…to be met by numerous searchlights and well directed and intensive flak. The raids must have destroyed the myth of German invincibility, thus causing considerable anger to Hitler and Goering who had boasted that such raids would never happen.’ – Squadron LeaderAndrew Jackson, DFC, No 149 Sqn –
On Friday 30 August 1940 afternoon, Bomber Command men were briefed to raid Berlin again. This would be the third bombing raid in four nights against the heart of the Reich, following the previous attack made two nights earlier (28/29 August) which, as we see on previous posts, hit the city center for the first time causing death victims among the Berlin population.[1]
From the initial retaliation raid, Churchill continued his strategic air campaign against the Third Reich’s capital, overruling the initial Bomber Command objections of bombing Berlin.[2] The Germans had increased the number of raids on the previous night when nearly 200 bombers dropped bombs on Merseyside and Manchester. On the 30th, from early morning Luftwaffe aircraft maintained its pressure on the RAF attacking several airfields in southeastern England. Those bombings, view as indiscriminate and aimed to Britain’s civil population, marked the continuation of night attacks on Berlin by the Prime Minister but justified targeting industrial and military objectives on the city.[3]
This third raid has been normally omitted in Second World War general studies and often confused or mixed with the previous one, both their figures and damage caused, even detailed and focused on the air campaign works such as the one by Prof Overy wrongly states the exact dates of the bombardment.[4]
As with previous raids, first question to aboard was the exact number of bombers sent to attack Berlin. Again, started from Bomber Command’s operational reference book (Middlebrook, 1985) to get an overall figure of that night sorties, which surprisingly, not mentioned Berlin: ‘87 Blenheims, Hampdens, Wellingtons and Whitleys to 5 targets in Germany and to airfields in France, Holland and Belgium.’ [5] Author Larry Donnelly as usual describes in his book a more detailed breakdown of the night operations, giving a more precise number of the bombing force sent and losses, naming the most important targets of the mission too.[6] Napier, author of the latest book about the Wellington bomber, for his part just refers to the squadrons of the type involved on this operation, without any figure or brief description of the raid[7] meanwhile others like Bowman not mention it and jump to the next raid on the very next night.[8] Paul Tweddle, in his Bomber Command summer 1940 book, narrates the mission with reference to ‘a twenty-nine-strong force [3 Group]’ and a further dozen Whitleys from 4 Group and includes a pair of crew testimonies relating that night sorties over Berlin.[9] Finally, looking at German historians research, Dr Laurenz Demp refers in his study about the bombings on Berlin the number of planes over the capital, according to British sources, as being just twenty-six.[10]
Careful study of primary sources, in this case each squadron operational records (ORBs), let us to affirm that London sent forty-one twin-engined bombers to attack the city as part of a 87-aircraft force targeting objectives in Germany, Holland and France. In all, 34 crews of those sent reached Berlin with more or less success.[11]
[The crew of a Vickers Wellington of No. 99 Squadron RAF get into their Irvin two-piece flying suits in the crew room, before taking off for a night raid to Berlin.]
Industrial targets Bomber Command allocated two of its bombing groups the mission of targeting the ‘Big City’ —as British crews known the German capital— on that late summer night. Each bomber would fly individually the 650 miles to its assigned Berlin-target in darkness and radio silence. In Suffolk, home of the No 3 Group, the squadrons stations received on the early afternoon Order Form B.255 which ordered “to cause max damage to targets given in para ‘G’ and to create maximum disturbance over Germany during the hours of darkness.” [12]
Again, main target of the operation was Siemensstadt, where the Siemens & Halske works (coded G.161) at the northwestern part of the capital was the intended objective for fifteen of the raiders. Another squadron of the Group would target F.23, British codename for the Henschel Flugzeug-Werke A.G. (HFW) aircraft factory located in Berlin-Schönefeld, where the Hs 123 dive bomber and parts of the Hs 126 reconnaissance aircraft among other types were built. Alternative target for the bombing force were the Tempelhof oil storage facilities, although half of the attackers finally bombed the already known Klingenberg power station in Rummelsburg (B.57).[13]
[A view of the assembly line of Hs 126 aircraft at the Henschel Flugzeug-Werke factory in Berlin-Schönefeld.]
[A map showing Schönefeld area in the early 1940s with the Flugplatz and the Henschel HFW buildings installed nearby, very close to today’s Berlin-Schönefeld airport.]
No 3 Group’s operation order also shows the vital importance that the Air Ministry gave to halt production at Siemens works ordering that “as many sorties as possible detailed to attack G161 to be loaded with 2000 lb of bombs” andrequested pictures of the factory to be taken.[14]
Meanwhile, in North Yorkshire, No 4 Group was given operations Order No 67 which ordered “to inflict maximum damage to Target allotted” and assigned two of its squadrons equipped with Whitley bombers to the task. Primary objectives were two oil storages located in the capital (coded A.155 and A.156) with a munition factory in Spandau coded C.18 as alternative target.[15] Bomb load of this force consisted in two 500-lb bombs, four 250-lb, one 250-lb delay-fuze bomb and one canister of incendiaries (IBs) carried by each Whitley bomber.
This time none of the Hampden squadrons (5 Group) participated, being assigned to harass Germany’s oil supply installations on that night.[16]
“R.A.F. Lands Explosives in Middle of Berlin” The more experienced unit of the 3 Group, No149 Squadron,was briefed to attack objectives A.78 in Magdeburg and Siemens & Halske Werke in Berlin, departing RAF Mildenhall aerodrome at intervals from 20.21 hrs totalling ten aircraft. The squadron’s ORB noted that the mission was carried out and that all machines returned safely to base. One of the bombers (Wellington R3161 ‘O’ manned by P/O Loat crew) returned early with a sick man aboard.[17]
[500-lb MC and 250-lb GP bombs, being delivered to bomb a Vickers Wellington Mark IC of No 149 Squadron RAF at a dispersal at Mildenhall airfield.]
Making its combat debut on a Berlin raid on this night was No 214 Squadron from RAF Stradishall, in Suffolk. At this station, five crews were detailed to attack the Siemens works (G.161) and another five to bomb B.57 Klingenberg power station. Four of them reported to have attacked G.161 dropping their bombs effectively, meanwhile two more attacked Klingenberg although the O’ Connor crew was only able to drop incendiaries on it. Two other crews failed to reach Berlin due to engine issues and had to attack targets of opportunity on the Zuider Zee area and a third, piloted by P/O Simson, returned to base early, bringing back home all the bomb load. Nothing was heard or seen of Wellington T2559, declared missing with F/O Craigie-Halkett crew aboard.[18]
Finally, 99 Squadron flying from RAF Newmarket, Suffolk, contributed with six Wellington bombers sortied. Two of them bombed Tempelhof’s marshalling yards (M499) and at least one reported seen huge flashes and bursts. Four other crews attacked the Henschel factory in Schönefeld but none of them seen results due to haze and clouds.[19]
[Vickers Wellington Mark IC, T2470 ‘BU-K’, of No 214 Squadron RAF, is towed into a C-type hangar at Stradishall, Suffolk, for repair and overhaul following damage sustained on operations. ‘K-King’ took off at 21.29 hrs piloted by F/L Kauffman tasked to attack the Siemens works in Berlin on that evening.]
[A 214 Squadron (‘BU’ codes on the fuselage) Wellington takes off just prior night falls in eastern England. The ‘Wimpy’ was the best and most advanced bomber the British had at the time.]
Meanwhile, No 4 Group men readied for the forthcoming operation too. The two assigned squadrons from this group —Nos 58 and 77— were both based at RAF Linton-on-Ouse aerodrome at the time. The attack route was planned via Bridlington coast and from then set direct course to Berlin individually covered by darkness.[20]
The 58Squadron went first and, soon after dinner, detailed nine aircraft with mixed results, just four claimed to have bombed the city: one bomber hit A156 and saw a red glow, another one attacked Tempelhof with 3 sticks of bombs from 8,000ft reporting seeing fires started and a huge explosion and a third one bombed Siemensstadt instead and a rail junction south of target. Another crew noted to have bombed an aerodrome in the Spandau area. The others failed to locate their objectives (including Sqr Leader Barlett which encountered heavy AA fire and searchlight that prevented target ID) or abandoned the mission and jettisoned their bombs in the sea on the return flight.[21]
Minutes later, 77 Squadron dispatched six more Whitleys. They took off from 20.35 hrs similarly tasked and headed to Berlin. Crews reported clouds all the way to the target and very heavy AA fire met over Bremen area, but not so intense over the Reich capital. Back in England, all reported to have dropped their bombs over the target from an average height of 8,000 feet, claiming several direct hits and violent explosions seen and considerable fires started by incendiaries.[22]
[RAF armourers ‘bombing up’ an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley Mark V with 250-lb General Purpose bombs in 1940.]
Radar-controlled night victory The RAF lost two aircraft in this Berlin sortie: one was Whitley P5002, a bomber from 58 Squadron coded ‘GE-T’. The crew failed to locate any target so bombed a factory near Nordhorn. On the return leg, the aircraft was low on fuel and pilot P/O Neville O Clements ordered to abandon the aircraft circa 05.00 into the North Sea, off Hornsea. All crew was rescued minus Sgt Hill, who was presumed drowned, his body being lost.[23]
The other victim was Wellington IAT2559 ‘BU-A’, a 214 Sqn machine which during the outward-flight to Berlin was shot down at 23.24 hrs by Oberleutnant Werner Streib of 2./NJG 1, who was flying a Bf 110 night fighter from Anholt airfield. The bomber crashed near Halle (Gelderland), the Netherlands, the impact detonating the bomb load. This was the first ground-radar tracked victory at night, Streib and his ‘bordfunker’ being led by a ‘Wurzburg’ radar in Raum5B based at Deurne. The ‘Wimpy’ was coned before for 3 minutes by two searchlights of III./Flakscheinw. Rgt 1 and downed in flames by Streib, who observed no chutes from the fallen bomber.[24]
The crew of six perished in the crash (Sgt. G H Bainbridge, F/O LM Cragie-Halkett, P/O WS Cunynghame, Sgt. SJ Haldane, Sgt. GE Merryweather and Sgt. AB Puzey) and were all buried at the local cemetery in Halle. The story behind the loss of T2559 has been well researched by Bennie Eenink.
[German ace Hauptmann Werner Streib (left) posing with Major Wolfgang Falck, “father” of the Luftwaffe’s night fighting force. Wellington T2559 was Streib’s fourth victory claim of a total war score of 68. An hour later he dispatched another bomber, an 50 Sqn Hampden downed over Velen.]
[A German Messerschmitt Bf 110D night fighter painted overall black in flight, in this case from 7. Staffel of Nachtjagdgeschwader 1. At this early stage of the war, German night fighters still lacked airborne radars so they depend of ground control to localize and engage the British raiders at night.]
Two more ‘Wimpys’ returned safely but were damaged when they had to force land, both of them of 214 Squadron: Wellington IAP2530 piloted by F/O RR O’Connor, when returned to base and low on fuel, undershot into a ditch short of the runway with no casualties. The other was P9233 with F/O Proctor crew aboard that touched ground at Overton.[25]
[These pictures of T2559 wreck appeared in the Dutch Graafschapbode newspaper, as well as some others from the burial of the British crew in the first week of September, 1940.]
“Carefully-selected military objectives in Berlin” Returning RAF crews interestingly reported that the city’s blackout was very effective and that haze and clouds made nearly impossible to observe the results of their bombing runs. Some pilots related that were unable to identify anything of interest through the clouds even after releasing flares to illuminate the zone, which forced them to turn for home or bombed some other target.[26] Others ran into AA heavy fire on route on the Bremen area and were astonished that it was less intense over Berlin centre and that it seems all the searchlights and guns were in the NW suburbs of the city.[27]
At the same time, across the Channel, German aircraft took off from northern France bases heading in large formations to bomb Liverpool: about 130 Ju 88 and Heinkel bombers attacked meanwhile some others hit parts of London and Portsmouth, and Manchester, Bristol and Worcester received German bombs too with some 50 people killed.[28]
[The ruined organ of the Wallasey Town Hall in Merseyside, Liverpool, after being hit by a German bomb during the 30/31 August air raid.]
