, of whom an estimated 2,000 to 3,400 died during this activity. The concentration camp prisoners also collected individual bones, skulls, feet and arms and spread them on the street. From this an SS doctor estimated the number of dead. At the Ohlsdorf cemetery , the concentration camp prisoners were assigned to dig the mass graves and unload the corpses from the wagons. The guards stayed at a greater distance because of the stench.

Destruction

The firestorm completely destroyed large parts of the old buildings in Hamburg, former district centers such as the old town of Altona and various architectural monuments no longer existed. Churches of God that were once integrated in streets full of old buildings, such as St. Nikolai Church, St. Michaelis Church or St. Trinity Church, are now largely isolated and some of them were only poorly repaired after the war. Places such as the Eimsbüttel market square are only given as names on memorial plaques or street signs, while wide traffic routes such as Ost-West-Straße (today Willy-Brandt- / Ludwig-Erhard-Straße), southern Holstenstraße or western Sievekingsallee were once dense lead built-up residential areas. The Öjendorfer Park in the eastern district Billstedt , built on the unloaded in a former gravel pit war ruins.

The attacks destroyed a total of 277,330 apartments as well as 580 industrial companies, 2632 commercial companies, 80 Wehrmacht plants , 24 hospitals, 277 schools and 58 churches. Commercial and port vehicles with 180,000 GRT were sunk in the port  . The bomb targets in Hamburg were recorded in the Royal Air Force 's “ Bomber's Baedeker ” .

The viaduct route of the Hamburger Hochbahn to Hammerbrook / Rothenburgsort was destroyed in many places and dismantled after the war. (see also: branch line to Rothenburgsort )

aftermath

Construction work

In the then completely destroyed district of Hammerbrook , previously a district predominantly inhabited by dock workers , there are practically no residential buildings and old buildings left; there are almost exclusively newly built commercial buildings and storage areas after large areas of Hammerbrooks were raised by several meters with rubble.

The last bombings of Operation Gomorrah were not cleared until the end of the 1960s, some canals were filled with rubble and, from the 1950s onwards, roads were built over (e.g. Nordkanalstraße), especially in the city center. The post-war residential buildings are mostly built in a row across the street and no longer form contiguous building blocks, this should prevent a renewed conflagration. In Hammerbrook, large fallow land was not built on until the 1980s.

For the city of Hamburg, Operation Gomorrah was not only of central importance in terms of urban planning after 1945; The Hamburg firestorm of 1943 also has a special place in the city's memory . In 2007, the historian Malte Thießen wrote in his study commemorating Operation Gomorrah: "Because of the destructive power that is still visible today, the July attacks - in contrast to events such as the seizure of power , the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 or the " Reichskristallnacht " - anchored as a collective fixed point in the city's memory from the start. "

Defusing the duds

Of the 107,000 high-explosive bombs, 300,000 phosphorus incendiary bombs and three million stick incendiary bombs that were dropped in 213 air raids on Hamburg between May 18, 1940 and April 7, 1945, 11,000 were defused as duds by 2012 . They lay in the ground without having exploded. In 2016, around 2,800 bombs were suspected to be undiscovered duds in the city area. From 1985 British authorities left aerial photographs of the bombing to German authorities. Since 2005, property owners have had to have the site checked for duds before starting a new building project, which may be defused by the fire brigade's ordnance disposal service.

Commemoration

Ohlsdorf cemetery

South side of the bomb victims' collective grave with a memorial at the Ohlsdorf cemetery

The war cemetery of bomb victims Hamburg-Ohlsdorf is located in the Ohlsdorf cemetery . It includes the individual bomb victims' grave and a large cross-shaped mass grave with broad arms over a hundred meters long between oak and cherry avenues. In the center of this cross-shaped area, the 36,918 bomb victims buried here are commemorated with the memorial by Gerhard Marcks . The portrayal is the ferryman Charon , who puts a bride and groom, a man, a mother with a child and an old man over the Acheron . The memorial was inaugurated on August 16, 1952 with the strong participation of the population and is still the place for the official wreath-laying ceremony of the Hamburg Senate .

