‘In the evening, Russian bombers attacked our district (Kreuzberg) for 2 hours. Our building suffered extensive damage from the percussion of the explosions.’
– Peter Hannemann’s mother diary, April 25, 1945 –
On 24/25 April, 1945, 80 years ago tonight, Berlin suffered its last ‘strategic’ air bombing during World War Two. In this case, that last raid was made by Soviet air forces, one of the few times that Stalin’s biggest falcons targeted the Reich capital during the conflict, which usually had little emphasis in the strategic role or deep air penetrations.
As the Red armies closed the ring around the city, Soviet Air Chief Marshal Alexander Novikov ordered a last ‘big blow’. The Soviet high staff christened the bombings as Operation ‘Salute’ (Saliut), being part of a series of large-scale raids to pave the way for the assault into Berlin.
The Soviet air armada had already attacked the German defensive positions on the east- and southeastern edges of the capital during the night of April 20/21 (with 732 dive- and light bombers from two VVS Air Armies). Three nights later, the Soviet sent their strategic bombing air formation —the 18th Air Army (former Long-Range Aviation, until December 44) commanded by Marshal Golovanov— to raid the city with more than one hundred bombers, totaling 111 sorties aimed at potential strong-points in Berlin.
This time the attacking force, which in March/April had flown similar raids against Königsberg, Breslau or Danzig, included some of the long-range four engined Soviet heavy bombers, the Petlyakov Pe-8. Most of the raiders however were twin engined medium and light bombers including the old trusted Pe-2s and the newer Tupolev Tu-2s. Stalin’s prized massive Pe-8 (or TB-7) bomber of the 45th DBAD, built just in small numbers and a great stranger to general public, made on that night its first appearance over the Reich capital since 1942, when several small Soviet night raids disturbed the city that summer. Some authors question this however, asserting that just a few of them were still in service by May 1945 and were not used as a primary combat aircraft by then by the long-range Aviation Regiments.
[The massive Pe-8 four-engined bomber was the only strategic bomber built by the Soviets during the war, but the unreliability of her engines and low numbers built (93) made the bomber a failure in action.]
Anyway, Soviet bombardment was heavy and was followed up by the 1st Belorussian Front’s16th Air Army, which sent its bombing force to attack the city during the early hours of the 25th with two raids totaling 1,368 sorties, mostly by Pe-2 dive bombers protected by a “cover umbrella” of thousands of Soviet fighters. 563 bombers from 18th Air Army concluded the bombing operations on that night (25/26 April) with another massive raid, dropping 569 tons of bombs on Berlin, most of them delayed-fuzed bombs.
[A re-enactment of the Reichstag assault by Soviet troops in the last days of the war, this picture shows a squadron of VVS Pe-2 dive bombers (could be the more advanced Tupolev Tu-2 also) flying over the ruined building. Credited to Ukrainian photographer Yevgeny Khaldei, the image is a photomontage used for Soviet propaganda.]
[A squadron of Soviet Shturmoviks (Il-2M3) of the 567ShAP overfly the city with the 77 meters-high tower of the Ullsteinhaus in the Tempelhof district of Berlin as background. The Il-2 was the VVS main direct support aircraft during the war, with 36,183 units built.]
[With the battle over, Soviet Aviation Chief Marshal Novikov (at right) and Commander Rudenko inspect wrecked Fw 190s Luftwaffe fighters at Tempelhof airfield, May 1945. Novikov led the Soviet Air Forces during the Great Patriotic War and ordered the ‘Salute’ raids against Berlin in the last days of April 1945.]
During April 16 to May 8, 1945, VVS—the Red Air Force— aircraft made 90,674 sorties to which nearly 80% of them were in direct support of the advancing ground forces or in a tactical mission. Postwar Soviet analysis revealed that just 5.4 percent of their raids during the entire war had a strategic role.
Unfortunately, German bombing reports ended on April 16th and given the scarcity of sources and accounts of the raids carried out by Soviet forces, it is hard to know anything else about these attacks and their consequences or an estimated death toll. Let’s hope that in the near future some Russian-spoken historian with access to the Moscow archives (now opened) gives us some light about these bombardments.
Boog, Horst; Krebs, Gerhard; Vogel, Detlef. Germany and the Second World War, Vol. VII. The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943–1945. Clarendon Press, 2015
Hiestand, William E. Eastern Front 1945: Triumph of the Soviet Air Force. Osprey Publishing, Air Campaign, 2024
Higham, Robin; Kipp, Jacob. Soviet Aviation And Air Power: A Historical View. Routledge, 2019
Kozhevnikov M, N.The Command and Staff of the Soviet Army Air Force in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. A Soviet view. DEPARTMENTOFTHEAIRFORCE.US Government Printing Office, 1977
Moore, Jason. Soviet Bombers Of The Second World War. Fonthill, 2019
Overy, Richard. The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945. Allen Lane, 2013
One of the most curious and eye-catching pictures from old Berlin is the one that shows an elevated train running through a “hole” in the middle of a residential building. This image was taken in the early 1900s at Dennewitztraße in Berlin-Schöneberg district, in the western side of the city. Sadly, as other Berlin important and unique landmarks it didn’t escape destruction during Second World War, being hit by the heavy RAF bombings in fall 1943 and never rebuilt.
The Dennewitztraße tunnel was part of the ‘Berliner Hochbahn’ comprising parts of today’s lines U1 and U2 and rans west-east from Warschauer Brücke through Gleisdreieck and along Landwehrkanal towards Stralauer Tor. This was the first elevated and underground railway of the city of Berlin and it was inaugurated in February 1902. At first built by Hochbahngesellschaft under a Siemens and Halske design, it was a quite simple steel viaducts structure through main avenues with elaborately designed stations, but soon started to have a negative impact on the cityscape, and on the residents of the first floors too (but that’s another story…)
No other section would affect its residents as much as the ‘Tunnelhaus’. The elevated railway line ran from Bhf Bülowstr towards the Gleisdreieck (“triangle of tracks”) train junction but there was a “small” problem: a building at Dennewitzstr blocked the way. Two floors of the building had to be demolished to build the tunnel pass, so the railway company (BVG) had no choice but to buy the building and so was born the so called ‘Durchbrochenes Haus’ which soon became one of the unusual sights and attractions of the city and achieved international fame, being visited by locals and tourist alike.
Chronics say that it became so famous that the subway company asked the new tenants for a very high payment meanwhile for the old ones’ original prices were maintained, so as not lose them and not give a poor image of the company. It’s hard to believe but newspapers back then that the train ran through the house completely “shock-free” and without disturbing the residents. More incredible, located on the ground floor beneath the tracks there was a brewery, the Akademischen Bierhallen, which served some Viktoria-Brauerei beers to clients there.
There is another tunnel-house bridge at Dennewitzstraße further north, this one was built in 1924-26 to solve the U1’s railway traffic chaos crossing U-Bhf Gleisdreieck to Nollendorfplatz following several tragic train accidents. It wasn’t so famous as the ‘Tunnelhaus’ but survived the bombing war and can be seen today with trains running through.
This 1938-39 Berlin’s street map allows us to locate the specific area showing the elevated tunnel location (marked in red), to see how it was during our research period and how far has changed during the past eighty years following the war and the reconstruction and division of the city.
[Interestingly, a quick image search results in a high number of vintage postcards both black and white and coloured showing the place (at least twenty of them), which tells us that the building quickly became a popular site for curious tourists and locals alike, most of them show a printed scene taken in or about 1900-1905.]
[Three views of construction work of the U-Bahn tunnel through the Dennewitzstraße building, circa 1900. Two floors of the apartments building had to be demolished to allow room for the train pass.]
[A nice view of the so-called ‘Pastorenkurve’ looking west at the location where the elevated U-Bahn railway passes Dennewitzplatz running westerly to Nollendorfplatz. U-Bhf Bülowstraße can be discerned in the background.]