On the next day, the Air Ministry released an official communiqué about the raid on Germany stating that objective for the bombers were industrial and military targets at the outskirts of the enemy’s capital city: “The R.A.F. bombers selected for special attack an objective four miles from the centre of the city”, and dropped a “large number of bombs on a series of carefully-selected military objectives in Berlin.” London admitted the loss of three of the bombers from all operations on that night.[29]
[No. 149 Squadron aircraft flying in ‘vic’ formation in the summer of 1940. Two of the bombers, Wellingtons ‘M’ serial R3206 (at right), and ‘N’ P9247 (in the far background), were among those sent to bomb Berlin on that night.]
The escalation of the bombing war was evident and in the next days both bands would increase their bomb tonnage dropped over civilians. The importance to keep pressure on the Reich capital in Churchill’s view and beyond its military value was shown when the Air Ministry authorized for the first time a journalist to fly on the raid aboard one of the attacking bombers.[30] The RAF’s bombing arm, at a time when Britain was isolated and standing alone against the Nazi advance to the West, went onto the offensive attacking civilian targets in Germany soil, forcing a change of strategy in the air war by German leaders.
Our next post will cover the German view and the consequences of this third raid on Berlin.
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Churchill, Winston. Their Finest Hour. Houghton Mifflin, 1949.
Frankland, Noble. Bomber Offensive - The Devastation of Europe. Ballantine Books, 1970.
Materna, Horst. Die Geschichte der Henschel Flugzeug-Werke A.G. in Schönefeld bei Berlin 1933 bis 1945. Rockstuhl Verlag, 2010.
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Oud Zelhem. The story behind the British war graves in Halle (NL) The WellingtonT2559. <https://oudzelhem.eu/index.php/2e-wereldoorlog/wereldoorlog-2e/32-wereldoorlog-2e/2e-wereldoorlog/verhalen-2e-wereldoorlog/881-britse-oorlogsgraven-in-halle-english>
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 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.
Young, Neil. The Role of the Bomber Command in the Battle of Britain. Imperial War Museum Review No. 06, 1991.
Located in the northwestern Tiergarten, the Hansaviertel was built from the intersection of three main streets in a star-shaped square, which was named Hansaplatz in 1879. A residential ‘Bezirk’, the zone emerged from the city’s rising prosperity. The S-Bahn railway, adjacent to the river Spree and with two stations (Bhf-Tiergarten and Bellevue) located here, divided this district into a north-eastern and a south-western area. The newcomers —wealthy citizens— built prestigious houses with elaborately composed styles, cornices and friezes in neo-baroque and neo-renaissance façades with small front gardens along the roadsides. Many notable citizens lived here during the Weimar Republic.
The quarter had a remarkably high proportion of Jewish population. They were all practically deported during the Nazi period, first ‘resettled’ and later sent to the death camps, and their two synagogues used as a collection camp for Jews and later destroyed.
[The Hansaviertel seen circa 1940 with the central square Hansaplatz, before the district was severely damaged by the combined RAF and USAAF bombing campaign. Brückenallee, where the two assembly halls were located, is seen at extreme right of the picture, running north towards Bhf Bellevue and notice at left the railway tracks.]
The Hansaviertel in the Bombenkrieg, 1940-1945 The area was heavily damaged by the Allied air raids during the war, first time that the Hansaviertel appeared on the city’s bombing reports was on 20/21 December 1940, when several British incendiary bombs struck buildings at Brückenallee 2-6 and 32, and at Altonaer Str. 17. A year later, during the 7/8 November 1941 air attack, the largest single raid to date(73 RAF bombers raided the city), several bombs landed along Altonaer Str. and Hansaplatz, including some on the Hansabrücke.
When London restarted the aerial raids against the city in 1943 with a two-night small campaign, the district was hit hard on 16/17 and 17/18 January (169 and 187 bombers bombed, respectively): severe building damage resulted at Altonaer Str. 9-14, Schleswiger Ufer 12/13 and Lessingstr. 40 all hit by air-mines that left more than 200 homeless. On the Spree near the Hansabrücke, seven boats were slightly damaged by explosive bombs.
[A view of the bomb damage taken by Altonaer Straße during the RAF raid on 16/17 January 1943, in this case street number 12.]
The northern Tiergarten and Moabit areas were completely destroyed during the British fall and winter 1943-44 raids when RAF aircraft flew 10,813 sorties dropping 33,390 tons of bombs, especially the “Hansa” quarter which was hit hard by fire and explosive bombs and air-mines with German records talking about ‘Schwere und schwerste Zerstörungen’ at the district. The Schloss Bellevue was badly hit and listed as a “total loss” too. In contrast to the severe damage to buildings, the casualties are relatively small in the district but water, light, gas and telephone connections were several days off.
[British targets indicators (TIs) fall on the Tiergarten and the Hansaviertel and Moabit districts during an RAF night raid in fall 1943. Note the Grosser Stern at bottom left and the Westhafen docks on the upper part of the picture.]
[A 1944-view looking east of the district northwest of the Tiergarten after the RAF’s ‘Battle of Berlin’ bombing campaign. There is overwhelming evidence of a tremendous spread of fire with great number of roofless buildings. At centre is Hansaplatz, with Spree running from top right to bottom left.]
The American daylight air raids caused severe damage on this area too: centre of Berlin was the target for US bombers on 8 May 1944—403 bombers reached Berlin on that day under a complete overcast— hitting the area around the Zoo and the Hansa-district with disastrous consequences.
In the late stages of the war, nuisance night raids by RAF Mosquitoes also caused destruction in the Hansaviertel as reported on 31 December 1944when a ‘cookie’ bomb hit Altonaer Str. 2, or after several bombs struck at Brückenallee 22 and Tile-Wardenberg-Str. 10 on 10 March 1945. Finally, on April 12, 1945, Mosquitoes dropped bombs again on the already ruined district, hitting Brückenallee 4, Händelallee, and the ruins of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Gedächtniskirche. More bombs collapsed part of the railway bridge at Lessingstraße.
[This series of pictures showing of bomb damage and devastation were taken by a German PK photographer in the Hansaviertel district after a British air raid in 1943.]
This bomb damage diagram was released by the British Air Ministry after examining numerous aerial photographs to indicate how much damage was caused by the RAF air campaign up to February 1944 (darkened areas) on the city centre. Note that practically all the Hansaviertel’s built-up area is marked as “destroyed”.
The 1945 fightings From March 1945, Berlin and its citizens prepared for the final battle with the advancing Russian troops. The Hansaviertel and northern Tiergarten park were located inside the inner circle of “the fortress”, being its first line of defence the Spree river. This area was defended by some units from Panzer-Division ‘Müncheberg’ and was hammered during all battle by Soviet artillery. Barricades and tank obstacles were built at the Hansa- and Moabiterbrücken in preparation for the intended bloody street-fighting. On the 27th April the Soviet 12th Guards Tank Corps with the 79th Rifle Corps on its right flank advanced from the north through the Moabit district reaching the river’s north bank on the afternoon of the 28th, although both units encircled the “Hansa” area: the 79th pushed east to get a direct assault across the Moltkebrücke into the Reichstag and Königsplatz and the 12th westwards to western Moabit, but finally halted due to its heavy infantry losses. No great advance was made here until May 1st, when the attacking forces penetrated into the Hansa and western Tiergarten from Charlottenburg Tor.
[Reconnaissance aerial image of Hansaplatz area and northwestern Tiergarten looking west, taken on March 22, 1945, a month before the Soviet assault on the city, the tank barricade is already built blocking the Hansabrücke, seen at top left of the picture.]
After the ceasefire, a Panzer VI Tiger I tank was found abandoned at Altonaer Straße. It was positioned between the railway bridge and the Panzersperre barricade that blocked the southern end of the Hansabrücke to prevent the Soviet assault from the north. This tank, one of the last two of this type fighting in Berlin, belonged to the 3./Pz. Abt. ‘Müncheberg’.
Pictures show the same Tiger in 1946 when the dismantling work had begun, surrounded by a sea of rubble and bricks, and with its main wheels and tracks missing. The tank had a mixed composition with an early built hull and a late style turret with zimmerit and commander’s cupola, and a white outlined swastika was painted on the sides of the hull.
Next to the Tiger at Altonaer Str Ecke Schleswiger Ufer there was a PanzerspähwagenPAK 40, in this case facing Tiergarten. The crew abandoned the armoured car and destroyed its gun; closer pictures revealed that it was equipped with a 7.92 mm MG81Z machine gun fitted to the left armour plate. It is assumed that this vehicle belonged to the same unit as the heavy tank.
British Royal Engineer C S Newman captured this series of photos of a German Trümmerfrau working on some bricks seated in front of the Sd.Kfz.234/4 wreck at Altonaer Straße. The Tiger tank is seen behind.
Some blocks away to the east, American William Vandivert found more remains of German vehicles abandoned. He took these pictures at Claudiusstraße/Flensburger Straße in July 1945 in the northern part of the Hansaviertel. Among the wrecks under the S-Bahn railway bridge there were two schwerer Pz.Sp.Wg. (7·5cm Pak 40) (Sd.Kfz.234/4) armoured cars which probably belonged to Pz.Spähl.Kp. from Panzer-Division ‘Müncheberg’.
[Here, US Army Pfc. John Shoemaker is seen inspecting the same battle wrecks at Claudiusstraße on 1 July 1945. On the original picture a Sd.Kfz.250 is seen on the left.]
Post mortem The war bombings caused a complete destruction in the area and its fancy residential buildings. According to Dr. Sandra Wagner-Conzelmann, of the 343 houses listed in the district just 70 remain, many of them badly damaged. Nonetheless, about 4,000 people still lived there among rubble. In the devastated Tiergarten, the remaining trees were chopped down months later which, combined with the multiple bomb craters, made the area to resemble a moon landscape.
The rebuilt program did not start until 1953, when the German Senate declared this district the core area of the imminent International Building Exhibition Interbau (Interbau 57), creating from 1957 a modern urban area designed by several internationally renowned architects. Hans Scharoun, Head of the Department for Building and Housing in Berlin, summed up the project: ‘What remains, after the loosening-up achieved by bombing raids and the final battle, gives us the chance to shape an urban landscape.’
[Berliners collecting wood meanwhile some others grow vegetables in Tiergarten around the ruined Kaiser Friedrich Memorial church, which was destroyed during the 22 November 1943 raid by RAF bombs. A new church, designed by architect Ludwig Lemmer, was built here in 1957.]
[In this post-war photo we see the sea of rubble in which Lessingstraße Ecke Händelallee had become and the intense clearing debris work made by surviving Berliners in 1945/46.]
[Post-war Altonaer Straße and some vegetable gardens in the Tiergarten seen from the Siegessäule in 1947. Note the ruined Memorial church at extreme left.]
[Harry Croner took this picture of the railway bridge in Bellevue in 1947 showing the Allied bombers’ work done in Tiergarten. The curving tracks indicate us that the exact location was Klopstockstraße, a few metres before the S-Bhf Bellevue.]
Two views of today’s Hansaviertel residential area, where from an extensively war-damaged area a modern urban development with wide green spaces was born.
Antill, Peter. Berlin 1945: End of the Thousand Year Reich. Campaign 159. Osprey Publishing, 2005.
Archer, Lee. Panzers in Berlin 1945. Panzerwrecks, 2019.
Beevor, Anthony. The Fall of Berlin 1945. Viking, 2002.
Blank, Ralf. Germany and the Second World War. Volume IX/I. Clarendon Press, 1990.
Demps, Laurenz. Luftangriffe auf Berlin. Die Berichte der Hauptluftschutzstelle. Ch. Links Verlag, 2014.
Hansaviertel Berlin. 22. November 1943. <https://hansaviertel.berlin/geschichte/november-1943/>
Hansaviertel Berlin. Geschichte der Interbau 1957. <https://hansaviertel.berlin/interbau-1957/geschichte-interbau-57/>
Janiszewski, Bertram. Das alte hansa-Viertel in Berlin. Haude & Spener, 2000.
