25. and 26. February 1944 arrived in Augsburg, 730 people have been killed. Werner Gindorfer experienced the attacks as a 15-Year-old – and preserved ever since a strange memory.
Thomas Balbierer, Augsburg
A pig roast Werner Gindorfers single piece of memorabilia is the time, before allied bombs laid in his home and the rest of Augsburg’s inner city in rubble – a piece of meat in a Jar. The Roast that his mother attacks a short time before the heavy air on 25. and 26. February 1944 had prepared, found the then-15-Year-old days later in the rubble of his former home. Of the multi-storey house in Jacob street almost nothing was left. However, the roast pork glass it is still going today. It is a small exhibition of the Augsburg city archive, 75. The anniversary of the bombing.
Werner Gindorfer, Born in 1928, is one of the few remaining witnesses, who have experienced the heavy air attacks on the city during the Second world war. At the time, American and later British troops attacked the city. It is the first and only air was the impact of this Dimension against Augsburg. At least 730 people were killed, including many forced labourers, about 80 000 people left the city. The night of may 25. on the 26. February went down as a bomb night in the city’s history.
the Caroline street was hit hard.
(photo: city archive of Augsburg)
“We thought we were safe,” says Gindorfer, 90, today. Because Hitler’s Deputy Rudolf Hess in 1941, was flown from Augsburg to England, the British peace talks offer, expecting the young Werner Gindorfer in order that the allies, Augsburg would spare it. It should come differently. The first bombs fell on Friday between 13.54 and 14.23 PM. Your goal: the Messerschmitt works in Haunstetten. “The Bomber had unloaded 370 tons of explosive bombs and 134 tons of incendiary bombs over the target,” writes the historian Markus Pöhlmann of the University of Potsdam in his book, “It was just when it would all burst – Augsburg in the bomb war”.
was considered The city as a major arms location of the Nazis. In addition to the aircraft manufacturer Messerschmitt also was a “Top target” for the British and Americans, so Pöhlmann. In fact, Augsburg was but during the air war, long out of reach of the allied air force, says Pöhlmann. Until 1944, they were able to meet thanks to modern weapons technology, and new bases in Italy as well as southern cities such as Augsburg.
The attack early Friday afternoon, put the population on alert. Nevertheless, life went on in the city. The Screech of air-RAID warning was in German cities in 1944 to the war of everyday life. Werner Gindorfer remembers that he ate during the attack on the Messerschmitt works at home to lunch and then to work in a fabric printing returned. It was only when the father will send the family in the evening in the Bunker in the backyard of the house, got it, the 15-Year-old with the fear to do. In the night of Saturday, the British flew in two heavy attacks on the city. “We had more than fear,” says Gindorfer about the night in the Bunker. “Some prayed, some cried.” When the bombs fell, it had been completely silent, says the 90-Year-old. Then you have heard only the whistling of the discarded explosives. Not to think of sleep.
Nearly 500 combat aircraft reached Augsburg
British air strikes were different than those of the Americans, not only on the defense industry, but also to residential areas. “The cities were bombed to the civilian population, demoralize, and the NS-undermining sovereignty,” says Markus Pöhlmann. However, this had a history: German bombers had already attacked in 1940, in the Wake of the battle of Britain, British cities such as Coventry. The bombing of the British at Augsburg on the night of 25. on the 26. February consisted of two shafts, in which a total of nearly 500 combat aircraft to Augsburg.
the so-called Christmas trees were first on the city’s fall, luminous body, which slid slowly down and the city lit up. “In the night, the pilots have to find their targets”, says Pöhlmann. Then a Mix of fire – and explosive bombs followed, in order to break the massive building in the centre of Augsburg. There are numerous fires broke out, witnesses later reported, a “sea of fire”. But not came a storm of fire, such as, for example, in Hamburg, where several fires developed to a large fire, and a dynamic of its own unfolding, it is in Augsburg, emphasises the historian. “It was a very cold night of minus 18 degrees Celsius.”
Nevertheless, the city was on the next day under a huge cloud of ash and soot. “It was only towards the 11 o’clock light,” recalls Werner Gindorfer. “It was impossible to go through the Jacob street. Everything has burned.” The family left the Bunker and saved to a location outside of Augsburg, where she was a farmers shelter.
The city was devastated
The city was hit hard by the 185 000 inhabitants, approximately 80 000 left the city. An exhibition of the Augsburg city archive shows historical photos and documents, and demonstrates the devastation: house facades were just empty Scenes, important buildings such as the town hall, the theatre, or the weaver’s house lay in ruins. Who is making a tour through the exhibition in the town hall, need to look at the pictures carefully, to discover the people, the rubble overlaid everything. Nevertheless, the extent of the destruction was in Augsburg rather average, says the architectural historian Gregor Nagler, who designed the exhibition. “In Augsburg, Germany, between 25 and 30 percent of the homes were destroyed. In Würzburg, as opposed to 90 percent,” he says.
would not have achieved your objective, to demoralize the urban population demo, the allies. To Kerstin Lengger, the Deputy Director of the Augsburg city archive. You and your Team have evaluated documents from the time, and with time witnesses spoken. Lengger says that the war everyday life was also gone after the air attack. “The people are the System, you simply have to work.”
Werner Gindorfer had as a 15-Year-old not have the opportunity to process the experiences. Shortly after the bombing, he was sent for military training to Harburg. “You was not asked. We were immersed in the club as a whole,” says Gindorfer about the NS-dictatorship. He landed at the air defenses, and was stationed on the border to France. The war he survived physically unscathed. The Roasting of the mother, he kept as a reminder of a “cruel time”, he says. “Actually, it was madness, to rescue him from the rubble,” says Gindorfer 75 years later, and laughs shortly. “But otherwise I had nothing.”
