Bombing Of Lübeck In World War II
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During
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the city of
Lübeck Lübeck (; or ; Latin: ), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Lübeck (), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic Sea, Baltic coast and the second-larg ...
was the first German city to be attacked in substantial numbers by the
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...
. The attack on the night of 28 March 1942 created a
firestorm A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires and wildfires. Although the term has been used ...
that caused severe damage to the historic centre, with bombs destroying three of the main churches and large parts of the built-up area. It led to the retaliatory "Baedeker" raids on historic British cities. Although a port, and home to several shipyards, including the Lübecker Flender-Werke, Lübeck was also a cultural centre and only lightly defended. The bombing followed the Area Bombing Directive issued to the RAF on 14 February 1942 which authorised the targeting of civilian areas.


Main raid

Lübeck Lübeck (; or ; Latin: ), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Lübeck (), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic Sea, Baltic coast and the second-larg ...
, a
Hanseatic The Hanseatic League was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Growing from a few Northern Germany, North German towns in the ...
city and cultural centre on the shores of the
Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...
, was easy to find under the light of the full moon on the night of Saturday 28 March 1942 and the early hours of 29 March (
Palm Sunday Palm Sunday is the Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Its name originates from the palm bran ...
). Because of the
hoar frost Frost is a thin layer of ice on a solid surface, which forms from water vapor that deposits onto a freezing surface. Frost forms when the air contains more water vapor than it can normally hold at a specific temperature. The process is similar ...
there was clear visibility and the waters of the
Trave The Trave () is a river in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is approximately long, running from its source near the village of Gießelrade in Ostholstein to Travemünde, where it flows into the Baltic Sea. It passes through Bad Segeberg, Bad Old ...
, the Elbe-Lübeck Canal, Wakenitz and the
Bay of Lübeck The Bay of Lübeck (, ) is a basin in the southwestern Baltic Sea, off the shores of the Germany, German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein. It forms the southwestern part of the Bay of Mecklenburg. The main port is Travem ...
were reflecting the moonlight. 234
Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...
and
Stirling Stirling (; ; ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in Central Belt, central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town#Scotland, market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the roya ...
bombers dropped about 400 tons of bombs including 25,000
incendiary device Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires. They may destroy structures or sensitive equipment using fire, and sometimes operate as anti-personnel weapon, anti-personnel ...
s and a number of 1.8 tonne landmines.
RAF Bomber Command RAF Bomber Command controlled the Royal Air Force's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. Along with the United States Army Air Forces, it played the central role in the Strategic bombing during World War II#Europe, strategic bombing of Germany in W ...
lost twelve aircraft in the attack. There were few defences, so some crews attacked as low as 600 metres (2,000 feet) although the average bombing height was just over 3000 metres (10,000 feet). The attack took place in three waves, the first, which arrived over Lübeck at 23:18, consisting of experienced crews in aircraft fitted with Gee electronic navigation systems (Lübeck was beyond the range of Gee but it helped with preliminary navigation). The raid finished at 02:58 on Sunday morning. 191 crews claimed successful attacks. Blockbuster bombs in the first wave of the raid opened the brick and copper roofs of the buildings and the following incendiaries set them afire. 1,468 (or 7.1%) of the buildings in Lübeck were destroyed, 2,180 (10.6%) were seriously damaged and 9,103 (44.3%) were lightly damaged; these represented 62% of all buildings in Lübeck. The bombing of Lübeck struck a corridor about 300 metres (330 yards) wide from Lübeck Cathedral to St. Peter's Church, the town hall and St. Mary's Church. There was another minor area of damage north of the Aegidienkirche. St. Lorenz, a residential suburb in the west of the Holstentor, was severely damaged. The German police reported 301 people dead, three people missing, and 783 injured. More than 15,000 people lost their homes.
Arthur Harris Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet, (13 April 1892 – 5 April 1984), commonly known as "Bomber" Harris by the press and often within the RAF as "Butcher" or "Butch" Harris, was Air Officer Commanding, Air O ...
, Air Officer Commanding Bomber Command, described Lübeck as "built more like a fire-lighter than a human habitation". He wrote of the raid that " übeckwent up in flames" because "it was a city of moderate size of some importance as a port, and with some submarine building yards of moderate size not far from it. It was not a vital target, but it seemed to me better to destroy an industrial town of moderate importance than to fail to destroy a large industrial city". “However”, he continued, “the main object of the attack was to learn to what extent a first wave of aircraft could guide a second wave to the aiming point by starting a conflagration”. It was thus an experimental raid for the developing Bomber Command force. He goes on to describe that the loss of 5.5% of the attacking force was no more than to be expected on a clear moonlit night, but if that loss rate was to continue for any length of time RAF Bomber Command would not be able to "operate at the fullest intensity of which it were capable".