Landesarchiv Berlin. LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 700, Bl. 143 ff; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 698, Bl. 144 ff., s. a. Nr. 700, Bl. 270 ff; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 698, Bl. 149 f., s. a. Nr. 700, Bl. 275 f; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 701, Bl. 176; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 702, Bl. 79 ff.; s. a. LAB, A Rep. 005-07, Nr. 559, o. Bl; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 702, Bl. 185 f; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 703, Bl. 43; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 703, Bl. 87 f.
Le Tissier, Tony. Race for the Reichstag: The 1945 Battle for Berlin. Pen and Sword Military, 2010.
Moorhouse, Roger. Berlin at war. Life and death in Hitler’s capital, 1939-45. Vintage Books, 2011.
Wildt, Michael and Kreutzmueller, Christoph. Berlin 1933-1945 - Stadt und Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus. Siedler Verlag, 2013
‘The take-off was made under hailing Russian fire and as the plane rose to roof-top level it was picked up by countless searchlights and at once breaketed in a barrage of shelling’.
It was mid July, 1945, when American photographer William Vandivert traveled around the devastated city accompanied by some US servicemen in one of those ubiquitous Jeeps following the capture of Berlin by Allied troops. He took hundreds of pictures with his camera of the ruined Nazi-capital for the LIFE magazine.
During his trip across the Tiergarten sector he found a pair of strange structures: two large hangar-style wooden halls built right on a wide street in what seems to be some kind of makeshift German depot or repair facility. In the pictures can be seen that their walls were covered by cork plates and the roof by fabric trying to camouflage it from the air; residential buildings with fancy facades are seen on both sides with the place left in an abandoned condition.
A small and lesser known corner of the Third Reich’s capital city that still today raises many unknowns …but what really were? A shed being built to house bombed out Berliners? or they were small aircraft repair facilities used by the Nazis during the last days of the fighting?
This is an opposite view of the camouflaged structure, with some curious Berliners walking through the interior. At extreme left there is some kind of double stove pipe, note its brick construction and the considerable height of the chimney.
Vandivert took this picture of the second hall also, looking apparently northwards and with the first one and the stoves seen in the far background (there were some others between the two halls). This one seems to have a complete opening at both ends unlike the other and within it we can see a wide variety of objects (aircraft wrecks?), some huge wooden crates and debris everywhere. Both facilities appear to be damaged or left unfinished, with part of the roof collapsed and its fabric cover torn.
… but exactly where? First question to aboard is to know in which zone these structures were built. Original photo captions and brief information available until today just reported as being in the “Tiergarten section”, a very large and vast area of the German capital. It is well known that Berlin’s largest green zone was used during the last months of the war as an improvised landing strip with several oral testimonies and reports about transport aircraft’s attempts to land here (and as a drop zone for container dropping) but none of them mentioned an aircraft depot or hangar-style structure like these ones.
It was true that the answer was in Tiergarten but close examination of the available images and intense research work will show that it was in a different area. The few lines and sources that mentioned this stated that were probably located at Tiergartenstraße, a street in the southern part of the Tiergarten so that’s where we started the search. A very possible location because of being right next to the park: it has residential buildings between a tree line too, but soon small details cast doubt from being the actual spot: a small fence is clearly seen next to the wooden structure (extreme right, first image) and Tiergartenstr. had no such fences for example, and there are several film footage showing this street (which now lay in the British Sector) on the first days of the British and American occupation and some other pictures taken at this location and don’t match with the LIFE magazine’s pictures scenario.
[View of Tiergartenstraße just after the end of the war in Berlin, with bombed out buildings, shrapnel scars and debris everywhere.]
Again, we turn to Allied aerial reconnaissance looking for photographic evidence of the wanted location. On March 22nd, 1945, an F-5 Lightning of the 22nd Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, USAAF, flew a long photo run over Berlin to assets bomb damage (Sortie US7-40D) after the big US air-raid made on the city four days before.
First, we look at the mentioned Tiergartenstr. that runs from Potsdamer Platz in the south to the Hofjägerallee at the northern end but no large structures or nothing like that or closer was found there: some minor debris with bomb craters and damaged buildings but the street is practically clear.
Otherwise, we continue the search on a westward path as one caption says “west of Tiergarten”: exposure #3176 from that same PR sortie shows the Tiergarten north and Moabit areas: it is an oblique aerial photograph taken facing north west capturing Hansaplatz at upper left of the image, Schloßpark Bellevue in centre with the Moabiter Brücke next to the Spree at middle right. On the upper part of the image is the Hansaviertel built-up area and S-BahnhofBellevue. The ruined and flattened condition of the district, gutted by fire, with many roofless buildings is evident. We look to the main street, Altonaer Straße and nothing strange is there, but a few metres away we got Brückenallee, and bingo!… the two rectangular-shaped structures are there.
Compare it with this earlier PR aerial of the same area in Tiergarten, this time a vertical photograph taken on September 6th, 1943 by No 542 RAF Squadron (sortie: E/0138 frame #3021), some months before the fall 1943 British bombings that caused huge destruction on the district. Note the high density of trees and vegetation seen in the area, as opposed to the previous image after two years of sustained air attacks.
Furthermore, back to 1945 it seems that there was one more similar structure in this area, a few blocks away to the west and located between Hansaplatz and the Kaiser-Friedrich-Gedächtniskirche we foundanother rectangular structure at Lessingstraße. The absence of closer photos does not allow us to confirm additional information or if it had same purpose as the other two.
Following close examination of ALL the imagery taken then (Berlin PR images from the war years recorded and available at US and British archives), we can affirm that these are the only structures of this type found in the city.
Down to ground level, the street views look more similar to the one where Vandivert captured the abandoned ‘hangars’ with his camera: a wide street road, sidewalk tree line, the streetlamps, small fences and prestigious houses with elaborate facades and small front gardens along the roadsides.
Located in the northwestern Tiergarten, Brückenallee was part of the residential Hansaviertel district that emerged from the intersection of three main streets in the Hansaplatz square. Sadly, there is no chance to examine the place today: huge devastation caused by the war and the air bombings led to a massive rebuilt of the area in the post-war years, with a reconstruction urban planning from 1953. The modern West-Berlin urban quarter developed and simplified the area and some streets like Brückenallee or Lessingstraße were removed from the map, although part of its track became today’s Bartningallee.
[Two old postcard views of Tiergarten’s Brückenallee. They show to good advance the similarities with the street seen on the 1945 ‘hangar’ pictures.]
[A 1920s-view into Lessingstraße facing southwards, the exact spot where the third wooden structure was built; the Kaiser-Friedrich-Gedächtniskircheis clearly seen in the background of the picture. It was destroyed during the 22/23 November 1943 RAF attack.]
[A propaganda picture of northern Tiergarten released by the Allies showing the huge devastation caused on the Hansaviertel district by the air bombings as it appeared prior to RAF night assaults in late 1943 and early 1944. Brückenallee is seen at bottom left on both images.]
It really was an aircraft repair depot? In favor of this theory is its location: the proximity to the Tiergarten and the improvised landing strip “built” at Speer’s Ost-West-Achse main road towards Charlottenburg, but also far enough away to go unnoticed, hidden from the threat of marauding enemy Jabos (fighter-bombers), artillery spotting aircraft or the feared visit by Soviet Il-2s attack aircraft, made this location a good point to install a small ‘campaign’ aerodrome (although very hazardous and desperate but… desperate times call for desperate measures).
Surrounded by wide enough streets (practically roads) which linked with the Grosser Stern, where a Würzburg radar was reported to be used as traffic command-post, ideal to acting as taxing runways at night for the small aircraft based here from the depot to the landing/take off strip. The Bhf-Bellevue train station is very close, so the depot could easily receive new shipments and spare parts via the railway line. It had a great covering by the surrounding buildings and the surviving trees, an enemy aircraft had to pass directly over that street to see these structures from the air.
Furthermore, the Hansaviertel area was hit hard from January 1943 onwards by Allied bombs and was practically unoccupied, with most of its population being evacuated the previous year so it was a very suitable and quiet zone for this war effort activity during the last months, out of sight and suspicious eyes.
Finally, the adjacent Altonaer Str is referred also as an northwest-bound improvised runway (runway #29) by oral testimonies (apparently used by Reitsch on her last flight), although there is no confirmation of this.
The reason for this place could be to act as a spartan maintenance or recycling facility, such as those that existed in a variety of locations in Germany and occupied Europe (a ‘Versorgungslager’). Some of those depots belonged to Deutsche Lufthansa (DLH) —as was the case of several of them based in Berlin— and served by their own employees; others ‘employed’ foreign workers and slave work from the Nazi camps…
The vast majority were large size structures built next to or around an aerodrome or small aircraft sub-assembly factory, especially after the bombing campaign forced the Germans to disperse their aircraft industry, but there are examples of small and rudimentary facilities near the battlefronts, especially in the Eastern front. What makes this facility unique is its location in the middle of the city, furthermore in the Reich’s capital. The Berlin defenders may have used this depot to engine overhauls, small repairs or servicing the intended visiting aircraft as it was planned by the Nazi leaders.
[Luftwaffe’s ground personnel —known as ‘the black men’— were very skilled building makeshift hangars and aircraft shelters, as seen here on this bigger “house” with a Bf 109F fighter of 9./JG 26 inside seen at Liegescourt, France, in the early summer of 1941.]
The apparent absence of cranes (at least at the time those pictures were taken) and the size of the structures discard heavy work here or machinery or big size-aircraft so this facility was intended for small planes like fighters (Fw 190, Bf 109) or most probably liaison aircraft (Fi 156, Ar 96).
Some of the parts inside the structure clearly belonged to an aircraft, in this case we have possibly identified what seems to be a rudder (at left, fabric or plywood covered), some damaged wing slats (from the leading-edge) and a metal welded structure (at left, most probably part of fuselage), a gas or oxygen tank (middle right), and a rubble tyre from a landing gear (middle right): all of these match with parts from a German Fieseler Fi 156 Storch (“stork”) liaison plane, minus the rubble tyre, too big in size so obviously from some other type of aircraft.
It seems that there was also a small radial aero-engine at left (two more are seen on the Jeep picture inside the first ‘hangar’) but this type could not be from a Fi 156 neither from an Arado 96, since both were equipped with the Argus As 10, an air-cooled inline inverted engine. Maybe a Fw 44 Stieglitz training plane? in that case it would be a Siemens-Halske Sh14 engine.
[A Fieseler 156 Storch with civil registration code, seen in the North Africa front, in this case a D-model, the ambulance variant of this fabulous liaison plane with very short landing capacities. The characteristic slats on the wings’ leading-edges of this model are clearly appreciated.]
There is photographic evidence too of at least one Storch liaison plane at the Tiergarten which apparently landed on the improvised runway on the last days of April 1945. The Storch was famous for her outstanding STOL-qualities (short take off and landing) so it was the ideal airplane to operate from this location in those dramatic last moments; it was also a small airplane (it was 32 ft long and 10 ft tall) with a short wingspan(46 ft)and her wings can be folded back along the fuselage for storage or taxing in narrow strips like these ones.
[Here, a Fieseler Storch takes off in front of the Humboldt-Universität on Berlin’s Unter den Linden during the ‘Tag der Wehrmacht’ (Day of the Armed Forces) in March 1940 to show Berliners her outstanding short landing and take off capacities.]
[An RAF officer inspects the wreckage of a Fieseler Fi 156 in the Tiergarten in front of the Victory Column. Often captioned as being the aircraft in which Hanna Reitsch and Ritter von Greim landed on 26 April 1945 in Berlin to meet Hitler at the Führerbunker but there is no confirmed proof of this.]
[In this post-war collection point, among Flak guns, howitzers and even two damaged Würzburg radar units, can be discern several aircraft parts including a shattered wing from a Fi 156 Storch (note the slats and part of Luftwaffe’s Balkenkreuz emblem) and a fuselage steel structure, with many similarities to the Tiergarten scene. It was captured by C S Newman at an unidentified location in Berlin some months after the war.]