The location became so popular that it appeared on a 1927 cinema movie too, with several shots of trains passing through the building pass: “Berlin. Die Sinfonie der Großstadt”, directed by Walther Ruttmann (1887-1941). Ruttmann’s Berlin experimental silent film transports its audience to the Berlin of the 1920s, the metropolis and its daily life, the machines and the urban architecture. You can watch the film here (Dennewitzstr can be seen from minute 37 of the footage).
A few metres next to the elevated U-Bahn tunnel pass, Dennewitzstraße goes into a more open space known as Dennewitzplatz. There stands the Lutherkirche, a brick building built from 1891 to 1894 and designed by Johannes Otzen in Gothic style (“modern Gothic”) and intended to accommodate the further increase in population and Luther believers in the area. To go around the church, the viaduct was forced to make a small curve continuing its way towards Bülowstr, known as the ‘Pastorenkurve.’ Today, the church is home of the English-spoken Amerikanische Kirche in Berlin, an ecumenical congregation originally based at Nollendorfplatz, which moved here in November 2002. Hence the popular name of this church as ‘the American Church.’
[View of Bülowstr with the Lutherkirche and Dennewitzplatz at right behind the elevated railway, Berlin-Schöneberg, 1902.]
[The Protestant church Lutherkirche seen from the east, note at left Dennewitzstraße and the ‘Tunnelhaus’ bridgeas view in 1905, Berlin-Schöneberg district.]
Bomberkrieg 1940-45 Both Dennewitzstraße and Bülowstr were located in one of the western districts most heavily affected by bombs but, sadly, we have been unable to find any picture of the exact location during the war years or the immediate 1930s. Just a few blocks away of this area were located two notable Berlin ‘Bomberkrieg’ landmarks: the famous Sportpalast (destroyed in January 1944) and the huge air-raid shelter at Pallasstraße, which survived the war and can be found there today.
Curiously, this spot —Dennewitzstr 69— does not appear in any of the records listed on the city’s bomb damage archives, neither the November 22/23, 1943 date, which appeared on every website or text as loss date for both the Tunnelhaus and the Lutherkirche. That doesn’t mean that is not correct, but we can’t confirm which sources used those authors to affirm that it was destroyed on that night during one of the most destructive RAF raids of the entire war, which affected specially Schöneberg and Tiergarten districts. Just in one occasion the tunnel-bridge was mentioned: it was on the damage report about the 28/29 January 1944RAF’s raid which recorded ”U-Bahn: …der Dennewitzstraße, wo die Brücke durch eine Sprengbombe getroffen wurde”, but most likely this refers to the other tunnel pass further north (Dennewitzstr Nummer 2) as not marked it as destroyed, something corroborated by aerial pictures from 1945.
[An aerial view of this Berlin area taken by an RAF reconnaissance aircraft in 1943 before the British bombing campaign with Bülowstraße and part of Schöneberg at left. The two “tunnel houses” at Dennewitzstr are marked with red dots. The Yorckstr and Gleisdreieck marshalling yards are clearly spotted from the air (usually attacked on every Allied raid together with the Tempelhof yards south from there —at right).]
In the case of the Lutherkirche at Dennewitzplatz, it had already been hit by British incendiary bombs on March 1, 1943; bomb damage was reported at Dennewitzstr. 28-36 and in Bülowstr further west during that attack also. The church would be destroyed when fire bombs hit the building again in November 1943. Records don’t show an exact date, as listed it in the joint report covering the Bomber Command heavy attacks of the 23rd (the fiercest), 24th and 27th of that month, being declared as ‘total loss’ following the raids. The building would be rebuilt between 1959 and 1960.
Further notable damage was received in early 1945 there, when on 24/25 February a British nuisance raid hit the elevated railway at Bülowstr. 97 with aerial mines (already hit on July 1944), and also in March 1945, when RAF Mosquitoes raided all area and left heavily damaged the adjacent streets and the Bülowstr railway bridges.
[Seen here in July 25, 1944, the Bülowstraße railway viaduct was heavily damaged when an aerial mine fell close a few days before. It would be finally destroyed following a direct hit by another RAF ‘Cookie’ in February 1945.]
April 1945 - the Soviet advance [A column of Soviet T34/85 tanks of the 9th Mechanized Corps/3rd Guards Tank Army posing at Bülowstraße with the slender tower of the American Church (Lutherkirche) at Dennewitzplatz in the background.]
During the last week of April 1945, further damage was done to adjacent buildings at this area, especially along the Bülowstraße elevated railway axis of advance.
Soviet forces reached this area on April 29th, following the German withdrawal from the Landwehr Canal at Potsdamer Str, with the powerful 3rd Guards Tank Army led by Rybalko attacking from the eastern part of the urban area of Schöneberg in the direction of Wilmersdorf and Charlottenburg. The area was defended by elements from the Panzer-Division ‘Müncheberg’ and several groups of Volkssturm battalions, which remained at Nollendorfplatz at several strong points. Units of the 9th Mechanized Corps attacked into Schöneberg district from the east (Yorckstraße) and from the south (Hauptstr.) The 70th Mechanized Brigade led an offensive advancing from today’s Gleisdreieck parks starting 9:00 hrs in the morning with heavy artillery support along the Bülowstr route, meanwhile the 91 Tank Brigade advanced in a parallel southern route. The armoured elements get the Pallasstraße-Goltzstr intersection by early morning hours and finally reached the Wittenbergplatz line in the early evening of that day after fierce battle with small defensive points, overcoming enemy resistance by the end of the day. German resistance ceased on May 2nd finally.
[May 1945: Dennewitzstraße seen from below the railway bridge, a few days following the end of the battle. The other elevated railway bridge is discern in the far background of the picture. The entire block of buildings seen at left have gone, demolished years after the war, now part of today’s Nelly-Sachs Park.]
Postwar reconstruction? At the end of the war in May 1945, the capital appeared chaotic and ruined. The area in question, like the rest of the district, was in bad shape, with both tunnels heavily damaged by Allied bombs and the final street-battle with the Red Army.
This image is part of a series of scale maps commissioned by the BezirksamtTempelhof-Schöneberg as well as the Hauptamtes für Vermessung der Stadt Berlin detailing every building and its degree of destruction that were destroyed, damaged, and capable of reconstruction at the district after World War 2. The condition of the buildings was divided into four categories and colour-coded on the damage maps. Note that our tunnel-building located at Dennewitzstraße 69 and the adjacent house (Nr 22) are marked in red as ‘Total beschädigt’ (Totally damaged) meanwhile surrounding ones were in better condition (blue and green).
[This is an oblique view taken in 1945 by US forces with camera facing southwestern Berlin, months after the end of the war. Bomb damage on this part of the city is clearly seen (detailed in the map shown above), as well as both railway elevated house-tunnels at Dennewitzstraße with the American church seen next to them at left. Out of picture in this detail view are Anhalter Bhf, Askanischer Platz and the SSHQ at Prinz-Albrecht-Str. seen in the original picture.]
[An unusual view of the battle-damaged Lutherkirche’s tower at Dennewitzplatz, seen from the train tracks through the ruined houses that once formed the tunnel, taken in September 1946 by Fritz Eschen.]
[This photograph shows Bülowstraße 70-Dennewitzstr 21 corner, located next to the former railway tunnel already demolished seen from the churh. It was taken by Herwarth Staudt in June 1951, on behalf of the Baulenkungsamtes Schöneberg.]
[In this aerial picture of post-war Berlin taken in 1953, the former tunnel railway can be seen now surrounded by empty space following the postwar demolishing work to clear the damaged houses there (bottom of the image), with Hochbahn Bülowstraße seen at left. The other elevated train pass (top) is clearly spotted also, now repaired. Compare this aerial shot with the one taken in 1943 seen above.]