Since 2008, the Ohlsdorf Peace Festival has been taking place from the end of July to the beginning of August with theater projects, youth work, readings, discussion events and artistic presentations.

Central St. Nikolai Memorial

Ruins of the St. Nikolai Church as a central memorial

The tower ruins of the former main church St. Nikolai in downtown Hamburg serve as a further central memorial .

Further memorials in the city districts

Dam gate

At Dammtor was as a counter-monument to the traditional war memorial (with its predominantly as war glorifying prestigious inscription), the four-part "war memorial" by sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka designed. Only two parts were realized, the “Hamburger Feuersturm” memorial, which was inaugurated on May 8, 1985 (on the fortieth anniversary of the liberation from fascism ), and the “Escape Group Cap Arcona ” memorial to the concentration camp inmates , which was opened on September 29th, 1985 1986 followed. The monuments, together with the deserters' monument from 2015, are located on the eastern edge of the Planten un Blomen park , on the footpath between the old post office and Dammtor train station .

Barmbek, Hamburger Strasse

On the pedestrian island between Hamburger Strasse and Oberaltenallee near Winterhuder Weg , a memorial by the sculptor Hildegard Huza has been commemorating 370 people who suffocated in a nearby shelter on the night of July 30, 1943 , since July 30, 1985 . It shows an almost life-size stone man crouching down in a corner of the wall seeking protection.

Hamm

In 2006, an iron “house of the dead” by the artist Ulrich Lindow was inaugurated at the Old Hammer Cemetery . It commemorates both the crimes of National Socialism and the bomb victims of 1943. Inside the memorial there is the only remaining bell of the also destroyed old Hammer Church, which sounds every Friday at 3 p.m. in commemoration.

Rothenburgsort

The firestorm memorial by Volker Lang in Rothenburgsort in Carl-Stamm-Park, Billhorner Deich / corner Marckmannstrasse is a black plastered house that reminds of the firestorm in Rothenburgsort in 1943. On a smaller scale, it shows a terrace house in the workers' quarters in Rothenburgsort before the bombing. The memorial was inaugurated on November 21, 2004. Inside are fragments of writing by contemporary witnesses and writers. On the 70th anniversary, a wreath was laid at the memorial after a service.

  • Dam gate

  • Hamburger Street

  • Dulsberg

  • Hamm

  • Hammerbrook

  • Rothenburgsort

  • Wandsbek

Clay tablets on rebuilt houses

lili rere
Small table, until around 1952
Larger form, from the mid-1950s

In the Hamburg residential districts hit by the bombing war, you will find clay tablets with the Hamburg coat of arms and an inscription with the year of destruction and reconstruction on many post-war buildings. They were donated by the Hamburg building authorities for residential buildings, which were rebuilt after the destruction in 1943 with public funding.

See also

literature

Movies

  • Operation Gomorrah - The Destruction of Hamburg. NDR documentary film, 118 min., Director: Hans Brecht , Germany 1983.
  • The Hamburg Firestorm 1943. Documentary, 120 min., Director: Andreas Fischer . Germany 2009. First broadcast: NDR July 14, 2009.
  • Everyday life in ruins - Hamburg after the firestorm. Spiegel TV 2013 / ZDF 2014. Shown in ZDF Info on October 4, 2014, 8:15 pm - 9:00 pm.