Another evidence of the existence of improvised aircraft depots used by the Germans during the last months of the war could be this picture taken in summer of 1945 by an American serviceman during his duty in the occupied city. It shows the tail section of a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 ready to be assembled into the airframe. Note the factory-style wooden platform beneath, which confirms it as a sub-assembly part from a depot and not a wreck from a destroyed fighter, and the engine panel next to it.
More evidence of this are the wooden crates seen at right inside the second structure: many aircraft of those years had a modular design which makes easier to replace the damaged parts on the field by the mechanics; in the case of the engine, spare or new units were shipped in a modular pack known by the Germans as the ‘kraftei’ (“power-egg”). Here, a new BMW 801 radial aero-engine is unloaded by Luftwaffe ground crew from a Go 242 cargo glider in the Russian front in 1943. Note the lettering ‘Eigentum’ and code number stenciled on the crate, similar to the ones found inside the Berlin-Tiergarten ‘hangars’. Of course, they could contain anything, not only aircraft engines like this one, but it confirms that it was equipment property of the Wehrmacht.
[This picture showing Allied soldiers inspecting an assembly line of repaired Fw 190s is often wrongly captioned as being at Tiergarten in 1945, but actually it was located a few miles away, at Tempelhof airport where a large (and dedicated) underground repair depot was built (note the railway tracks and cobbled pavement) in the tunnels. First from left is Cottbus-built Fw 190A-8 Werk Nummer 170 597.]
The fact that Brückenallee was a really good location for this “last-call” aircraft depot is show to good in this post-war shot of Altonaer Str and the ruined “Hansa-Viertel” area towards the Moabit district taken from top of the Siegessäule by Harry Croner in fall-winter 1945. Even from this great height the view of the street and its structures would be blocked by the buildings and the park’s tree line.
At least, the exact location of these well known structures (whatever they were used as aircraft depots or assembly halls or not..) has been resolved and a new one has been revealed. There are still several questions to be resolved, such as what these stoves are and what they were used for in this place or if the facilities were actually employed before the fall of the city in May 1945.
A small story connected with the landing of several Ju 52s transport aircraft on the Ost-West-Achse now confirmed, but also with many of those made-up myths from the closing days of the war, as are the last reinforcement flights arriving from Gatow or Hitler escaping from the Reichskanzlei’s bunker.
In the following posts we will analyze the Hansaviertel district during the war and the use of the Tiergarten as an improvised landing strip.
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Sources and Bibliography:
Antill, Peter. Berlin 1945: End of the Thousand Year Reich. Campaign 159. Osprey Publishing, 2005.
Archer, Lee. Panzers in Berlin 1945. Panzerwrecks, 2019.
Beevor, Anthony. The Fall of Berlin 1945. Viking, 2002.
Campbell, Jerry L. Fieseler Storch In Action. Squadron Signal Publications, 2005.
Demps, Laurenz. Luftangriffe auf Berlin. Die Berichte der Hauptluftschutzstelle. Ch. Links Verlag, 2014.
Hansaviertel Berlin. 22. November 1943. https://hansaviertel.berlin/geschichte/november-1943/
Kozhevnikov, M N. The Command and Staff of the Soviet Army Air Force in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. Supt. of Docs., U.S.G.P.O, 1977.
Le Tissier, Tony. Race for the Reichstag: The 1945 Battle for Berlin. Pen and Sword Military, 2010.
Lowe, Malcom W. Focke-Wulf Fw 190. Osprey Production Line to Frontline 5. Osprey Publishing, 2003.
Mühlhäuser, Alfred H. Hitlerfluchtberichte: Kritisch-analytische Betrachtung von sieben, an eine CIA-Methode angelehnten Fluchtdrehbüchern. Books on Demand, 2017.
Ott, Gunther. „Unternehmen Reichskanzlei“, Jet & Prop; Verlag Heinz Nickel in Zweibrücken, 04/95.
Pegg, Martin. Transporter Volume Two: Luftwaffe Transport Units 1943-1945. Classic Publications, 2007.
Reitsch, Hanna. The Sky My Kingdom: Memoirs of the Famous German World War II Test Pilot. Casemate, 2009.
Rosch, Barry C. Luftwaffe Support Units and Aircraft: Units, Aircraft, Emblems and Markings 1933-1945. Classic Publications, 2009.
The photogallery we shared here show the damage inflicted by RAF Bomber Command air raid on the night of 28/29 August 1940 on Berlin, all captured in the Kottbusser Tor area within Berlin-Kreuzberg district. These pictures were taken on the following days of this second bombing, an air attack which we have already described on earlier posts (see our Britische Luftangriffe über Berlin).
No other raid on Berlin has so elevated number of related photographies apart of the 1945, February 3rd, massive air attack by US heavy bombers on the Third Reich’s capital.
War had come to the Reich’s capital and became part of everyday life; Berliners were so curious at least in those early days about how this new method of make war —the ‘Bombenkrieg’— was about. A large crowd ran the next morning to see the damage inflicted by Churchill’s bombers. Testimonies from those days described an extraordinary popular fascination to witness the damage and every raid’s aftermath as ‘a sensation’ which is confirmed by these pictures.
The calm with which its inhabitants have come to check in situ the damage caused by this second bombardment seems incredible. The novelty and the null sensation of danger, enhanced by Third Reich hierarchs, made this possible, far from the terrible images of destruction that the capital would experience a couple of years later every night when the British bombers visited Berlin again.
American correspondent William Shirer described the aftermath the next day on his radio broadcast from Berlin: ”About an hour after the raid, the Propaganda Ministry conducted the foreign correspondents around the city to observe the damage. In the Kottbusserstrasse, about a thousand yards from a railroad station in the south-east part of Berlin, two 110 pound bombs had landed in the street, torn off the leg of an air raid warden standing at the entrance to his house, and killed four men and two women who, unwisely, were standing in the doorway.” (This Is Berlin, Random House, 2013)
[A view of the dramatic ‘Bombenschäden’ (bomb damage) panorama after the RAF air raid, Kottbusser Straße 21-17 buildings.]
[A few metres away, a crowd gathers in front of the bomb crater which caused severe damage to the pavement and the tram lines at Kottbusser Straße in Kreuzberg is repair on the following day. Notice at extreme left the U-Bhf entrance (Kottbusser Tor) in front of street number 24-26, with nearly all windows smashed and facades shattered by bomb splinters.]
[These two newspaper clippings, keeped by the Landesarchiv Berlin, are part of the Berliner Morgenpost edition describing bomb damage in Mariannenstraße and Kottbusser Str. after the air raid]
[Around the corner, the roof structure of Mariannenstraße number 26 apartment was thrown into the street by explosive bombs, we can see here the severe damage taken by the building’s last floor.]
After having a first taste of the air war on Berlin two nights before (25/26 August), Nazi-authorities didn’t release any image of the bomb destruction just describing it as ‘minor’ and without impact on the city. By contrast, after this second British air attack, the German press and neutral photojournalist were rushed the very next day to the Kreuzberg district to take pictures of the bomb damage to the streets and apartment buildings on that area, in what was a clearly policy change by the Nazis, now using them to denounce to the world that the RAF has attacked residential areas dropping bombs over civilians.
Berlin admitted minor damage to several districts of the capital the following morning: the myth of the Reichhauptstadt’s inviolability had been finally shattered.
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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.
During his visit to Berlin in July 1945, American photographer William Vandivert (1912-1989) took hundreds of pictures of the ruined Nazi-capital. Some of those were starred by a trio of US WACs (Women’s Army Corps) while on tour of the city (a few stayed as part of the occupying force too) following Allied takeover. Their names were Louise Evans, Mary Cornett and Arlena MacPherson and they were accompanied by the LIFE photojournalist to some of the most representative landmarks of the city during the war: the ruined Brandenburger Tor, the Tiergarten and Zoologischer Bhf, posing in front of the Siegessäule victory column at the Grosser Stern, and finally visiting the once mighty Flak towers built by Hitler years before to protect the city against the air-bombings. No significance photos but they give us the closest look to many small details of the huge concrete fortresses built here during World War II.
Pictures show the WACs examining the radars and anti-aircraft guns atop the command tower or Leitturm of the “Zoo Flak Tower” following the capture of the city. Construction of this superstructure, the smaller of the two built at Tiergarten and codenamed “Bär A”, began at the end of November of 1940 and was finished by mid-1941. It was manned by the 123 Turmflakabteilung and the command post of the 1. Flak-Divison was located in this Hochbunker too. The L-tower surrendered to the Soviets on May 2nd, 1945 at 05.00 hrs after a long siege and heavy punishment.
The radar shown is a Telefunken Würzburg FuMG 39/62 model T, mounted on wooden pedestal. This radar unit was standard equipment for Luftwaffe AA gunnery (see previous posts about Air detection over Berlin during the war) which protected from here the western sector of the city. It seems to be an auxiliary or mobile unit because of its position on the lower platform of the tower, instead of at top where the main radar units (Würzburg, Würzburg-Riese and Mannheim)were installed and the new systems were tested even the ones captured to the enemy.Note brush paint to camouflage the radar’s dish and some bullet holes.
The WACs had fun with the traverse and rotating mechanism of the radar unit, with one seated on the “sidecar” control seat, the usual position of the B2 crew member who moves the unit on its lateral axis. Note the Tiergarten landscape and the Siegessäule victory column in the background and one of the cranes, used by the Germans to raise equipment and ammo atop of the huge tower.
Vandivert’s photographs show the women ‘playing around’ with some of the AA guns on this platform too, in this case on the western side of the bunker with the big G-tower in the background and the photographer facing southwest to Zoologischer Bhf.
The ‘großen Zoobunker’ L-Turm was equipped with light Flak guns installed on the lower platform to defend the superstructure from low levels bombers or strafing attacks by enemy fighters, in this case were double 3,7 cm Flak43 ‘Zwillings flak’. Built by Rheinmetall-Borsig, this powerful weapon had an effective rate of fire of 150 shots per second. Over 5,900 units of this type were produced during 1943-45. The Friedrichshain tower replaced them from July 1944 with the more capable MG151/20 triple-barrel gun and reduced the number of light AA on the L-tower but it seems that the Zoo Flak towers retained the Flak 43s until the end of the war. Of interest is that these guns usually had a protective shield, but all the pictures taken on this tower show them without the gun-shield installed. Some colour pictures taken in 1945 too show that these Flak guns wore a camouflaged finish, in this case painted in Dunkelgelb (dark yellow) colour with green and brown blotches like a late-war Panzer.
The WACs with some GIs standing atop the damaged Berlin tower. Part of the brick platform has collapsed due to the damage taken during the final battles. Note the destroyed Würzburg FuMG 62 radar behind them, its dish broken in two.
They are seen posing here with one of the Kommandogerät 40 rangefinders mounted on a concrete or bricks plinth, used for the German Flak 10,5 and 12,8cm main AA guns mounted on the opposite G-tower. From the 39-metres height of the L-tower flak crews watched the air battles as far as Spandau. Notice the ruined Reichstag on the background at left.
[A detail view of the aerial shot taken by Vandivert on 9-10 July, 1945, overflying the devastated Berlin-Tiergarten after the capture of Nazi-Germany’s heart. The red circles pinpoint the exact location where the WACs photographs were taken atop of the Zoo’s command L-Turm.]
As some sources has reported (mistakenly) the identity of these women as the Andrew Sisters, a trio of famous American singers which made several USO tours to entertain Allied troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific, we finish this brief Berlin post with one of their greatest radio hits, “Hot Time In The Town Of Berlin” with Bing Crosby and released in 1943.
Video credit: UMG/Geffen. (Words and Music by: Joe Bushkin and John De Vries).
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Bibliography:
Ashcraft, Jenny. History of the WAC. Fold3 blog. accessed Oct 28, 2021. <https://blog.fold3.com/history-of-the-wac/>
Demps, Laurenz. (2014). Luftangriffe auf Berlin. Die Berichte der Hauptluftschutzstelle. Ch. Links Verlag.
Foedrowitz, Michael. (1997). The Flak Towers in Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna 1940- 1950. Schiffer Publishing.
Foedrowitz, Michael. (2007). Flak-Towers. By the author.