Despite this famous spot ‘fell’ inside the Western sectors, the division of the city during the Cold War and the post-war economy also led to a disruption in the reconstruction programs: the ‘Tunnelhaus’ was never rebuilt. Adjacent buildings 67-68 with minor survived meanwhile at Bülowstraße numbers 72 and 73 were the only ones remaining today; the damaged houses at Bülowstraße 70-Dennewitzstr 21 are seen in the aerials gutted by fire both and were demolished during the 1950s. For their part, the northern part of Dennewitzstr had the entire block of buildings gone during the 80s (minus 24A building, which survived), now part of the Nelly-Sachs Park with new modern houses being built further east in the 2000s.
The division of Berlin also had an impact on the subway route: from 1972 to the 1990s, train service here was interrupted as a result of the discontinued connection to the eastern part of the city.
Today, the elevated railway line passes runs undisturbed towards Bülowstraße, through Gleisdreieck’s Westpark (opened in 2011-14), one of the three public green areas of the Park am Gleisdreieck, an approx 31.5-hectare park located on the wasteland of the former Anhalter and Potsdam Güterbahnhof at Gleisdreieck and stretches from the Landwehr Canal across Yorckstraße to the east.
Since 2011, at the corner where the railway tunnel-house used to be, there is a post with an information sign and a couple of vintage pictures. This is an initiative of the Initiiert Quartiersmanagement Schöneberger Norden with support from the city council, marking important historical and cultural points in the district.
[There is another house passing at Dennewitzstraße further north, this one was built in 1926 to solve the U1’s railway traffic chaos crossing at U-Bhf Gleisdreieck. It wasn’t so famous as the ‘Tunnelhaus’ but survived the bombing war and can be seen today with trains running through.]
Last week surfaced that remains of Hampden P2123 of 44 Squadron were filmed for the first time off the north Norfolk coast by sealife diver Rob Spray. This ww2 British medium bomber was lost more than 80 years ago in August 1940 returning from the fourth air raid on Berlin by RAF aircraft.
In 2022 Spray, chair of the Marine Conservation for Norfolk Action Group, whilst diving off Salthouse beach found in shallow water what appeared to be a Handley-Page bomber remains. “I was looking for interesting bits of seabed and this loomed out of the slight murk,” he said, being interviewed by BBC reports. He contacted the Norfolk Research Wreck group to identify the wreck which finally turned out to be the P2123 remains lying there since that summer night. Paul Hennessey, from Norfolk Wreck Research, helped identify it as P2123 bomber, lost in the early hours of September 1, 1940.
August 31, 1940: R.A.F. planes renew attack on Berlin On the night of 31 August / 1 September, 1940, RAF Bomber Command aircraft overflew and dropped bombs on the Third Reich’s heart again, less than twenty-four hours since the previous raid and for a fourth time in a week. Berliners ran to their cellars and shelters to take cover meanwhile the anti-aircraft defences and searchlights of the city tried to repel the British air raiders. London sent twenty-eightmedium bombers to hit military and industrial targets. Bad weather prevented some of the bombers to reach their targets, in this case Tempelhof, the BMW factory and a gas work; most of the crews were somewhere in the Berlin area but failed to see under the cloud cover.
RAF’s only loss on this raid was Hampden P2123 of 44 Squadron: piloted by twenty-year-old Flying Officer Romans, this bomber found adverse weather over Berlin and after delivery the bombs on Tempelhof area the crew faced the return journey running out of fuel over the inhospitable North Sea. Finally, after being airborne for 9 and 30 minutes the engines stopped and Romans skillfully ditched the plane less than two miles off Salthouse —others say Cromer— on the Norfolk coast at 05.35 hours and the crew, unhurt, took to their dinghy and paddle to shore during more than 3 hours to safety.
Romans remarked on his report: “It is of interest that the Hampden remained afloat for 2 minutes before making its final plunge.”
On hitting the water, Sgt Jimmy Mandale (rear gunner aboard) reported that the Hampden bomber fully submerged upon impact and then popped back up again enabling the crew to exit the aircraft.
[A fine portrait of F/O David Albert A Romans (DFC) and Corporal Harry Logan (W/Op) of No 44 Squadron from Waddington. Romans, a Canadian who joined the RAF was the pilot at the controls of the Hampden bomber lost (P2123) during the return flight from Berlin after bombing the city on the night of 31 August. The rest of the crew was formed by navigator P/O Donald E Stewart (a Canadian too) and Cpl Jimmy Mandale as Air gunner.]
[Cpl Jimmy Mandale (middle) of 44 Sqn poses with two RAF comrades. He was flying as air gunner on Hampden P2123 on this night. Mandale’s logbook, preserved by his grandson Mark, shows that night they had been 9 hours and a half on the air for the Berlin operation. They made it to shore unhurt in a dinghy only to discover they were on a minefield!]
Hampden P2123 wreck has been already found in 1975 after fishermen snagged their crab pots on it, with several parts of one of the 980hp Bristol Pegasus XV nine cylinder air cooled radial engines of the bomber being recovered, which had been at the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum at Flixton, near Bungay, Suffolk, ever since.
[Sgt Jimmy Mandale’s logbook, one of the P2123 crewmembers who was aboard on the night this RAF bomber ditched off the Norfolk coast in 1940, kindly shared with us by his grandson Mark Mandale.]
Chorley, W R. RAF Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War. Volume 1 1939-40. Classic Publications, 2nd edition, 2013.
Donnelly, Larry. The Other Few: The Contribution Made by Bomber and Coastal Aircrew to the Winning of the Battle of Britain. Red Kite/Air Research, 2004.
Today we commemorate the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but November 9th, known by Germans as Schicksalstag (‘Day of Fate’), is much more than that happy event. For Germany in the 20th century and for the rest of Europe maybe … It is a key date and a turning point in History.
• 9. November • 1918 Saturday, was the birthday of democracy in Berlin. A new revolution led by workers which think in a new world after the disaster of the Great War (1914-18) and the Soviet Revolution (1917), made Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate and that would become the end of the Hohenzollern’s time. The new Republic of Weimar was about to start.
• 9. November • 1923 Ironically, that newly born democracy and the new Republic would give way in a short time to discomfort of some sectors that would quickly radicalize and led to the uprising of the NSDAP party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) - the Nazi movement, led by Adolf Hitler. Hitler, convinced to be the leader of the change that Germany needed, organized a coup in a brewery in Munich on November 9, 1923, known as “the Munich Putsch”. The rapid reaction of the government forces and the last-minute abstention of several key-members for the assault, would make the coup fail. Hitler would be imprisoned in Landsberg prison, but would return with greater power and with clearer and even more radical ideas for Germany, shown in his book ‘Mein Kampf’.
• 9. November • 1938 “Night of Broken Glass” During the night from the 9th to the 10th of November, 1938, known as the Kristallnacht progrom, Nazi-party SA and SS members led by anti-semite doctrines, wielding axes and torches, rampage synagogues, shops and houses of German Jews. This was the worst attack on the Jewry community since the Nazis seized power in 1933. During the 1938 pogroms, Nazi troops tore down nearly 1,400 synagogues. Thousands of Jewish businesses were destroyed. Over 30,000 Jews were arrested and taken to concentration camps and around 140 died. Testimonies from those dark days say that the local fire departments did not stop the synagogues and Jewish shops from burning; they merely prevented the flames from spreading to neighboring buildings.
[Flames engulfed the Berlin synagogue located at Fasanenstraße in the Charlottenburg district after been raided by paramilitary Nazi-SA troopers during the Kristallnacht. This big synagogue, at the time the largest one in Berlin, was opened in August 1912 and closed by Goebbles’ orders in 1936. Destroyed in 1938, the remains of the building were again devastated during a British air-raid in 1943.]
• 9. November • 1961 - 1989 On the night of November 9, the Wall built by the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR-GDR) to protect the border that divided the East from the West fell after 28 years, not only in Berlin but throughout Germany, which has been divided into two blocks after the end of the Second World War. Between 1961 and 1989, at least 140 people were killed or died at the Wall in connection with the GDR border regime.
[The actual postwar border line which divided Berlin in four sectors is painted across the Potsdamerstraße by order of the British occupation authorities in August 1948 before the infamous Mauer was built in 1961 by East Germany authorities. This action follows incidents in which the Soviet-controlled German police made illegal entries into the Western Zone, in their raids against Black Market activities.]