Web links

Commons : Operation Gomorrah  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Jörg Friedrich: The fire Germany in the bombing war 1940-1945. P. 83.
  2. ↑ a b spiegel.de: Hamburg, July 1943
  3. ↑ CBS-London news item from July 25, 1943 (MP3; 520 kB).
  4. ^ Hans Brunswig: Firestorm over Hamburg. 1978, p. 206.
  5. ^ Hans Brunswig: Firestorm over Hamburg. 1978, p. 210.
  6. ^ Hans Brunswig: Firestorm over Hamburg. 1978, p. 259.
  7. ^ Matthias Iken : When Hammerbrook and Rothenburgsort burned. In: Hamburger Abendblatt , July 7, 2018, pp. 14/15.
  8. ^ A b c d Hans Brunswig: Firestorm over Hamburg. 1978
  9. ^ Matthias Iken: When Hammerbrook and Rothenburgsort burned . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , July 7, 2018, pp. 14/15.
  10. ↑ Friederike Ulrich: Hamburg commemorates the victims of the firestorm. In: Hamburger Abendblatt, July 25, 2013, p. 11.
  11. ^ Matthias Iken: When Hammerbrook and Rothenburgsort burned. In: Hamburger Abendblatt , July 7, 2018, pp. 14/15.
  12. ↑ Edgar Orth: "I saw people drifting past in a firestorm". In: Hamburger Abendblatt , July 7, 2018, p. 14.
  13. ↑ spiegel.de: Operation "Gomorrah": Saved by the firestorm
  14. ^ Büttner: "Gomorrah" and the consequences. 2005, p. 623.
  15. ↑ Matthias Schmoock: 900000 Hamburger on the run. In: Hamburger Abendblatt , July 11, 2018, p. 15.
  16. ↑ Sven Kummereincke: Concentration camp inmates have to rescue corpses. In: Hamburger Abendblatt , July 14, 2018, p. 16.
  17. ^ Andreas Hillgruber, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Second World War · Calendar of military and political events 1939–1945. Gondrom-Verlag, Bindlach 1989, ISBN 3-8112-0642-7 , p. 177.
  18. ↑ Bomb targets in Hamburg, from page 303
  19. ↑ Thießen: Branded into memory. 2007, p. 12.
  20. ↑ More than 2800 duds still in the Hamburg soil. In: Hamburger Abendblatt , April 3, 2017, p. 13 / dpa
  21. ^ Daniel Herder: The bomb thriller from St. Pauli. And Daniel Herder: 2,900 duds are still slumbering in Hamburg's soil. In: Hamburger Abendblatt , September 6, 2012, p. 9.
  22. ↑ Thießen: Commemoration of "Operation Gomorrah". Hamburg's culture of remembrance and urban identity. 2007, pp. 121-133.
  23. ^ Ohlsdorf Cemetery: Memorial for the victims of the firestorm , accessed on May 31, 2013.
  24. ↑ NDR (ed.): Commemoration of the victims of "Operation Gomorrah" . ( ndr.de [accessed on July 25, 2018]).
  25. ↑ Handout by Rüdiger Wischemann, Hamburg approx. 2013.
  26. ↑ Deserters Monument in Hamburg - The Contrast to Remembrance of the Warriors In: Deutschlandradio Kultur , November 11, 2015.
  27. ^ Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial and State Center for Civic Education Hamburg (ed.): Memorials in Hamburg. A guide to places of remembrance from 1933–1945. Neuengamme u. a., Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-929728-71-0 , p. 50.
  28. ↑ Volker Lang: The memorial - the angel was silent. In: Waltraud Ahrens, Fredy Borck and other contemporary witnesses: Rothenburgsort 27/28. July 1943. VG Bild-Kunst Bonn eV, Hamburg, 2nd edition 2013. pp. 93/94.
  29. ↑ Cornelia Blum: Commemoration on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the firestorm. In: Evangel.-Luth. Parish of St. Thomas, Hamburg-Rothenburgsort: parish letter August to October 2013.
  30. ↑ Thießen: Commemoration of "Operation Gomorrah". On the culture of remembrance of the bombing war after 1945. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft , Volume 53, 2005, pp. 46–61. Likewise Thießen: Commemoration of Hamburg's "most terrible hours". On the culture of remembrance of the bombing war from 1945 to today . (PDF) p. 7.