LIFE magazine, July 23, 1945. Americans find enemy’s capital bears the marks of allied destruction and Red army’s occupation. Time Inc. Vol 19- Num 4, pp 19-25.
Maxene, Andrews & Gilbert, Bill. (1994). Over Here, over There: The Andrews Sisters and the USO Stars in World War II.
Muller W. (1998).Ground Radar Systems of the Luftwaffe 1939-1945. Schiffer Publishing. Kensington Pub Corp.
Stivers, William and Carter, Donald A. (2017). The City Becomes a Symbol: The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Berlin, 1945-1949. Centers of Military History United States Army. CMH Pub 45–4. Available at: <https://history.army.mil/html/books/045/45-4/index.html>
Wildt, Michael and Kreutzmueller, Christoph. (2013). Berlin 1933-1945 - Stadt und Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus. Siedler Verlag.
Zaloga, Steven. (2012).Defense of the Third Reich 1941–45. Osprey Publishing.
[An aerial view of Berlin-Schöneberg district with Hauptstraße running at centre, seen from the railway at Innsbrucker Platz in 1930. The original Paul-Gerhardt-Kirche and its distinctive rounded tower is at top centre.]
The Innsbrucker Platz in Berlin was the post-war location of our previous post Die Amis arrive!, with some American and Soviet soldiers next to a Sherman tank in July 1945, just a few days after US forces reached their occupation zone of the German capital. Located on the southwestern zone, between the inner circle and the Steglitz and Friedenau districts, it was a traffic junction where the city’s S-Bahn, bus and tram met. In 1927 a square was built here as a starting point to Innsbrucker Str. under the name “Innsbrucker Platz” after the Tyrolean city of Innsbruck and a S-Bahnhof with the same name was opened on July 1, 1933, a few months after the country began to be ruled by the Nazis.
The complete history and development through the years of this place is well beyond this post, so we recommend the excellent Friedenau aktuellblog for further reading.
[Schöneberg’s Innsbrucker Platz with Hauptstraße and the Paul-Gerhardt-Kirche at right, viewed in 1930. Heavily damaged during the war, it was demolished in 1950.]
[A 1939-1941 Berlin map of this area just before war’s destruction, with S-Bhf Schöneberg at right. Southwards across Innsbrucker Platz’s railway tracks is the Friedenau district.]
[Berliners exiting theInnsbrucker Platz S-Bhf in the 1930s. Two SA-members can be seen on the mechanic stairs at left which connects the entrance with the train platform.] Info thanks to Matthias Arndt.
The square and its surrounding area were seriously damaged during the Second World War. Berlin-Schöneberg was one of the most bombed districts from the first days of the campaign, and Innsbrucker Platz would not escape destruction from the air. Virtually all of its buildings and the U-bahn station were hit. The city reports show bomb damage already on 20/21 October 1940 (30 RAF bombers raided Berlin) in this area, receiving some bombs during the 16/17 January 1943 raid too (169 bombers). First great damage came during the night of 1/2 March 1943 (251 RAF bombers) with numerous fires around this point and Ebersstraße. This attack left in flames the roofs and upper floors of Wex Str. 60/63 Ecke Innsbrucker Platz.
[This is a detail view of the area from a vertical PR image taken by an RAF Spitfire of No 542 Sqn on 6 September 1943, during a long photo-run flight over the capital to assets bomb damage (BDA) after the bombing raid two nights before. Note the large number of buildings already roofless at this very early date of the bombing war on Berlin.]
[A British target indicator (bottom centre) descends over the Schöneberg and Friedenau districts, during a night raid in 1944. Innsbrucker Platz and the Ringbahn rail junction can be seen at middle right. The original IWM caption refers to a 27 aircraft-raid on that night and known nights with Light Night Striking Force Mosquitoes to harass Berlin in that number were June 25th, July 25th and September 16th 1944, so possible date for this picture must be one of those.]
American bombers hit the Schöneberg district again on 21 June 1944 (868 a/c), some high-explosive bombs badly damaged the railway bridge next to Innsbrucker Platz. A massive daylight raid on February 26th, 1945 (US 1,066 bombers) caused severe damage to the area between this square and Bayerischer Platz with bombs hitting the Schöneberg Rathaus, Stadtpark, Hauptstr. and Martin-Luther-Str. among others, leaving 139 dead and 64 wounded only here.
Finally, the Soviet assault caused great devastation. On April 27th, 1945, the Ringbahn circle became the front line. Train traffic and services had been stopped two days before due to fighting and lack of coal. In the case of the southwestern area from Friedenau through Schöneberg the Soviet assault was made by Red Army’s 9th Mechanized Corps with its 69th and 70th Mechanized Brigades, and after minor resistance they reached the Innsbrucker Platz line at midday meanwhile elements of the 91st MB penetrated the right flank and captured U-Bhf Schöneberg. The advancing troops encountered makeshift barricades, anti-tank barriers and strongpoints as the Germans set up the railway line as a huge defensive perimeter. Heavy fighting led to the taking of the underground station and the exit to Wex Str. by the end of the day when resistance was overcome.
[German defensive line with ‘Panzersperren’ next to the Ringbahn railway before the Soviet assault, in this case at Hermannstraße in the Neukölln district, March 1945.]
[Once Soviet troops overcome Innsbrucker Platz and U-Bhf Schöneberg ran northwards to seize the rest of the district, here a Red Army column with a SU-85M self-propelled gun in the foreground at Hauptstraße Ecke Koburger Str. just a few blocks from the square.]
By war’s end, many buildings have been destroyed during the fight added to the damage already caused by the bombings, like this ruined house at Innsbrucker Str. 30 located in front of the square and next to the Reichsbahn “Opel” building in July 1945, it was demolished after the war too.
[After the battle: this still from film from a Russian newsreel shows the damaged Ringbahnbrücke railway bridge at Innsbrucker Platz facing southwards, with Hauptstr. and Rathaus Friedenau’s tower as background. The complete sequence shows some dead German soldiers laying on the bridge too.]
[Hauptstraße in Schöneberg looking towards Innsbrucker Platz, this picture was taken by an American soldier in July 1945. Rathaus-Friedenau’s tower can be discerned in the background.]
[Gutted by fire, Innsbrucker Platz Nr 1, home of the bombed out Opel-Automobile Verkaufsstelle G.m.b.H, left as a ruined structure at Innsbrucker Platz in July 1945.]
The most significant building of this square was heavily damaged by war’s fires too. Located at Innsbrucker Str Nr 31/34 (today’s Innsbrucker Platz 4), the DeGeWo Haus (Deutsche Gelleschaft zur Förderung des Wohnungbaues)is one of the best examples of German interwar modernism. It was designed by architects Paul Mebes and Paul Emmerich as a six-story building with a perimeter-block complex, and built by Ph. Holzmann AG during 1922-28. This Weimar-era showpiece was rebuilt in the post-war years as luxury apartments and with two more floors added. It was used by Marshall Plan publicists to highlight West Berlin successes and presented as built in 1950 as “Berlin’s first high-rise”.
[July 1945: destroyed and burnt out facade of the apartment building and its modern block complex between Hauptstr. and Innsbruckerstraße caused by the air raids and the ground battle.]
[The “new” DeGeWo-Hochhaus, rebuilt in 1950. At right can be seen the big Fournes lettering, for Otto Fournes’ restaurant and wine store located here. It was the first major neon sign after the war.]
Across the street, the other side of the square was severely damaged by war too. Here, Berliners gathered around an American M4A3(76) Sherman tank from the 2nd Armored Division guarding Innsbrucker Platz. Also, a pair of Willys Jeeps are parked next to the tank parked over the tram tracks. Notice the tram stop blown up at extreme right and the road signal in Russian cyrillic pointing “KARLHORST” in front of the tank.
[A 1950-scene shot by German press photographer Georg Pahl at the ruined Innsbrucker Platz, Berliners waiting around the tram stop for the streetcar at noon time, at the same spot where the US tank was parked in July 1945.]
[Destroyed house Nr 96, taken by Herwarth Staudt on March 3, 1956 on behalf of the Baulenkungsamtes Schöneberg. It was demolished years later and a bigger commercial building was built there in 1984, today as Innsbrucker Platz Nr 3.]
[Jürgen Henschel took this picture of West Berliners waiting in front of the DegeWo Haus for the bus stop at Haupstraße 97 - Innsbrucker Platz in October, 1982. Note that there is still an empty lot in the place where the number 96 was before.]
Today’s view of Innsbrucker Platz looking into Haupstraße with the DeGeWo Haus at left and the 1980s white building (Innsbrucker Platz 3) at right. The corner building with orange roof seen at centre survived the war.
The intense battle left the underground train station badly damaged and didn’t reopen until December 1945. The access in the middle of the square was closed after the area was completely rebuilt in 1954 and a new entrance was opened a few metres north in a glazed pavilion. The construction in 1971 of the new motorway Stadtautobahn 100 and the underground tunnel under the main road led to a total res¡design of the square and both train stations, the renovated Südring didn’t reopen until 1993. Today, Innsbrucker Platz remains a chaotic intersection of main streets and a traffic and train junction of the southwestern part of the city, with three S-Bahn lines (S41, S42, S46) and one subway line (U4 and the planned expansion of U10) and the road exits to two adjacent motorways.
[The “inner circle” of the square seen in 1953 looking southwest with the original U-Bhf entrance and the Ringbahnbrücke, just before the tram service 88 was closed and the tracks sealed. Notice at upper right of the picture the Reichsbahn building before being demolished.]
Demps, Laurenz. (2014). Luftangriffe auf Berlin. Die Berichte der Hauptluftschutzstelle. Ch. Links Verlag.
Diefendorf, J. (ed) (2014). Transnationalism and the German City (Studies in European Culture and History). Palgrave Macmillan.
Friedenau aktuell. Innsbrucker Platz <http://www.friedenau-aktuell.de/stra%C3%9Fen-pl%C3%A4tze/innsbrucker-platz/>
Landesarchiv Berlin. LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 700, Bl. 78 ff.; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 701, Bl. 15 f.; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 701, Bl. 31. ; 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.
S Bahn Berlin DB. Die Historie der Berliner S-Bahn. <https://sbahn.berlin/das-unternehmen/unternehmensprofil/die-historie-der-berliner-s-bahn/>
Stivers, William and Carter, Donald A. (2017). The City Becomes a Symbol: The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Berlin, 1945-1949. Centers of Military History United States Army. CMH Pub 45–4. Available at: <https://history.army.mil/html/books/045/45-4/index.html>
Sven, Heinemann. (2021). Die Berliner Ringbahn: Die Geschichte der legendären Eisenbahnstrecke 1871 bis heute. GeraMond Verlag.
The Battle of Berlin Forum. Facebook Group. Battle reports of the 3rd Guards Tank Army by Piet Vergiet.
Wildt, Michael and Kreutzmueller, Christoph. (2013). Berlin 1933-1945 - Stadt und Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus. Siedler Verlag.
During the research work about Berlin city, its streets and its inhabitants during the war and the air bombings, it is quite common to come across photos that show the ruined state and the damage caused by the war, most of them taken after the battle by the victors, some of the most remarkable buildings like the Berliner Dom or the Stadtschloss in Mitte even have a hundred snapshots showing damage after 1945. What is not so usual is to find in the archives a whole record of damage taken by the building with its corresponding image. We are fortunate that Pergamon Museum is one of the latter, with an extensive gallery of its terrible wounds caused by the Allies’ bombing campaign and the final battles with the Russians. The history and destruction of Pergamon’ during the Second World War was already told in this blog (see our previous posts - Pergamonmuseum in Berlin and Pergamonmuseum in Berlin: Post 1945) but the high number of pictures found at the Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin and new photos led us to share this extra gallery post showing the severe damage inflicted to one of the most beautiful places in the German capital.