Walking around the modern buildings at Potsdamer Platz and the immensity of the Sony Center in Berlin, few visitors notice a display case placed a few steps from the access hall of the underground station. Inside the glass façade, an old metal signal stands alone: the white S on a green background, saved from the 1939-1945 period as a reminder of the air bombings and war’s destruction in the city.
This vintage “S” is the S-Bahn Berlin icon trademark —which this year 2024 celebrates its 100th anniversary— and the keyvisual logo of the brand image of this blog also.
[The surviving S-Bahn signal from 1945, pictured with the ubiquitous glass reflections from the display case in which is exhibited at DB’s Potsdamer Platz building, 2018.]
This wartime signal is on display at the ground floor of the BahnTower next to the Sony Center. The glass 26-story, 103-metre skyscraper was built in the years 1998-2000, today home of the Deutsche Bahn AG’s headquarters (DB), the new railway corporation founded in 1994. Don’t know the exact date it was placed here but if I remember well during my first visit in 2004 it was already there, so most probably it was when DB established their home at Potsdamer Platz (some other vintage signs are preserved at the Berliner S-Bahn Museum in Berlin too.)
During my last visit in August 2024, the framed old S-Bahn sign, placed a few metres away from the remains of Hotel Esplanade’s Kaisersaal (a survivor of the air raids and the 1945-battle too) was not accessible, surrounded by wooden walls and building works. Potsdamer Platz, the only place in Berlin which was supposed to be rebuilt and finished, right now is a construction site, yes, again.
[Taken just before the war, this colourised photo shows a street scene at the famous Berliner square. The modernist building Columbushaus (destroyed in November 1943) can be seen as background.]
Grün-weiße Symbol A few years ago, the S-Bahn Museum was finally able to determine the origin of the white S on a green circle background: graphic artist Fritz Rosen created the iconic logo in 1929 at request of DR (receiving 800 Reichsmark as payment) and it was officially introduced in December 1930. Some say that the S stands for „Stadtbahn“, others refer to „Schnellbahn“ (fast train) but whatever the meaning was, it became the trademark of the railway’s urban traffic throughout Germany and an iconic logo.
According to TypeOff (an interesting blog about Design research and history), in 1935 the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft created a new lettering for use on all train stations signs in blackletter “German” style, in line with the National Socialist Germany principles. Its origin may come from the Elementtypeface, very similar in her Bold style. This lettering, which included the street-signals and the station’s platform walls, can be found at Nordbahnhof, Oranienburger Str, Brandenburger Tor, Potsdamer Platz or Anhalter Bahnhof stops among others.
[Image of the exhibit old S-Bahn sign as seen in 2012. Close study of the image reveals wartime damage including one missing “P” letter.]
[Leipziger Platz in 1939, the recently built Potsdamer Platz S-Bahn entrances seen before the war’s destruction. Note the twin Potsdamer Tor house gates at right and the Mitteleuropaeische Reisebuero building in the background.]
S-Bahnhof Potsdamer Platz The North-South S-Bahn tunnel was built in 1934-36 (already planned by the Weimar Republic) and the Nazi government expanded it in 1936 with this second underground link that included Potsdamer Platz-Anhalter Bhf-Yorckstraße. It was opened in April 1939, a few months before the outbreak of the war. Each of the nine exits of the station was marked by an S-Bahn pylon, as other stations in this route. Following wartime blackout policies, in 1940 the city’s S-Bahn poles and exit stairs were marked with white paint as were curbs and street signs.
[Potsdamer Platz new station exits seen in 1939, looking into today’s Ebertstraße. In the background can be seen the Palast-Hotel (Mitteleuropäisches Reisebüro) at right, with Columbushaus building at left. Part of the New Reich Chancellery at Voßstr is also visible.]
Once described as the “most heavily bombed square in Europe”, the square was badly hit during the 22-26 November 1943 RAF attacks, and during the June 21, 1944 and February 26, 1945 American air raids, a prominent target due to its proximity to the adjacent railway station and the Reich’s Chancellery complex at Voßstr, just one block away. The train service finally stopped in late April 1945 among fierce street fighting (there is no power supply due to lack of coal).
Close examination of all known pictures taken in the aftermath of the war reveals that of the nine original “S” signs placed at Potsdamer Platz, at least six of them survived the battle with more or less damage.
[22/23 November 1943: Haus Vaterland in flames following the heavy night raid by British RAF bombers. This dramatic picture is framed by the silhouette of the S-Bahn sign seen at extreme left, in this case the one located next to the railway station (Potsdamer Bhf -at right).]
[These two opposite views of the northern part of Potsdamer Platz taken in early 1945 (by Arthur Grimm before the Soviet assault on the city) show bombing damage and debris, with two of the S-Bahn signs barely intact which could confirm us that the damage taken by those (seen on later pictures) came from artillery shells and subsequent street fighting with the Red Army, not from the 1944-45 air raids.]
[Taken from Potsdamer Platz Nr 3 in early 1945, this picture shows the burnt-out facade of the Columbushaus and two of the S signal poles, still intact. Note at left the sandbags over the entrance railing for bomb splinters protection.]
[View of the totally devastated Potsdamer Platz in the aftermath of the fierce battle, looking up north into former Hermann-Göring-Straße and Voßstraße, May 3, 1945. Three S-Bahn sign posts can be seen with the Columbushaus as background. Note the smashed ”S” sign and the group of Soviet soldiers gathering around the underground entrance.]
[Leipziger Platz with the damaged Wertheim Kaufhaus asbackground, pictured on that same day following the conquest of the German capital by Red Army troops. We can see one of the S-Bahn entrances badly damaged (at left).]
[A British soldier took this picture on July 7, 1945, with one of the entrances surrounded by battle wrecks —including an old Flak 8,8cm anti-tank gun and a Kübelwagen— and debris left behind. Notice the burn-out Columbushaus behind.]
[Close view of the same bullet riddle and torn S-Bahn sign at Leipziger Platz-Potsdamer Platz, July 1945. The destroyed facade seen behind belongs to the Mitteleuropäisches Reisebüro building, former Palast-Hotel.]
[Ruined Haus Vaterland (designed in 1912 by Franz Heinrich Schwechten) seen some months after the end of the war, fall 1945. Note that both the U-Bahn lettering and the twin Potsdamer Ringbahnhof S-Bahn signs (at right) are missing, lost during the battle.]
[Potsdamer Platz has changed a lot since the end of World War II. Already an irregular square in plan, this aerial picture helps us to create a visual guide to point every former building and the original nine S-Bahn exits located there during the war years. It was taken by an British PR aircraft on September 6, 1943, two months before the November RAF heavy air raids which left in ruins this popular place in Berlin.]
Divided Berlin: devastation around By war’s end Potsdamer Platz was border of three of the newly born occupation sectors (British and US at West side—Soviet at East). In 1945 the square became the perfect place for Berliners’ Black Market in those days, with daily police raids, mobs and riots with occupation troops. The S-Bahn service wasn’t reopened until 1946-47 but a few months later the city division made that trains didn’t stop here anymore: Potsdamer Platz station would be closed for nearly 30 years, reopening in March 1992.
Once a busy and traffic jammed area, by 1950-60 the square, now physically divided by barbed wire, armed guards and walled up, had become mostly an open space, empty, with most pre-war buildings being demolished except for the large train station and the ghostly Haus Vaterland whose ruins remained a few years more (1976). If you look closely at 1950s pictures, some of the “S” signs seem to have been replaced by metal discs. On the contrary, if you look at 1970 and 80s photos the underground entrances are still there (closed, of course) but the circled S signs are missing, just the poles remained.
[Ernst Hahn took this picture of a policeman checking the papers of a man sitting on his suitcase in 1951 next to the S-Bahn entrance. The square became the perfect place for Berliners’ Black Market in those days.]