Aftermath and retaliation

A. C. Grayling in his book, ''Among the Dead Cities'', makes the point that as the Area Bombing Directive issued to the RAF on 14 February 1942 focused on undermining the "morale of the enemy civil population", Lübeck – with its many timbered medieval buildings – was chosen because the RAF "Air Staff were eager to experiment with a bombing technique using a high proportion of incendiaries" to help them carry out the directive. The RAF was well aware that the technique of using a high proportion of incendiaries during bombing raids was effective because cities such as
Coventry Coventry ( or rarely ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, in England, on the River Sherbourne. Coventry had been a large settlement for centurie ...
had been subject to such attacks by the
Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...
during
the Blitz The Blitz (English: "flash") was a Nazi Germany, German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, for eight months, from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, during the Second World War. Towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a co ...
..
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
wrote to the US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
to inform him that similar "Coventry-scale" attacks would be mounted throughout the summer. The Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
congratulated Churchill on the outcome, expressing his satisfaction at the "merciless bombing" and expressing the hope that such attacks would cause severe damage to German public morale – a key objective for Churchill. A series of follow-up attacks, taking much the same pattern, was mounted against
Rostock Rostock (; Polabian language, Polabian: ''Roztoc''), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (), is the largest city in the German States of Germany, state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the sta ...
between 24 and 27 April 1942.Boog, p. 566 The German authorities mounted a prompt relief operation for the city's dispossessed. 25,000 people had been left homeless by the raid. The local branch of the
National Socialist People's Welfare The National Socialist People's Welfare (, NSV) was a social welfare organization during the Third Reich. The NSV was originally established in 1931 as a small Nazi Party-affiliated charity, which was active locally in the city of Berlin. On 3 Ma ...
(NSV) organisation opened food stores and distributed 1.8 million oranges, 10 tonnes of apples, 40,000 loaves of bread, 16,000 eggs, 5,000 pounds of butter, 3,500 cans of food, 2,800 boxes of smoked herring and 50 barrels of Bismarck herring. However, substantial amounts of luxury goods such as champagne, spirits, chocolates, clothing and shoes were pilfered by NSV officials. A number of them were arrested and in August 1942 three were sentenced to death for embezzlement with a further eleven jailed. The incident harmed the NSV's image, which had been positive up to that point. The Nazi leadership was alarmed at the possible impact of the raid on civilian morale. In the opinion of
Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...
, the Propaganda Minister, the raid fulfilled the RAF's directive, as he wrote in his diary: "The damage is really enormous, I have been shown a newsreel of the destruction. It is horrible. One can well imagine how such a bombardment affects the population." He commented: "Thank God, it is a North German population, which on the whole is much tougher than the Germans in the south or south-east. We can't get away from the fact that the English air-raids have increased in scope and importance; if they can be continued on these lines, they might conceivably have a demoralising effect on the population." Despite Goebbels' fears, civilian morale in Lübeck held up and the effect of the bombing on the city's economic life was soon overcome. To help offset the damage the raid had on German morale, the German hierarchy launched a well publicized raid on
Exeter Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...
on 23 April 1942, which was the first of the "Baedeker raids".


Red Cross port

In 1944 Eric Warburg, liaison officer between US Army Air Forces and RAF, and
Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...
diplomat Carl Jacob Burckhardt, as president of the
International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and ...
, declared the Lübeck port a ''
Red Cross The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 16million volunteering, volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ...
port'' to supply (under the
Geneva Convention upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...
) allied prisoners of war in German custody with ships under Swedish flag from
Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...
, which protected the city from further Allied air strikes. The mail and the food was brought to the POW camps all over Germany by truck under supervision of the Swedish Red Cross and its vice president
Folke Bernadotte Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg (2 January 1895 – 17 September 1948) was a Swedish nobleman and diplomat. In World War II, he negotiated the release of about 450 Danish Jews and 30,550 non-Jewish prisoners of many nations from the Nazi ...
, who was in charge of the White Buses too. (Bernadotte met
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...
in Lübeck in spring 1945, when Himmler made his offer of surrender to the allies.)


Lübeck martyrs

A group of three Catholic clergymen, Johannes Prassek, Eduard Müller and Hermann Lange, and an Evangelical Lutheran pastor, Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, were arrested following the raid, tried by the People's Court in 1943 and sentenced to death by
decapitation Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and all vertebrate animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood by way of severing through the jugular vein and common c ...
; all were beheaded on 10 November 1943, in the Hamburg prison at ''Holstenglacis''. Stellbrink had explained the raid next morning in his Palm Sunday
sermon A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present context ...
as a "
trial by ordeal Trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused (called a "proband") was determined by subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience. In medieval Europe, like ...
", which the Nazi authorities interpreted to be an attack on their system of government and as such undermined morale and aided the enemy.