Starting in mid 1943 British Bomber Command launched a stronger and dedicated air bombing campaign on the city, specially during the last week of November, damaging several cultural buildings that included Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum and Pergamonmuseum. City records reported that the latter was severely hit during the RAF strike on the night of 28/29 January 1944 -677 bombers raided Berlin- by a stick of incendiary bombs that caused severe damage to the building’s roof and the skylights after major fires were started. The museum was hit again during the big US strike on Berlin-Mitte on 3 February 1945 (with 937 heavy bombers): several bombs caused great damage on the building, including the Mschatta facade room and destroyed the footbridge which linked the Kaiser-Museum. Some bombs caused severe destruction to the Museumsinsel on March 18th, 1945 (1,263 Eighth Air Force bombers) with the adjacent Altes Museum taking the worst damage, gutted by fire and left in a ruined state.
Further damage was inflicted during the Soviet assault on the Third Reich’s Hauptstadt during April-May 1945, but the museum structure survived mostly intact to the ground battles. Artillery shells, splinters and small-arms fire damaged the facade and windows. Finally, on May 1st, Red Army’s troops took the northern part of the island and occupied the museums.
[The courtyard of the partially destroyed Pergamon Museum as seen after the 1945 air-bombings. Note that one of the twin-towers has collapsed due to the damage taken.]
The facade of the building was completely scarred by shrapnel and explosions from bombs and fire, of which evidence remains today, and by the intense fighting that took place on its perimeter. These pictures show bullet holes and shrapnel marks on the north wing of the museum, in 1945. The S-Bahn railway is seen at left.
Although the several rooms and halls inside the building been secured from the ‘Bombenkrieg’ in 1940-41 by Nazi authorities with some Schutzhüllen consisting of sandbags and wooden walls, they took severe damage during Allied air raids on the city.
The monumental Prozessionsstraße at the museum which led to the Neo-Babylon Ishtar Gate (or Babylontor) was left in this devastated condition during the war.
The main hall of the museum, which housed the reconstructed Great Altar is seen after the war with severe damage to the walls, the stairway and the colonnade. The destroyed glass roof allowed further damage with debris and exposure to elements.
Picture evidence show that incendiary bombs did their job on Pergamonmuseum. Both British and US bombers dropped incendiaries in great numbers over German cities and these small but deadly weapons set on fire the skylight and glass roof of the building on both wings, leaving just the ‘skeleton’ metal structure and penetrating into the rooms, and burnt out walls and damaged artifacts inside. The Mschatta-Saal was one of the most heavily hit by these bombs, the first time during the January 1944 RAF raids.
These two pictures were taken from the partly museum’s destroyed roof and with camera facing east, showing the ruined and flattened buildings of the city after five years of sustained air bombings. The elevated train station seen at centre is S-BahnhofHackescher Markt, with James-Simon Park and Burgstraße just before it. Note the rounded roof of the Alte Nationalgalerie at right.
The aerial bombings hit the footbridge which linked Pergamonmuseum and the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (today the Bode Museum) too, adjacent to the elevated S-Bahn railway, seen here in 1951.
This view of Berlin’s Museumsinsel taken in May 1945 from the Schlossbrücke by Soviet troops allow us to see in the background the roofless condition of the Pergamon Museum’s skylight, gutted by fire after five years of air raids and the final battle. Note the damaged Zeughaus building at left and the ‘Panzersperre’ barricade on the bridge.
An aerial guide of the destruction at the Museumsinsel caused by the air raids, this US reconnaissance image was taken by PR aircraft in March 1945 over Berlin-Mitte.
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Heilmeyer, Wolf-Dieter. (1996). History of the Display of the Telephos Frieze in the Twentieth Century. In: Dreyfus, R (ed). PERGAMON: The Telephos Frieze from the Great Altar, Volume 1. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Klartext Zur Geschichte des Bode-Museums von 1875 bis 2020: Chronologie. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin <https://www.smb.museum/fileadmin/website/Museen_und_Sammlungen/Bode_Museum/Ausstellungen/Klartext/PDF/Klartext_Chronologie_Bode_Museum_SMB_deutsch.pdf>
Landesarchiv Berlin; LAB, A Rep. 005-07, Nr. 559, o. Bl.
Middlebrook, Martin and Everett, Chris. (1985). The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book. Pen & Sword Aviation. Reprint Edition 2014.
Pergamonmuseum. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin <https://www.smb.museum/museen-einrichtungen/pergamonmuseum/home/>
Pollitt, Jerome J. (1986). Art in the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge University Press.
Wemhoff, Matthias. (2014). Das Berliner Museum für Vor-und Frühgeschichte in der Zeit des Nationalsozialiusmus. In: Blickpunkt Archäologie 3, 2014, S. 40-43.
Winter, Petra. Invasion auf der Insel: 75 Jahre Kriegsende auf der Museumsinsel. Blog der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz <https://blog.smb.museum/invasion-auf-der-insel-75-jahre-kriegsende-auf-der-museumsinsel/>
Berlin, 1945 Nach Kriegsende: an American Sherman tank is parked in front of a S-Bahn station with a shattered apartment building and a destroyed tram stop background. Next to it, the tank’s crew stand in a relaxed pose and a few metres away a pair of Soviet soldiers enjoy a smoke and smile for the benefit of the camera.
The scene must be captured when the first US tanks rolled into the streets of the defeated Nazi-capital at the end of the Second World War, entering Berlin from the southwest Autobahn to their planned zone of occupation. Transfer of power took place on July 4th afternoon but both forces coexisted at the area until 12 July when the Soviets finally left the American sector, so we can date the image between 5th to 12th of that month.
The tank belongs to the 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Armored Division of the US Ninth Army. The larger turret for the 76mm main gun and the front glacis’ angle identifies it as a M4A3(76)W with normal suspension. Painted on the side hull of the tank is “DEC7TH”, most probably in memory of the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941. The division’s vehicles were cleaned up for the Berlin occasion, removing the extra appliqué armour on the glacis too. A new set of big white US stars has been painted also. Notice the officer with binoculars at extreme right, and that all the combat crew are wearing M1 steel helmets instead of the “football” helmet, more common among tankers.
The 2nd Armored Div, known as “Hell on the Wheels” a combat-seasoned unit throughout World War II from North Africa to the Elbe battlefields, would be the first of the US task force sent to go to Berlin as occupation force and the first one to enter the city. On July 3rd, the division started the 2-day movement to Berlin from its accommodation area at Halle, some 150km west of the capital. Leading elements of the force, with Colonel Howley, deputy commandant and head of US Office of Military Government in Berlin, had already reached the city on 1 July, but the main force of the unit completed its move on July 5th. Some 25,000–30,000 US troops would occupy this sector in the southwestern zone of Berlin, comprising Zehlendorf, Steglitz, Schöneberg, Kreuzberg, Tempelhof and Neukölln.
As laid out in the Berlin plan, the division’s priorities “comprised the protection of US facilities, billeting areas, and supply routes through Berlin”. The unit, equipped with nearly 2,000 vehicles with four medium tank and two light tank battalions of three companies each, arrived at the defeated capital basically to provide security in the Western sector (including act as honour guard to President Truman assisting to the Potsdam conference) until a better-suited unit could take over in the following months. Finally, on August 6th after a five weeks duty, the first elements of the 2nd Div began their withdrawal from the German capital, being relieved by the 82nd Airborne Div paratroopers.
[Here, the new visitors are surrounded by a crowd of curious Berliners around the US tank. The American Sector was largely residential, and the Soviets had ruled the city for nearly ten weeks so the interest in the arrival of the Americans to the city was extremely high.]
A PR unit and cameraman of the US Army captured in film too the scene at the Schöneberg streets. American press used striking headlines like “U.S. Armor Impresses Berlin” and “You Can’t Beat Them” referring to the first US Army tanks arriving in the capital.
Video credit: USNARA.
Some scenes of this ‘cordial’ action are shown too on this superb video from the British Pathé newsreel “Berlin 1945 aftermath” starting at 01:20 minute running time.
Video credit: British Pathé/ FILMID:2141.05.
[Two film-screens of American GIs and Soviet Ivans chatting and smoking standing next to the Sherman. Notice the damaged U-Bahn entrance behind.]
But where was this pre-Cold War scene taken? Close examination of the Bahnhof’s sign on the wall reveals that the location was Innsbrucker Platz, on the southern end of the Berlin-Schöneberg district, a main central traffic junction next to the 1945 German Ringbahn defensive line.
The destroyed and burned out building seen in the background next to the train station and the Südringbrücke housed at the time a Opel-Automobile Verkaufsstelle G.m.b.H. (a car dealership) owned by Bruno Dietzmann on the ground floor and a Café at Innsbrucker Platz Nr 1. Compare it as seen here in 1935 with the next three pictures which show the gutted condition when the war comes to an end: only the skeleton and the facade have survived.
The 1940-edition of the Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Bezirk der Reichspostdirektion Berlin (the telephone directory) confirms Bruno Dietzmann’s car seller address during the war years.
Partially ruined, the Reichsbahn four-story building was refurbished after the war but the housing was only restored with three floors and some other differences -the roof sculptures were dismantled too- but in the 1980s both the building and the Ringbahn entrance were finally demolished.
This 1953 postwar view of the square show to us the rebuilt building at Innsbrucker Platz 1 with a new roof built and just three floors. Note that the Opel lettering has disappeared from the facade and at left the S-Bahn train passing by the elevated railway of the Ringbahn.
Film footage also reveals one of the most distinctive Berlin Weimar-era buildings that confirm us that this action was taken at Innsbrucker Platz: the DeGeWo-Hochhaus, badly damaged during the battle, with Hauptraße at right as we can see in this frame of the same Sherman tank this time accompanied by a personal carrier M3A1 half-track, both parked in the middle of the square. The US military government (OMGUS) HQ building was not far from there, in Berlin-Dahlem.
Innsbrucker Platz, once a heavily congested traffic junction back to life as soon as the first tram and S-Bahn lines went back into service at the end of May, as electricity was restored in all districts of Berlin by Soviet new administration, including the heavily bombed Schöneberg.
[Tram service from Berliner Verkehrsgesellschaft (BVG) was reopened short time after the end of the war, in this picture we see a streetcar pass by Bahnhof Innsbrucker Platz with the gutted Reichsbahn building as background during the summer of 1945.]
[Same scene as above in this case before or during the war years with tram Nr 1106 of Linie 40 at Innsbrucker Platz. This streetcar didn’t survive the conflict.]
American and Russian soldiers chatting and smoking together are good propaganda to the new world born in 1945… the Allies had to show, at least in appearance, that all them victors had fought for the same cause. Marshall Zhukov has ordered his soldiers to not confront to the US detachment. William Heimlich, one of Howley’s intelligence officers, recounted when he reached the city: “The few people out on the streets were pale and malnourished. “Shocked into utter silence. They moved about the city like zombies. They were starving, that was clear.” To Berliners, the shock and joy was immediate.
The new division of the big city was started as soon as the Soviet troops withdrew from the Western Zones… until 1990.
On our next post the Innsbrucker Platz and the famous DeGeWo-Hochhaus buildingalong nearer Schöneberg Bezirk area would be described with new research and photos.
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Bibliography and sources:
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Diefendorf, J. (ed) (2014). Transnationalism and the German City (Studies in European Culture and History). Palgrave Macmillan.
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Friedrich, Jörg. (2005). Der Brand Deutschland Im Bombenkrieg 1940-1945. Verlag Ullstein.
Green, Michael. (2018). American Tanks & AFVs of World War II. Osprey Publishing.
Hell on Wheels. Second Armored Division. Vol. 1 - No. 10. Berlin, Wed., July 18, 1945.
Milton, Giles. The Americans Arrive in Berlin. Quick and Dirty Tips. <https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/history/americans-arrive-berlin> September 17th, 2021.
Stivers, William and Carter, Donald A. (2017). The City Becomes a Symbol: The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Berlin, 1945-1949. Centers of Military History United States Army. CMH Pub 45–4. Available at: <https://history.army.mil/html/books/045/45-4/index.html>
Trahan, Lt.-Col. EA. (2018). A History of the Second Armored Division, 1940-1946. Arcole Publishing.
USARERUR Units & Kasernes, 1945 - 1989. 2nd Armored Division. Occupation Period (1945). <https://usarmygermany.com/Sont.htm?https&&&usarmygermany.com/units/2nd%20armd%20div/USAREUR_2nd%20Armd%20Div.htm>
Wildt, Michael and Kreutzmueller, Christoph. (2013). Berlin 1933-1945 - Stadt und Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus. Siedler Verlag.