[With the city divided in two in 1948, Potsdamer Platz became a new border between ruined buildings, policemen and warning signs as seen here from the East sector just before the Wall rising, 1960. Notice at extreme right the empty space left by the demolished railway station.]
With the 1990 Reunification and the DDR-GDR collapse, life came back to Potsdamer Platz. The square suffered a huge redevelopment and much of the surrounding area became the most modern part of the city. The S-Bahn and subway entrances were refurbished and reopened and new “S” signs, reminiscent of those built in the 1930s but in modern style were installed on each output, as well as two new built entrance halls in the middle of the newly born square.
[The Iron Curtain: one of the western Potsdamer Platz underground entrances during the Cold War, circa 1961, and again in 1965 in colour. Note the missing circle-S on top of the pole, the early-style wall and the barbed wire.]
[Europe’s biggest construction site: When the underground station was reopened (both S- and U-Bahn) in 1992, temporary new signs were placed at the outputs. Here, the Ebertstraße-Voßstr. entrance seen in January 1993.]
[Today, green S-Bahn “S” signs in Berlin look like those in the 1930s, with a reminiscence of the original typography but in modern style and materials.]
This 1945 relic, probably one of the few surviving items from the original Potsdamer Platz, have been witness of the terrific air raids, the bloody battle between the Potsdamer King Tiger and Soviet tanks in May 1945, the end of the Third Reich, the June 1953 uprising, the wall construction in 1961, the no man’s land and finally, the Fall of the Wall and reunification in 1989-90. A true reminder of Berlin’s convulsed 20th century.
Ebling, Hermann. Berlin um 1950: Fotografien von Ernst Hahn. Edition Friedenauer Brücke, 2013.
Hailstone, Allan. Berlin in the Cold War: 1959 to 1966. Amberley Publishing, 2017.
Landesarchiv Berlin: LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 701, Bl. 176; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 702, Bl. 99 ff.; s. a. LAB, A Rep. 005-07, Nr. 559, o. Bl.); LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 703, Bl. 31 ff.
Moorhouse, Roger. Berlin at war. Life and death in Hitler’s capital, 1939-45. Vintage Books, 2011.
In this original colour footage we can see the bombed out and ruined U-Bhf Wittenbergplatz’s entrance hall and its original yellow mustard interior walls (built in 1912), following the end of the war and the reactivation of part of the underground train service in the city.
This soundless footage was recorded on July 9, 1945, by members of the AAF’s 4th Combat Camera Squadron led by Capt. William H. Clothier, which following their motion picture coverage of the war across northwestern Europe had been sent to the German capital that summer to capture the achievements of the air bombardment campaign against Hitler.
As we have seen before on previous posts (read here the 1945 and postwar history) the iconic Wittenbergplatz in Berlin-Schöneberg district and her underground station cross-shaped entrance building were totally wiped out during the 1939-45 war by Allied bombs and the final street-fighting to defeat Hitler’s regime. The hall was hit several times by explosive air bombs and artillery shells, which left in ruins the entrance and the surrounding area. Two months after the end of the hostilities, US servicemen entering the area found the station badly hit, but back in business and with U-bahn trains in service again.
On September 10/11, 1940 (OTD 84 years ago last night), RAF fliers raided the centre of Berlin again. First air-alarms sounded starting at 23.54 hrs[1] with searchlights and Flak guns scanning the dark skies to repel the intruders. The raid, which lasted one hour and a half, was described as “more intense than any Berlin has yet experienced.”[2] Actually, the air attack was one of the weakest of the entire war, but it produced one of the most iconic photos of World War 2, at least of the early years of the conflict.
The bombers, which arrived over the German capital in small numbers (just six according to German sources of the nearly twenty sent by the British) dropped just a few bombs[3] on that night, hampered by ground haze and clouds covering the city.[4] Intended to hit the Tegel gasworks, Tempelhof and the nearby marshalling yards (including Potsdamer Bhf)[5], several bombs landed at the city centre (Mitte district) damaging famous landmarks including Unter den Linden and Pariser Platz, where both the Brandenburger Tor and the Akademie der Künste were hit by some fire bombs which caused minor damage.[6] Bomb hits were reported also at Wilhelmplatz and immediate vicinity of the Reich Chancellery, the Bebelplatz and Dorotheenstr, and up north in the Charite and Invalidenstraße areas, with small fires caused by incendiaries too.[7] Bombing pattern was scattered with other bombs hitting far areas as were Wilmesdorf or Spandau, and apparently (at least it was not reported) not inflicting damage to the aimed industrial targets of the night. Some reports included the old Reichstag in the list of buildings struck by bombs too.[8]
But without no doubt the image that caught most people attention was the one shot by a German photographer hours after the raid. Taken at Charlottenburger Chaussee, then part of the Nazi triumphal avenue Ost-West-Achse (today’s Straße des 17. Juni) a few metres from the famous Brandenburg Gate and surrounded by Tiergarten woods, Berliners take a look curious and amazed into the huge crater caused by a high explosive bomb dropped by the RAF.
[“Three hundred yards up the “East-West Axis” a bomb estimated at between 500 and 1,000 pounds in weight (sic) smashed into the broad asphalt speedway, rocking buildings in a half-mile radius” reads the original text from the American correspondent in Berlin Percival Knauth which witnessed the raid’s aftermath in the German capital.][9]
The image, passed by Nazi censorship to Associated Press, was widely shared and reproduced all across the globe by international press in the next few days, its power and impact were far from evident, especially when it had the Brandenburg Gate as a backdrop. Some US papers even accompanied the picture with the caption “Bomb crater in Unter den Linden” and German press evidenced —for Nazi propaganda purposes, of course— the indignity of the Berliners seeing “hospitals, hotels, residential districts and monuments being bombed.“[10] In the following days the striking scene, filmed by some PR cameraman quickly sent by Goebbels where the bomb crater was, appeared on a German newsreel all across the country too.
The German communique issued hours after the raid stated: “During the past night British planes again flew into North Germany. Several succeeded in reaching Berlin. The English fliers dropped isolated bombs on residential quarters of the capital. They succeeded in striking objectives not only of national importance but to a great extent of international importance. Thus is the house of the Union of German engineers, were students and scientists and technicians reside, was struck. Living rooms and assembly rooms were set afire. In addition the Academy of Art, near the Brandenburg Gate, in the immediate neighborhood of the American Embassy, was struck.”[11]
[Front page of The New York Times the following day describing the British raid on Berlin, September 11, 1940].
[On the very next day, German authorities placed an anti-aircraft gun (Flak) a few metres next to the crater at Charlottenburger Chaussee (in this case a 2cm FlaK 30 on a Horch PKW heavy car). This solitary small battery was an useless and late effort to show Berliners that the capital was defended, as Berlin was still unable to repel the British air raids in those early stages of the war.]
BRITISHBOMBINGSURVEYUNIT.The Strategic Air War Against Germany 1939 - 1945 - The Official Report of the British Bombing Survey Unit. Frank Cass, 1998.
Moorhouse, Roger. Berlin at war. Life and death in Hitler’s capital, 1939-45. Vintage Books, 2011.
Overy, Richard. The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945. Allen Lane, 2013.
Tress HB.Churchill, the First Berlin Raids, and the Blitz: A New Interpretation. Militaergeschichtliche Zeitschrift, Volume 32, Issue 2, Pages 65–78. 1982.
Wildt, Michael and Kreutzmueller, Christoph. Berlin 1933-1945 - Stadt und Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus. Siedler Verlag, 2013.
Last night 84th years ago (28/29 August 1940), Berlin tasted the bloody and terrible bombing war for the first time. Last week we had the opportunity to visit the streets in Kreuzberg district where those first bombs hit the city centre.
Several RAF bombs fell at the Kottbusser Tor area (see full report and map area at the bottom of the page), hitting buildings at Kottbusser Str, Mariannenstraße and Skalitzer Str. along other areas as Prenzlauer Berg and some residential colonies in the outskirts. The Kottbusser Tor area has changed a lot and there are no tram lines anymore, with new buildings built during the postwar years and the original ones which had survived being refurbished too. It seems that no scars from the air bombings have survived.
