US Low-Air Raid near Weimar (February 27, 1945)

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During the Second World War , on February 27, 1945, American low-flying aircraft attacked a marching convoy of Allied prisoners of war on the Reichsautobahn west of Weimar . 117 Soviet , French , British and Belgian prisoners of war were killed. They were buried in Obergrunstedt .

Course of events

The attack

US fighter-bomber Lightning / Blitz
US fighter-bomber Northrop P-61 Black Widow

On February 27, 1945, at noon at 12.30 p.m., an air raid alarm was triggered in Weimar . The all-clear came at 2:50 p.m. American warplanes dropped 5 high explosive bombs and 500 stick incendiary bombs on Weimar . At the same time, there were low- flying attacks on train stations in the Weimar district and on Nohra air base . A squadron of three fighter-bombers discovered two march pillars on the Reichsautobahn between the Gelmeroda and Nohra junctions , which were heading towards Erfurt . The pilots attacked them with their on-board weapons at low altitude . According to eyewitness reports, they were aircraft with double tail booms. Then the single-seat, two-engine Lightning / Blitz ("fork tail devil") or the three-seat, two-engine Black Widow / Black Widow come into question. Both types were certified as having "enormous firepower"; they were armed with on-board cannons, machine guns, rockets and / or bombs. According to eyewitness reports, the machines flew so low that you could see the faces of the crews. Some of the prisoners of war managed to escape to a neighboring pine forest. 117 (118) died on site or later succumbed to their injuries. There were 67 Russians (Soviet prisoners), 32 French, 13 British and 5 Belgians. 50 (175) prisoners of war were wounded, some seriously. Two German soldiers accompanying the transport also died and four were wounded. The villagers were faced with a terrible picture on and next to the motorway with the dead and many seriously injured. The wounded were cared for on site and in neighboring medical facilities. The residents of Obergrunstedt found many cases of large-caliber on-board ammunition.

If the observation with the double tail booms does not apply, the attacking machines could most likely have been Mustang or Thunderbolt long-range fighter-bombers . 690 of these long-range machines accompanied over 1,000 heavy US bombers in central Germany on February 27, 1945, targeting Leipzig, Halle and Bitterfeld.

Funeral and commemoration

POW grave in Obergrunstedt : 101 victims of a US low-level aircraft attack on February 27, 1945
POW grave in Obergrunstedt 1945

Farmers and farm workers drove the dead prisoners of war with carts to the neighboring village of Obergrunstedt, to the "Gänseplatz". They were buried there, directly below the cemetery. The funeral squad, probably made up of prisoners of war from the same convoy, was busy for three weeks and was housed in the community hall. For each nation, a large wooden cross was erected over the communal graves at the end. The four crosses stood in a row. Nationality and number of those killed were noted on each tree disc. In April 1945, the American occupation forces had the mass graves opened by force-recruited German men. In June 1951 16 dead (13 British and by mistake three Belgians) were exhumed by an Erfurt funeral home. Her remains were transferred to the British military cemetery in Heerstrasse in West Berlin . In photos from 1951, which were taken after the exhumation of the British and the redesign of the complex, you can see three wooden crosses. One had the inscription “On February 27, 1945, 32 French and 5 Belgian KGF died from an air raid” (KGF stands for prisoners of war).

To mark the 20th anniversary of the event, a memorial in the form of a wall was erected over the graves in 1965. A plaque bears the inscription (in capital letters) for the 101 victims who remained here: “67 Soviet soldiers, 32 French soldiers and 2 Belgian soldiers rest here. They gave their lives fighting for liberation from fascism. In honor of the dead, as a warning to the living. ” The inauguration ceremony was also accompanied by gun salutes from Soviet soldiers . During the GDR era, the “Party and State” organized commemorations every year, including when young pioneers were deployed . After the fall of the Wall in 1990, the tomb was forgotten, it overgrown and the inscription was barely legible. The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge in Thuringia, which until then had not included the mass grave in its list of 571 war cemeteries , was made aware of the grave by friends from Obergrunstedt and Nohra. With the voluntary work of local residents, young people and employees of the Volksbund, the monument was made accessible again in 2017 by removing wild growth. A thorough renovation is planned by the Volksbund.

There are no information boards in the village or in the cemetery about the neighboring war cemetery. There is also no correcting description on the grave about the actual process of killing the 117 prisoners of war.

The information in a standard work (2003) that the prisoners of war were killed in a bomb attack on Nohra Air Base on February 12, 1945 does not apply to the type of attack, the location or the date.

literature

  • Roger A. Freeman: Mighty Eighth War Diary. JANE'S. London, New York, Sydney. 1981. ISBN 0 7106 0038 0 .
  • Sibylle Göbel: Torn from oblivion. Grave site for 101 killed prisoners of war in Obergrunstedt is being redeveloped - work by young people. Thuringian newspaper, June 12, 2017.
  • Jens Riederer (text), Günter Beyer (photos). Pictures of destruction. Weimar 1945 . Catalog for the special exhibition in the Stadtmuseum Weimar from May 8th - September 13th 2015. Ed. Stadtmuseum Weimar. ISBN 978-3-910053-57-1 . P. 63.
  • Walter Steiner, Renate Ragwitz, Frank Funke, Anke Bickel: Weimar 1945. A historical protocol. Edited by the City Museum Weimar. Weimar 1997. ISBN 3-910053-29-7 . P. 10.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Pictures of Destruction . Weimar, 2015. p. 63.
  2. ↑ meinanzeiger February 24, 2016.
  3. ↑ a b Sibylle Göbel: Torn from oblivion. Thuringian newspaper, June 12, 2017.
  4. ^ Roger A. Freeman: Mighty Eighth War Diary. JANE'S. London, New York, Sydney 1981. pp. 450-451.
  5. ↑ Local history guide to sites of resistance and persecution 1933–1945 / Thuringia . Edited by the German Resistance Study Group 1933–1945. VAS - Verlag für Akademische Schriften, Frankfurt / M., 2003. ISBN 3-88864-343-0 . P. 366

Web links

  • "We were trembling with fear" - deadly low-flying aircraft over Obergrunstedt near Weimar. meinAnzeiger.de Citizen Community for Weimar. February 24, 2016