Zaloga, Steven J. (2000). The Sherman at War (2) The US Army in the European Theater 1943-45. Armor at War Series. Concord Publications Co.
Zaloga, Steven J. (2002). US tank battles in Germany 1944-45. Armor at War Series. Concord Publications Co.
Zaloga, Steven J. (2004). US Army Tank Crewman 1941-45: European Theater of Operations (ETO) 1944-45 (Warrior). Osprey Publishing.
Time ago, during our research for one Berlin air raid, we found this picture. We have seen it before, but this time we noticed a small interesting detail that captured our attention.
Taken after the war by Fritz Eschen in May 1946, the picture shows the ruined and devastated U-Bahnhof Stadtpark (today Rathaus Schöneberg) in Berlin-Schöneberg. The photographer was looking south to Innsbrucker Platz and the ruined Carl-Zuckmayer-Brücke is seen above, as a huge explosive bomb has exposed the U-bahn tunnels. Then located in the American occupation sector, this area and the nearer Bayerischer Platz were heavily hit in the war during the big US air-raid on February 26th, 1945. The city air bombing records reported that a big explosive bomb penetrated into the underground and blown up the roof of the U-Bhf station as the photo shows.
What took our attention was the strange, but familiar, element seen in the middle next to the train, a cylinder-shaped kind of small bunker. But why such a strange element? Because this is one of just two wartime photos known showing a BWS or “one-man bunker” in Berlin, despite thousands of pictures taken right after the battle showing the streets of the city in May 1945 and a hundred film footages are known.
But what is a BWSor Brandwachenstände? The BWSwas an idea from the early 1930-years, some kind futuristic, with a metal construction and created to protect the worker at the factory or company from air-raids: shrapnel, fire and explosions… It was also known as Splitterschutzzelle (SSZ), Einzelschutzraum or more commonly “Einmann-bunker”. France, Britain and Germany quickly saw the military use of the concept adopting it with new designs to protect guards in barracks. War would extend its use to train stations, cities, houses, even machinery in factories. Faced with the imminent threat of destruction from the air, the different governments had to promise that the civilian could protect himself on the street if he did not have time to get to the shelter.
Also, the Nazi Reichsluftschutzbund (RLB) created in 1934 the civilian Luftschutzfire-warden figure against the air-raids, to lead people to the shelters and took a first account of fires and explosions. He would also provide information about the location of ‘duds’ and artifacts that have not yet exploded. And the BWS was his shelter. Some were equipped with a telephone and electric light, to allow the fire warden to pass on his observations to the command post. It also covered the guard from strafing attacks from enemy aircraft.
[Today the Deutsches Technikmuseum in the city exhibits a concrete-made BWS from WW2, manufactured by Westermann & Co Betonwerk.]
In September 1940, just before the FührerSofortprogram to build air-shelters, Siemens made a report about the protection offered by these tiny shelters during recent air-raids on Berlin and to establish the proper size and weight to design and built a BWS. It established the cost of one of them at approx 430-450 RM. They were widely used by the Wehrmacht in barracks, facilities and watch posts, the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DRB) in their railway system and train stations and civilian companies at their factories.
At first, manufacturing companies offered these shelters made of steel with ballistic protection (Metallzellen), but when the war started that was a raw material and so much needed for the war effort that had to switch to using stamped concrete (Betonzellen). Some types used bricks but were rare. The German concrete industry manufactured them in many variants with some minor differences comprising different shape or number of access hatches and viewing slits. Well-known manufacturers of SSZ were DYWIDAG (Dyckerhoff & Widmann) in Dresden, Leonhard Moll Betonwerke in München, Mannesmann, or Westermann & Co. Also by two Berlin-based companies: Dietelgesellschaft mbH at Charlottenburg and Joseph Lang in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. The exact number built during the war years is unknown but ten of thousands were installed across the German Reich soil and the occupied countries, the majority set up by Organisation Todt.
[At left: The “Stuttgarter Illustrierte” magazine from September 1940 shows the one-man bunker at work, in this case a steel-made design. Right: An advertisement from Dywidag Betonwerke, one of the biggest BWS manufacturers, based in Cossebaude, Dresden.]
[At left: Sky scanning looking for enemy bombers at the Süddeutsche Zellwolle AG factory in Kelheim in November 1939. Right: a 1930-scheme of the BWS‘Splinterzell’ Luftschutz German concept.]
The other picture which shows a BWS at Berlin was a post-war scene too, taken in June 1948. It captures one calm West Berliner street between ruins and rubble, but the demolishing work has exposed this Einmannbunker surrounded by gutted buildings, a remnant of the war left intact in what must have been a private court or a small workshop. German authorities allowed the people to acquire a SSZ and set it up on their own private property.
[Two different types of BWS seen at the DRK-Präsidium - the main office of the German Red Cross- in August 1944 at Babelsberg, Potsdam. Note that both shelters have camouflage pattern and are numbered. This site was hit by US bombs during the air-raid on 9 March 1944.]
Photo evidence shows that many fountains (Wasserpumpe), street lamps and the so characteristic Berliner Litfaßsäulen-much less resistant elements- survived the bombings and the fierce ground battle, so the missing BWS evidence in any other picture made to assume that they were not used in Berlin as a common air-protection in the street like in other places, just inside army barracks, courtyards, factories or as in our image at train stations.
[An example of a SSZ bunker used in the street of a city, seen at the Rathausplatz in Osnabrück.]
It seems that during the late stages of the war in 1944-45 they were more often used as improvised firing positions, small pillboxes to defend the German retreating forces in France and the Sigfried Line in the German border from the Allied offensive on the ground than on their original Luftschutz-shelter concept.
From this idea of small individual shelters the Third Reich developed some other structures during the war, larger in size than the BWS: the Splitterschutzbauten and the Brandwachentürme (both observation towers) with the same purpose to protect the fire warden from splinters and explosives, with a mixed construction method of concrete and bricks and some of them attached to larger bunkers.
[September 1944, street-fighting in Brest, France: a USM18GMCHellcat fires its 76mm gun point-blank at a German strong point. Notice at left a surviving BWS, most probably used as a pillbox by the defenders.]
Back to Berlin, there are some other locations here during the war that we can confirm that had some kind of one-man shelter, structures derived from the BWS and SSZ.
This after-the-battle view of the ‘Bendlerblock’, home of the Allgemeines Heeresamt (General Army Office) derOKHand located in Bendlerstraße 13, clearly shows that at the inner courtyard of this building complex where located two concrete hexagon-shaped BWS, most probably watch posts, similar to the used by Wehrmacht guardsat the Olympischen Dorf. It is unknown if these ‘pillboxes’ were installed here just months before the Soviet final assault as an extra defensive measure or had been there since before that.
[Here Marshal Georgi K Zhukov, the Soviet commander, inspects debris from the battle inside the court during his tour to the defeated Nazi-capital in July 1945. One of the two BWS is seen behind him and his visiting party.]
The other place is one of the most interesting places of the Battle of Berlin topic, Hitler’s Chancellery complex at Voßstraße. Photos show that in the back garden of the Reichskanzlei was a cone-shaped small structure, next to the wall that divided the garden from Haus Kempka (Hitler’s chauffeur), very similar to a SSZ but it is not entirely confirmed if this was a pillbox or a small ventilation tower for the underground new Führerbunker, built there in 1944 by the Hochtief AG.
[Close view of the BWS-type structure built between Haus Kempka and the Reichsklanzei’s back garden, seen here bullet-riddled after the war.]
Also, a few metres away from that pillbox two huge Beobachtungsturme towers were built, next to the rear emergency exit of the Führer’s bunker. In the pictures can be seen that they were not exactly BWS or SSZ, due to its big size (more than double of the already described) and different construction method, but was their role the same?: to protect the SS guards of the complex from the air-bombings? watch towers? One of these towers was still under construction -maybe the two- when the war ended and it is believed that they served as air ventilation for the subterranean complex too.
Author James P. O’Donnell states in his book “The Berlin Bunker” (p 262) that Sergeant Erich Mansfield, a guard of the FBK (Führerbegleitkommando), “was stationed in a camouflaged cement watchtower in the Chancellery garden”, and on the US report on July 30, 1945 from Mansfeld interrogation after being captured was noted that “[Mansfeld was] on duty at the guard station in the bunker’s concrete tower”. Whatever they were for without any doubt were developed from the one-man bunker concept.
The bunker and the structures were blown up and demolished in 1947 and 1959.
This aerial view taken in July 1945 by William Vandivert from LIFE magazine gives us an idea of the exact location of the SSZ pillbox next to Haus Kempka (the small one at centre) and the two huge ventilation towers/BWS at the Chancellery’s back garden.
[This image taken in March 1959 shows that the small SSZ (at middle) was still there after the main towers and the Führerbunker were blown up by the Russians.]
Nach Kriegs Ende By war’s end in May 1945, there were thousands of SSZ and BWS left intact all over Germany and the Nazi-occupied Europe, now held by the victorious Allied forces. In Germany during the following years, the Soviets took care of the elimination of these small shelters and the larger bunkers on their assigned occupation area. In Berlin, now devastated and divided into four sectors, the work took more time to be accomplished than in other areas. In 1946, the British occupation forces in Berlin were tasked to destroy these “Einmannbunker” in the city and surrounding areas. A February 1948 order from the Disarmament Branch (DB), signed by Capt Finneron suggested that all 1- and 2-people bunkers to be relocated in the British sector and to be destroyed, a work carried out until 1950.
Today, there are several relics from Second World War of this type in the Berlin area, some of them can be visited. The most widely known are the two SSZs located next to the U-Bhf Gesundbrunnen to point the office of the highly recommended association and subterranean world tours “Berliner Unterwelten” (Brunnenstraße 108, Berlin-Humboldthain). These shelters came from Frohnau in 2003 and are of an unknown type, probably built by Engel & Leonhardt Betonwerk. Another one at the city is the one displayed at the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Kreuzberg (of Westermann & Co Betonwerk design) at their Luftfahrt stage next to an RAF Lancaster wreck and some bombs.
Far from the city centre, there is a Dywidag-BWS at Stubenrauchstraße in Berlin-Schöneweide and a Humerohr-type can be found at the Museum im Alten Wasserwerk in Köpenick, salvaged in 1994 from a pit in the Johannistal Wasserwerk. In Reinickendorf there is another SSZ too inside a private garden. Other similar structures are found at the Werneuchen- and Staaken Flugplatzes and at Hennigsdorf. At the Polizei training area in Spandau there are over a hundred SSZs housed, which may come from the same manufacturer (this is probably a former assembly point in the British military administration), and several others in the woods of the Forts Hahneberg. Finally, if you walk into the abandoned Olympisches Dorf, 14 km west of the Olympic Stadium, you could see another pair of BWS, this time of hexagon-shape that were used by Wehrmacht guards that watched the villa. There are many others left in the Brandenburg area.
[This SSZ was found at Mahlsdorfer Str. in Berlin-Köpenick district in 2015.]
[This SSZ is preserved at the Geschichtspark Falkensee-Berlin. During the war years the DEMAGKZ-Außenlager (a satellite concentration camp of Sachsenhausen) was located here.]
Berliner Unterwelten e. V. <https://www.berliner-unterwelten.de/verein/allgemeine-informationen.html>
Eschen, Fritz. (1996). Photographien Berlin 1945-1950. Mit Texten von Klaus Eschen und Janos Frecot. Nicolai.
Foedrowitz, Michael. (2002). Bunkerwelten: Luftschutzanlagen in Norddeutschland. Dörfler.
Foedrowitz, Michael. (2007). Ein-Mann-Bunker: Splitterschutzbauten und Brandwachenstände. Motorbuch Verlag.
Friedrich, Jörg. (2005). Der Brand Deutschland Im Bombenkrieg 1940-1945, Verlag Ullstein.
Guido, Pietro. (2015). Führer Bunker. Discovery its mysteries. ISEM.