[A view of the dramatic ‘Bombenschäden’(bomb damage) panorama after the RAF’s second air raid on the German capital, Kottbusser Straße 21-17 buildings.]
[A view of the day after the raid at Kottbusser Str. 25-26, where two explosive bombs hit the pavement next to the tram lines causing damage. Note the alert sign behind and the Hochbahnhof U-Bhf. Kottbusser Tor (built in 1928) in the background where many Berliners took shelter after the raid.]
[Taken a few metres away, this is a warning sign of an unexploded bomb (‘dud’) at Kottbusser Str. 18-19 in the Berlin-Kreuzberg district (notice the U-Bahn highway in the distance). The notice advises the danger with the warning Blindgänger!! Lebensgefahr! which means “Unexploded ordnance”.]
[Around the corner, the roof structure of Mariannenstraße number 26 apartment (today part of Kottbusser Str 15) was thrown into the street by explosive bombs, we can see here the severe damage taken by the building’s last floor, August 29, 1940.]
[Mariannenstraße 29-10 (at left) Ecke Skalitzer Str. (in front of the famous Astronaut Cosmonaut graffiti painted by Victor Ash). Damage was also inflicted by fires on Skalitzer Str. 122, Mariannenstraße numbers 11 and 9-10 (where the electricity plant was hit) and Oranienstraße 189.]
The eastern Kreuzberg district, a very populated residential area, was severely hit by British bombs on 29 Aug. 1940. Several sticks of bombs dropped around U-Bhf Kottbusser Tor caused chaos and large fires there, flying debris shattered the streets, hitting everything around. Almost all the windows between the train station and the Kottbusser Brücke were smashed.
Two high explosive bombs were dropped in front of Kottbusser Str. 25-26 causing severe damage to the pavement and the tram lines there. Another bomb hit Kottbusser Str. 21 destroying the roof structure and the last floor, and number 15’s roof was also destroyed by fire-bombs. Around the corner, the roof structure at Mariannenstraße 26 was thrown into the street by explosive bombs, with roof fires at numbers 24 and 42 Ecke Skalitzer Str. 24. Finally, two unexploded bombs (‘duds’) were located in front of Kottbusser Str. 18-19, next to the tram track.
Berlin admitted minor damage to several districts of the capital the following morning: the myth of the Reichhauptstadt’s inviolability had been finally shattered.
_______________
Bibliography and sources:
Berliner Morgenpost, Freitag, 30. Aug. 1940. Nr. 208.
BRITISHBOMBINGSURVEYUNIT (1998).The Strategic Air War Against Germany 1939 - 1945 - The Official Report of the British Bombing Survey Unit. Frank Cass.
Demps, Laurenz. Luftangriffe auf Berlin. Die Berichte der Hauptluftschutzstelle. Ch. Links Verlag, 2014.
Der Angriff, 30. Aug. 1940, Nr. 210
Friedrich, Jörg. Der Brand Deutschland Im Bombenkrieg 1940-1945. Verlag Ullstein, 2005.
Landesarchiv Berlin. Die Kriegschronik der Reichshauptstadt Berlin – Quelle zur Geschichte Berlins in der NS-Zeit.
Landesarchiv Berlin. LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 700, Bl. 8 f.
Moorhouse, Roger. Berlin at war. Life and death in Hitler’s capital, 1939-45. Vintage Books, 2011.
Overy, Richard.The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945. Allen Lane, 2013.
Shirer, William L. Berlin Diary: Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941. Galahad Books, 1997.
Shirer, William L.This Is Berlin. Random House, 2013
Wildt, Michael and Kreutzmueller, Christoph. Berlin 1933-1945 - Stadt und Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus. Siedler Verlag, 2013.
‘Step into the roaring twenties and experience the vibrant nightlife of Berlin’s Central Hotel and Wintergarten’
The Wintergarten (Friedrichstraße Nr 143-149) was one of Berlin’s best-known variety theatres located in the heart of the city, a popular destination for locals and tourists alike.
Owned by Hermann Gebers, this important theatre located north of the Unter den Linden boulevard opened originally as a recreational hall part of one of the most iconic hotels in the Berlin-Mitte district: the Central-Hotel (built in 1877-78). The large and cosmopolitan hotel, located very close to the Friedrichstraße Bahnhof (known then as the ‘Central train station’) and similar to London and Paris neo-Renaissance and luxury-style hotels of the time, runned almost 100 meters long from the Dorotheenstraße corner to Georgenstr. In the inner courtyard, the hotel had a palm garden with a glass roof and vaulted ceiling dome, a place for guests to relax and for music concerts (a winter garten, quite popular in Wilhelmine Germany) as well as a café-restaurant.
[This street map, dated 1940, shows the large property occupied by the Central-Hotel and its close location to the Friedrichstraße train station. The hotel had three street facades (Dorotheenstraße-Georgenstr-Friedrichstr.) with several entrances and two corner turrets topped with cupolas. The elongated inner courtyard which housed the Wintergarten is clearly seen in this plan view.]
[The original Wintergarten des Central-Hotels, photographed here by Hermann Rückwardt in 1881, was an elongated room with a total area of 1,700 square meters, a vaulted glass roof, palms and a stage for music performance: a real place for guests to relax.]
Berliner actor Franz Dorn and Hungarian Julius Baron took over the winter garden and, after heavy renovation work opened as a theatre in 1887: the new Garten hall had a multi-use variety as a venue for concerts adding theatrical performances, shows, revues and operettas through the combination of band, singers and dancers to the famous hotel. The Skladanowsky brothers showcased the first short movie presentation ever here in November 1895, making it the first movie theatre in history too (“the first projections of film in Europe to a paying audience”). Against a background of inflation and depression, Berlin drew the talent and energies of the rest of Germany towards its glittering cabaret shows and burgeoning sex-tourism industry, which attracts artists, writers, and intellectuals from around the world. The hall was rebuilt again in the 1930s under the new direction of Ludwig Schuch, becoming one of the largest and most modern theatres in Europe.
[View of the large auditorium and stage of the Wintergarten theatre, 1940. Based on an idea by Bernhard Sehring, light bulbs were attached to the ceiling to imitate a starry sky.]
[Some views of the exterior facade of the Central-Hotel and the WinterGarten (note the station’s railway bridge in the background) in the 1930s, when the German capital was run by the Nazi regime.]
Bombenkrieg 1940-1945 The Wintergarten was hit several times during the war by Allied air raids. Its proximity to the important Friedrichstraße Bahnhof as well as the government district of the capital —where Hitler’s Chancellery was located, caused that this area would be fiercely bombed by the enemy. The train station was marked as ‘primary target of opportunity’ in the case the bombers encountered Berlin covered by clouds or smoke so, not surprisingly, bombs fell close of the hotel on every British and American bombardment. Anyway, the Central wasn’t hit until March 1943, when the RAF resumed its bombing campaign on the Nazi capital. Incendiary bombs dropped on that night by 251 British bombers (1/2March, 1943) caused minor damage on the building’s roof and left several adjacent houses at Dorotheenstr. in flames.
[1940: the Wintergarten’s facade of Georgenstraße, running along the train station. Note white-painted kerbs and vertical signs to follow the city’s blackout procedures during the war to ‘protect’ Berlin from air-raids.]
[Public and workers take cover during an air-raid alarm at the Hotel’s cellar, used as an improvised bomb shelter (‘Luftschutzkeller’) during World War II, December 1940.]
Nearly a year later, when the British air offensive reached its maximum level (the so called ‘Battle of Berlin’) the Hotel was hit again by the RAF on 28/29 January 1944 (608 Bomber Command aircraft dropped their bombs on that night over Berlin), causing fire-damage on the building, especially on the roof. City records reported numerous areas of damage on both sides of Friedrichstraße, especially by incendiary bombs.