Landesarchiv LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 703, Bl. 31 ff.
National Archives and Records Administration. Hunting Hitler Part V: The Garden (Evening, April 30). Dr. Greg Bradsher. <https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2015/12/03/hunting-hitler-part-v-the-garden-evening-april-30/>
O’Donnell, James P. (1978). The Bunker: The History of the Reich Chancellery Group. Houghton Mifflin.
Schutzbauten Stuttgart e. V. <http://www.schutzbauten-stuttgart.de/en-us/bauwerke/anderebauwerke/einmannbunker,splitterschutz.aspx>
Wiebel, Gieland. (2017). Berlin Story Bunker: Geschichte des Bunkers. BerlinStory Verlag GmbH.
Wildt, Michael and Kreutzmueller, Christoph. (2013). Berlin 1933-1945 - Stadt und Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus. Siedler Verlag.
Zaloga, Steven. (2012). Defense of the Third Reich 1941-45. Fortress 107. Osprey Publishing.
‘Ten killed in Berlin raid’. ‘Berlin gets a taste of bombs…
…British bombers took a toll of ten killed and about thirty wounded in a workers’ section less than two miles from the Government offices in Wilhelmstraße. All the casualties were civilians. Preliminary reports gave no word of death or injury to soldiers.’ – The Sun, New York newspaper, Thursday, August 29, 1940 –
[The deputy Gauleiter of Berlin Artur Görlitzer (centre), accompanied by NSDAP and Gestapo officers, inspects some damage caused by the second RAF Bomber Command air-raid of the war on the Nazi-capital.]
On the night of August 28/29, 1940, the Royal Air Force visited Berlinfor the second time. As we have seen on the previous post, Berlin targets were Klingenberg power station at Rummelsburg (East Berlin), Tempelhof airport, and the Siemensstadt factory complex in the northwestern sector. From British bases, 35 RAF crews reached Berlin claiming more or less success on their bombing runs, but sadly their deadly payload hit a very different target on the city with devastating effects.[1]
[Two views of a destroyed roof in a residential building after receiving a bomb-hit at Mariannenstraße 26 during the RAF raid on 28/29 August 1940. The first image appeared on the frontpage of the Nazi newspaper ‘Der Angriff’.]
‘Three-hour raid on Berlin’ When the bombers arrived just after midnight normality reigned. The eighth air-alarm of the war sounded from 00.27 hrs in Berlin[2] and German searchlights and anti-aircraft fire soon began as the enemy raiders approached at intervals from the western route flying high over the capital.[3] Berliners’ reaction varied from the optimist mood of those closer to the regime to astonishment and inexperience in the air-thread by most of its citizens.[4] The all-clear alarm (‘Entwarnung’) sounded at 03.17 hours.[5]
The official OKWreport summed up the events on the next day: ‘In the night, British aircraft systematically attacked residential areas of the Reich capital. High explosive bombs and incendiaries brought death and injury to numerous civilians and properties sustained roof fires and damage.’ [6] The exact degree of damage was reported, listing every bomb hit on each district and suburb of Berlin: roof fires, shrapnel, windows shattered and properties and of course casualties.[7] Prof Demps resumes in 22,2t of explosives and 1,260 fire-bombs of 4-lbs type the amount of bombs dropped.[8]
The eastern Kreuzberg district, a very populated residential area, was severely hit by British bombs. Several sticks of bombs dropped around U-Bhf Kottbusser Tor caused chaos and large fires there, and flying debris shattered the streets, hitting everything around. Almost all the windows between the train station and 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 corner Skalitzer Str. 24. 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. Further north, Waldemarstraße 43 near Oranienplatz reported fires on roof and one floor. Finally, two unexploded bombs were located in front of Kottbusser Str. 18-19, next to the tram track.[9] Curiously, all the foreign press mentioned Görlitzer Bahnhof as the worst hit area instead.[10]
[A view of the day after the strike 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 civilians took shelter after the raid.]
[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”.]
The Prenzlauer Berg ‘bezirk’ (district) suffered minor damage when 7 incendiary bombs hit the area between Kurischestraße (today known as John-Schehr-Straße) and Woldenbergstr. (today’s Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Str.), 4 of which fell on the street, 2 on open terrain and 1 in a roof structure without detonating.[11]
Meanwhile, at Wedding-Gesundbrunnen two explosive bomb duds were found at Böttgerstraße 31 and Hochstr. 4, next to Humboldthain park. More than 300 people were temporarily evacuated from those streets to a cinema at Badstr. 58 and to Charlotte von Lengefeld school at Ecke Pankstraße/Böttgerstr. by the district’s NS administration. All the evacuates have returned to their homes after the ‘duds’ were blown up on the following week.[12]
Rest of the districts struck by bombs belonged to the outer areas of the German capital. At Treptow-Köpenick, located in the south-east of Berlin, the Grünau area was hit by 3 explosive bombs and 18 incendiaries on meadow and forest, one on a garden; property damage was insignificant. Nearby, 6 explosive bombs fell in Müggelheim on open terrain just causing window and walls damage. At Weißensee and Pankow districts around 15 high explosive bombs and some fire-bombs hit uninhabited areas causing just window damages on the surrounding houses. In the northern district of Reinickendorf, bombs were dropped on some residential colonies (Lübars-Mühlenberg, Neu-Rabehorst and Gießland) causing slight damage on many houses and the temporary evacuation of their residents and a neighboring factory building.[13] (see attached map).
[Curious Berliners watch how the bomb damage at Kottbusser Str. in Kreuzberg is repair on the following day.]
Ten Berliners lost their lives and about 33 were injured, with three more dying in the following days of their wounds.[14] One of them died because of the injuries caused by a German flak splinter at Tiergarten district.[15]
Should be noted that the Nazi regime far from protect their citizens, blamed them from not run to the few and rudimentary air-raid shelters and cellars of the capital: ‘Persons who failed to obey the air raid rules were hit by splinters from British bombs and also by unpreventable splinters from German anti-aircraft batteries’.[16] Days later, a “state” funeral was held at Friedhof der St. Jacobi-Gemeind in Neukölln where some of the victims were buried attended by the district authorities and a SA honour guard, in what would become a regular basis of the NS-propaganda during the early raids on the city.[17]
[Cleanup work in an apartment building, which roof was destroyed by fire after being hit by incendiary bombs during the air raid.The M-34 helmet with black swastika on red shield decal on the right side identifies him as a fireman, in this case a Feuerschutzpolizei.]
British crews flying at intervals over Berlin were unable to identify the main targets or any landmark owing to darkness and haze. To pinpoint targets at night was very improbable at this early stage of the war because RAF bombers lacked any navigation aids or useful bombsights at night. Aircrews’ fear to German anti-aircraft fire, searchlights, and the long journey back home could make some of them to drop bombs anywhere too. Airmen who were sent that very night recognized years after the war that blackness made very hard to know where they were, although most of them reported back in England that the target areas had been hit. In contrast, they recognized that to identify the target was an intuitive task: ‘Fliers Tell, in Air Ministry Statement, of Spotting Target at German Capital by Means of Each Other’s Explosives’ .[18] Of course, there is the possibility that the Nazi regime hidden the damage done to the RAF targets in the event that they were actually hit.
London included Berlin “on a series of carefully selected military objectives and on works vital to war production’ [19] and declared the attack as effective and according to war’s law: ‘Right across the centre of the city they flew -but there was no indiscriminate bombing. The target and the target only was specific instruction’ reported to the press the Air Ministry the day after.[20] It was the first time that the British press headlines emphasize the efforts of Bomber Command over those of Fighter Command.[21]
This is an overall view of the locations where British bombs fell on that night superimposed to a 1940-map of Berlin. In this case the numbers refer to the amount of bombs (HE– black colour; incendiaries– red) reported on every spot. Some of the places, mainly those located on the northern surroundings are nearly out of the map, next to the Brandenburg-Berlin border. It highlighted the scattered bombing pattern obtained by RAF bombers and the distance from the assigned targets (dark grey areas), far away from the places actually hit. None of the three “military” targets assigned received a single bomb on that night.
The German authorities admitted that eight districts of the Great Berlin had been struck in Wednesday night’s attack with minor damage[22] and claimed the British violation of international law (‘We shall not forget this new crime by British pilots in contravention of all international law’ declared the BZ am Mittag newspaper). They rushed neutral journalists to the Klingenberger electrical, Tempelhof and the Siemens factories to demonstrate that these strategic targets were undamaged by the RAF.[23]Nazi propaganda also highlighted the terrible fact that Berlin had suffered its first civilian deaths from the modern bombing war and used the controlled press to denounce that the RAF has attacked residential areas and killed ‘women and children’ with headlines like ‘Britische Luftpiraten bombardierten Berliner Wohnviertel’.[24]
[Two scenes captured in original colour after the 28/29 August 1940 British raid on Berlin, with damaged buildings at the Kottbusser Straße numbers 21 (left) and 15 (at right) in Kreuzberg district.]
This night raid on the capital, the second one during the war by RAF aircraft, was a military failure to Bomber Command and the Air Ministry but it achieved an invaluable moral victory again for the British people. Berliners had seen how the first bombs fell on Berlin proper and the air war had obtained its first civilian casualties in Germany’s heart, and although British bombs caused slight damage and fires on residential buildings the inviolability of the Reich’s airspace has proved as mere Nazi propaganda. Military targets were not attacked not even hit by bombs but this was a serious warning of what to come to its residents: two night later Berlin’s air raid sirens would sound again.
_______________
Notes and Citations:
[1]Berlin Luftterror. Bombing raid on Berlin - 28. Aug. 1940; The National Archives of the UK (TNA). Operations Record Books: AIR 27. [2] DEMPS, Laurenz (Ed.). (2014). Luftangriffe auf Berlin. Die Berichte der Hauptluftschutzstelle. Ch. Links Verlag. p 238. [3] The New York Times, Thursday, August 29, 1940. [4] according to the press, a neutral correspondent who was sitting in a café at Unter den Linden when the alarm sounded saw the head waiter and all other employees immediately pick up their steel helmets and air-wardens’ uniform before allowing the customers to pay the bills and go to the air shelter. Daily Mirror, Friday, August 30, 1940. [5] see LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 700, Bl. 8 f; DEMPS: op. cit. p 238. [6] MOORHOUSE, Roger. (2011). Berlin at war. Life and death in Hitler’s capital, 1939-45. Vintage Books, London. p 140. [7] see LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 700, Bl. 8 f. [8] DEMPS: op. cit. p 285. [9] see LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 700, Bl. 8 f. [10] Daily Mirror, Friday, August 30, 1940; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 700, Bl. 8 f. [11] see LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 700, Bl. 8 f. [12] ibid. [13] ibid. [14] MOORHOUSE: op. cit. p 140; LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 700, Bl. 8 f. [15] LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 700, Bl. 8 f; Hl. end. F. v.16.9. Over 900 people were homeless by the raid according to city official records. Many of them congregated beneath the highway U-bahn line, or else made their way to accommodation points where makeshift kitchens and first-aid station had been established by NS-authorities. It was a new situation to local authorities and ration cards had to be distributed; MOORHOUSE: op. cit. p 140. [16] as declared by the Berliner Illustrierte Nachtausgabenewspaper to American correspondent C. Brooks Peters: The New York Times, Friday, August 30, 1940. [17] LAB, A Rep. 001-02, Nr. 700, Bl. 8 f.; MOORHOUSE: op. cit. pp 141-142. [18] The New York Times, Friday, August 30, 1940. Berliners reported the use the flares over the city on that night too, The New York Times, Thursday, August 29, 1940. [19] the Air Ministry to The New York Times, August 30, 1940. [20] Daily Mail, Friday, August 30, 1940. [21] Brett Holman: Airminded. Airpower and British society. Friday, 30 August 1940. <https://airminded.org/2010/08/30/friday-30-august-1940/> [22] The New York Times, Friday, August 30, 1940. [23] Daily Mirror, Friday, August 30, 1940. [24] Der Angriff, 30. Aug. 1940, Nr. 210; Berliner Morgenpost, Freitag, 30. Aug. 1940. Nr. 208.
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