Finally, the theatre collapsed under the carpet of bombs dropped by the Americans during the last year of the war. After some close calls, the southern part of the building was hit by US bombs and destroyed on June 21, 1944, during a big daylight raid by 606 Eighth Air Force heavy bombers: it was the 211th air-alarm of the war on Berlin and the attack left the ‘Zentral-Hotel’ in ruins and gutted by fire (Friedrichstraße Bhf received a direct hit too). In the spring of 1945 this popular area was totally wiped out during the large US attacks on Berlin-Mitte, especially by the February 3rd and March 18th raids.
Following the destruction of the original Wintergarten by Allied bombers, the Café-Restaurant was briefly reopened a few metres away in the Georgenstraße facade.
[A wartime Wintergarten advertisement dated September 1941 published in ‘Signal’ magazine: the Central-Hotel kept the famous Berliner nightlife and pleasures despite the war and the Allied air bombings on the city.]
[Zerstörungen in der Friedrichstraße, Frühjahr 1945: this extraordinary series of photos was taken by a German photographer on March 21, 1945, in the aftermath of an Allied air raid. Civilians and soldiers can be seen working on a big bomb crater and clearing debris from the street in front of the destroyed Central-Hotel southern corner. Makeshift signs were placed to indicate the ‘new’ location of the Café-Restaurant at Georgenstraße and other displaced restaurants.]
Wann kommt der Russe? The final battle Further damage was inflicted during the Soviet armies’ assault on the Third Reich’s capital in late April-May 1945. Howitzer shells, bomb splinters and small-arms fire added more rubble to an already ruined spot, located a few blocks away from the Reich’s Chancellery, one of the main targets of the assaulting Red troops. Surviving pictures show that heavy street-fighting took place all over the Friedrichstraße, one of the several breakout attempts by the last survivors of the bunker started next to the WinterGarten, with around thirty vehicles (with ‘Nordland’ SS troops and numerous civilians) trying to escape northwards across the Spree at the height of Friedrichstraße and the Weidendammebrücke, which left the area full of wrecks and dead bodies on the night of May 1/2. Finally, on the next morning the German garrison surrendered to the Red Army: the war in Berlin was over.
[Two scenes from a Russian newsreel following the storming battle, the still burning remains of a German truck convoy —one of them loaded with jerry cans— lays next to one of the Wintergarten-Central Hotel entrances, most probably at the Georgenstraße side, May 1945.]
[What was left of the elegant facade of the hotel: the Friedrichstraße with Dorotheenstraße corner had collapsed under the bombs, here seen a few months later following the end of the war, summer 1945.]
[Götterdämmerung, 1946: an aerial view of the Friedrichstraße Bahnhof area from the northeast, with gutted and roofless buildings everywhere. The red contour marks where the Wintergarten and Hotel were until being flattened by Allied bombs. Note the elevated S-Bahn bridge and Spree river at right.]
[The bullet-riddle and burnt out northern facade of the hotel and the adjacent Café Bauer at Georgenstraße, seen from the Friedrichstraße station a year after the end of the war, Berlin-Mitte 1946.]
[Two postwar views of the Friedrichstraße between Dorotheenstraßeand Georgenstr. (note Wintergarten ruins at left), where no building was left intact by Allied bombs, 1946.]
Post mortem and new life The ruins of this popular hotel and café, now part of the Soviet occupation sector in Berlin, weren’t blown up until 1950. In September 1946 a second Wintergarten (in der Neuen Welt) was opened at Hasenheide in Berlin which mainly showed films preceded by a stage show, closing its gates finally in 1955.
[Life goes on: now part of East-Berlin, rubble and ruined buildings still can be seen at the famous corner where Dorotheenstraße meets Friedrichstr. in May 1950.]
Following the city’s reunification in the 1990s, a new-born theatre built at Potsdamer Straße Nr 96 took the name of the former Wintergarten Varieté-Theater (the third one), opening in September 1992 with nearly 500 seats and runned by Deutschen Entertainment AG with André Heller and Bernhard Paul. Threatened with bankruptcy in 2008 and closed during nearly a year, since then the theatre has been managed by the owner of the building, Arnold Kuthe Entertainment GmbH. The show must go on.
[The new Berlin: modern buildings stand today where the former Central-Hotel and Wintergarten were located at Friedrichstraße. In the background, the station’s railway bridge —rebuilt after the war— can be seen in its original location.]
Demps, Laurenz. Luftangriffe auf Berlin. Die Berichte der Hauptluftschutzstelle. Ch. Links Verlag, 2014
Jansen, Wolfgang und Leif, Erich. Festschrift 50 Jahre Wintergarten 1888-1938. 2. Auflage. Olms, 1994
Landesarchiv Berlin: LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 701, Bl. 34 ff; LAB, A Rep. 005-07, Nr. 559, o. Bl; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 702, Bl. 99 ff.; s. a. LAB, A Rep. 005-07, Nr. 559, o. Bl
Moorhouse, Roger. Berlin at war. Life and death in Hitler’s capital, 1939-45. Vintage Books, 2011
Neckelmann, Harald. Friedrichstraße Berlin zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts, Berlin Story Verlag, 2012
von den Hude. Der Bau des Central-Hotel in Berlin. Drei Beiträge zur Berliner Geschichte um 1880. edition.epilog.de, 2022
Wildt, Michael and Kreutzmueller, Christoph. Berlin 1933-1945 - Stadt und Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus. Siedler Verlag, 2013
With the arrival of the new month of September a new phase in the air war was about to begin between Berlin and London. The invasion menace across the Channel forced Churchill and the War Cabinet to maintain the pressure over the enemy, with a vast list of territories and targets to be attacked by the RAF.
After a brief pause of two nights without being on the target lists (you can read more about the previous raid here), RAF’s Bomber Command effort included the ‘Big City’ again on the night of September 3/4, 1940, in what would be the British fifth raid on the German capital. On the first anniversary of Britain’s declaration of war, a mixed force of light and medium bombers from all Groups were sent to “Berlin, Magdeburg, the Ruhr and the German forests, and to airfields in France.”[1] As on previous nights, the bombing effort was hampered by clouds and haze.
Again, the bombing force was sent to destroy “industrial and military targets” located in and around Berlin. Main effort was focused on the western part of the city with the Hampden squadrons (No. 5 Group) being dispatched to bomb the West power station in Berlin-Spandau and the Rheinmetall Borsig factory, meanwhile No. 4 Group’s mission was directed against a transformer station and gasworks in the Tegel area too.[2] The Wellington group for its part was assigned a special task on this night: to raise fires on Grunewald, the largest wooded area in Berlin (For further info see Razzles - Firing the Grunewald Forest) dropping incendiary bombs “where, among other things, it was thought that the Germans had established enormous military storage facilities”.[3][4] Similar raids were made on previous nights (to the Black Forest or to Falkensee near Berlin), but this was the first one of this type on the capital.[5]
[Wellington crews being interrogated by an RAF intelligence officer after returning from a raid, 2 September 1940.]
Exact figures about how many bombers attacked Berlin on that night are impossible to come by, because known documents (mainly each squadron’s ORB — operations record books) are not so precise as in late war years, but an estimate is between 17-21 aircraft dispatched until more detailed data surfaces.
As with the rest of early raids on Berlin, this one was mostly obliterated by aviation historians and authors. Even the most recent Martin Bowman’s work, a specialized book narrating the RAF’s early years bombing campaign against Berlin published last year, doesn’t mention it.[6] Just brief descriptions can be found in the available literature, for example Bomber Command’s reference book (Middlebrook, 1985) “90 Blenheims, Hampdens, Wellingtons and Whitleys to Berlin…” or in 4 Group’s chronicle by Chris Ward. Former 10 Squadron air-gunner Larry Donnelly writes in his book a more detailed breakdown of the operation, meanwhile author Paul Tweddle gives us a deeper narration of the raid.[7] On the German side, Prof. Demps in his research of the air bombardments on the city lists this raid as been made by just eleven British aircraft.[8]
‘Bombs on Woods’ Bomber Command’s 3 Group assigned the mission to two of its units, both equipped with Wellington medium bombers. Order Form B.259 was received at RAF Marham, Norfolk, earlier that day where Nos 38 and 115 Squadrons were based at the time. Six bombers were prepared to attack the Grunewald woods, with twelve more intended to bomb the Schwarzwald (Black Forest in Southwest Germany). Another four crews would target marshalling yards at Hamm and Schwerte with the north and western forests areas of Berlin as alternative targets.[9]
The bombers attacking the forests would be loaded with six containers of 25 lb parachute incendiary bombs each and several 250 lb light case incendiaries.[10]
At Marham, 115 Squadron put up four bombers from 20.41 hrs intended for Grunewald. Crews reported that many explosions were caused and fires started at the target area.[11] However according to author Steve Smith just two a/c from this squadron were assigned Berlin’s forests on this night.[12] Shortly thereafter No. 38 Squadron’stwo bombers took off for their targets (off eleven attacking Germany) to fire Grunewald’s woods too, arriving over target area at 00:34 hrs. The squadron’s combat log recorded that “many fires were started and many white and red explosions were seen, and much damage is believed to have been done.” By 04.43 hrs all aircraft had returned safely.[13]
[A fine study of Wellington bomber X3662KO-P assigned to No. 115 Squadron RAF seen at Marham, Norfolk, in 1940.]
For their part, No. 5 Group — then under Air Vice Marshal Harris’ command — sent Order Form B.212 to Scampton and Waddington stations. Attacking orders planned “To destroy power station at X Target B.56.” (the West power station located at Spandau/Siemensstadt) with eight aircraft from Nos 44 and 83 Squadrons, both equipped with Hampden bombers. Loaded with 250- and 500 lb GP bombs, in the case crews didn’t find it they would proceed to target G.69 (the Deutsche Industriewerke AG) and the Rheinmetall Borsig AG factory (coded E.15) at Berlin-Tegel where the company built guns and ammunition among other many things substantial for the German war effort. Another four Hampdens were to attack an oil refinery in Magbeburg with one Berlin target as the secondary (an oil storage coded A.160).[14]
Operating from RAF Feltwell as advance airstrip the Scampton crews (No 83 Sqn) are to lead the attack with five bombers, however results were poor: two of the bombers returned to base early due to engine trouble and the remaining three reached the German capital but just one reported to have identified and attacked the target, with other claiming to drop bombs over a “large factory west of Spandau”, none of them seen their effects.[15] The three 44 Squadron bombers arrived at the target area between 23.45 and 00.40 hrs and dropped their bombs in a swallow dive but results were not seen owing to intense searchlights and A.A. fire. By 04.45 all the aircraft were back at their bases in England safely.[16]
Finally, No 4 Group’s contribution to that night included just one of its units, in this case No 10 Squadron based at RAF Leeming, North Yorkshire. The night before the squadron had been sent to attack a power station in Genoa, Italy, a very long trip at the limit of the Whitley’s endurance losing two crews. (see Richard Worrall, The Italian Blitz 1940–43: Bomber Command’s war against Mussolini’s cities, docks and factories. Osprey, 2020, for further information)[17]
Earlier that day the crews had been briefed to raid targets in Italy again, but at mid-morning new orders reassigned the Group to Berlin. The seven bombers detailed were to attack targets in west Berlin area, with the power plant as primary target and the coal gasworks in Berlin-Tegel as secondary objective. Their Whitley bombers would be loaded with 2x500 lb plus 6x250 lb high explosive bombs.
Leaving RAF Leeming from 20.30 hours, the seven bombers dispatched by the squadron reached the Reich’s capital, but only one claimed to have bombed the primary target(“one large fire was started”) and another the secondary, rest of the crews attacked targets of opportunity due to total darkness: a marshalling yard, a factory near Stendal, and an aerodrome south of the capital, with the last one dropping bombs over an aerodrome at Magdeburg. Returning crews reported ten-tenth clouds and intense Flak over the target. At 06.20 the last aircraft landed after completing operations.[18]
[A Whitley bomber from No. 102 Squadron RAF moments before departing to a night sortie over the Third Reich, 1940.]
‘crashed against a tree’ RAF intruders suffered no losses over Germany on that night but one bomber crash-landed on the return journey due to fuel exhaustion. This aircraft, bomber Whitley P4967ZA-J ‘J for Johnny’ of No 10 Sqn, made two attacks on a marshalling yard two miles from the primary target and returned to Yorkshire but ran low on fuel, the pilot (Flight Lt D.G. Tomlinson) was forced to make a ‘wheels-up’ landing at 06.45 hrs five miles of Northallerton in North Yorkshire. All crewmembers escaped unhurt.[19] Another Whitley (serial P4994) from the same unit suffered Flak damage over the target when a piece of shrapnel damaged the bomber’s windscreen but returned without problem to England.[20]
[Whitley P4967 ran out of fuel and crashed in a small field at Hall Farm, 5 miles of Northallerton. The bomber, piloted by Flight Lt D.G. Tomlinson, was a total wreck.]
‘Mass Bombing of Secret Targets’ On the next day, press reports and the official Air Ministry communique resumed the operation with high claims: “British planes last night bombed electric power stations, lighting installations and an armament factory. Other planes attacked military objectives in the Harz Mountains and in the Grunewald Forest north of Berlin, starting fires and causing explosions.”[21] Pilots returning reported fierce blazes “seen from 100 miles on their homeward flight” with squadron’s log records narrating explosions and large fires seen too. British and American press highlighted even more the bombing effects on Berlin that night: “a devastating attack with incendiary bombs” wrote for example The New York Times two days after the raid.[22]
Reality was far from that and results were poor. Just nine crews (of 19 that probably reached the Great Berlin area) returned claims of have bombed their primary target, with two others attacking the secondary. Heavy clouds and ground haze over the targets were encountered, which made it difficult to locate them and to observe the immediate effects of the swallow attacks.[23] Almost all returning crews reported intense German Flak and accurate fire, with a high number of searchlights over the target area; one crewmember remembered that “searchlights were very active… two of these were red, but changed to yellow” meanwhile another one stated that “the Black-out in Berlin was very poor.”[24]
On the other hand, the Luftwaffe continued its aerial campaign against the Thames estuary, resulting in heavy air combats over Kent and Essex during the day. On the evening, small German bombing formations attacked the Midlands, the Wash area and Merseyside, offensive described as “widespread over many parts of this country, but reports indicate that the general damage was slight”, losing two to RAF night fighters.[25]
[Bombing news headlines at The Times, Thursday, 5 September 1940, page 4]
As seen before, with the arrival of the new month the air bombing campaign continued, although with less intensity, the Reich’s capital being targeted regularly through the autumn and winter of 1940. This new attack by RAF raiders, overclaimed by the British, left a small tonnage of bombs dropped and minimal damage on the city but achieved its main purpose of keeping the pressure over the Nazi authorities and reminded the German people that they were at war also.
On the next post we will explore the effects of this bombardment on the city, its people and its terrible consequences… London would soon suffer the power of the German air fleet.
BRITISHBOMBINGSURVEYUNIT.The Strategic Air War Against Germany 1939 - 1945 - The Official Report of the British Bombing Survey Unit. Frank Cass, 1998.
Churchill, Winston. Their Finest Hour. Houghton Mifflin, 1949.
Tress HB.Churchill, the First Berlin Raids, and the Blitz: A New Interpretation. Militaergeschichtliche Zeitschrift, Volume 32, Issue 2, Pages 65–78. 1982.
Ward, Chris. 5 Group Bomber Command: An Operational Record. Pen & Sword Books, 2007.
Ward, Chris and Smith, Steve. 3 Group Bomber Command: An Operational Record. Pen & Sword Books, 2009.
Williston, Floyd. Through Footless Halls of Air: The Stories of a Few of the Many who Failed to Return. GSPH, 1996.