Film

The bombing of the city served as the climax of the 1944 German film '' The Degenhardts'' directed by
Werner Klingler Karl Adolf Kurt Werner Klingler (23 October 1903 – 23 June 1972) was a German film director and actor. He directed 29 films between 1936 and 1968. He was born in Stuttgart and died in West Berlin, West Germany. Early life Klingler acquire ...
. The film, featuring the
home front Home front is an English language term with analogues in other languages. It is commonly used to describe the civilian populace of the nation at war as an active support system for their military. Civilians are traditionally uninvolved in com ...
activities of a family in Lübeck, attempted to use the raid as moral justification for continued resistance against the Allies.


Reconstruction and memorial

Under wartime and postwar conditions it took until 1948 to remove most of the construction waste and demolition rubble. The remaining and the rebuilt parts of the old town are now part of the
World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...
. The bells that fell from the burning tower of St. Mary's church in a partly melted state have been left in the south tower as a memorial to the event. (See above) Since the reconstruction of St. Mary had priority, the reconstruction of the cathedral was not finished before 1982, the reconstruction of St. Peter not before 1986. Another memorial to the people who were killed or displaced by the bombing is found in the Lübeck Ehrenfriedhof (cemetery) where there is a
cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty grave, tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere or have been lost. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although t ...
and memorials to both wars. The memorial of the bombing of Lübeck is a statue by the sculptor Joseph Krautwald, who was commissioned in the 1960s to produce a work that reflected the experience of the victims. The statue, named ''Die Mutter'' (the mother), was carved from local
coquina Coquina () is a sedimentary rock that is composed either wholly or almost entirely of the transported, abraded, and mechanically sorted fragments of mollusks, trilobites, brachiopods, or other invertebrates. The term ''coquina'' comes from the S ...
and shows a mourning woman with two little children. It is placed in the center of the circle surrounded by the tombstones of those who died that night.


Chronology of air raids on Lübeck

* 28/29 March 1942: first and main RAF raid, followed by some minor raids in connection with the bombing of other north German cities as targets. * 16 July 1942: 21 Stirlings in an RAF raid. Only 8 aircraft reported bombing the main target; 2 Stirlings were lost. * 24/25 July 1943: first raid of the Battle of Hamburg, 13 RAF
Mosquito Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a Family (biology), family of small Diptera, flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by ''Musca (fly), mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mos ...
s carried out diversionary and nuisance raids to Bremen, Kiel, Lübeck and Duisburg. * 25 August 1944 (
Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Forces S ...
Mission 570): 81 B-24s bombed aircraft component plants, a rifle factory and steel fabrication plant in Lübeck – local sources reported 110 dead including 39 ''Zwangsarbeiter'' (forced (slave) laborers). * 15/16 September 1944: diversionary raid by 9 RAF Mosquitoes. The main raid was on Kiel with other cities hit by diversionary raids. * 2/3 April 1945: training raid by one RAF aircraft. * 3 May 1945 in a tactical operation the USAAF
Ninth Air Force The Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central) is a Numbered Air Force of the United States Air Force headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. It is the Air Force Service Component of United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), a joint D ...
flew armed reconnaissance around Kiel and Lübeck, and A-26 Invaders of the XXIX Tactical Air Command (Provisional) hit shipping in the Kiel-Lübeck area.U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II: Combat Chronology May 1945


. Retrieved 8 September 2008


See also

*The tragedy of the sinking of the SS ''Cap Arcona'' on 3 May 1945 happened on the
Bay of Lübeck The Bay of Lübeck (, ) is a basin in the southwestern Baltic Sea, off the shores of the Germany, German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein. It forms the southwestern part of the Bay of Mecklenburg. The main port is Travem ...
close to the port of
Neustadt in Holstein Neustadt in Holstein (; Holsatian: ''Niestadt in Holsteen'') is a town in the district of Ostholstein, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, on the Bay of Lübeck 30 km northeast of Lübeck, and 50 km southeast of Kiel. History In World War ...
and not in Lübeck itself. *
Bath Blitz The term Bath Blitz refers to the air raids by the German ''Luftwaffe'' on the British city of Bath, Somerset, during World War II. The city was bombed in April 1942 as part of the so-called " Baedeker raids", in which targets were chosen fo ...


References

*Graßmann, Antjekathrin (1989). ''Lübeckische Geschichte''. (''Lübeck's history''). 934 p., Lübeck. *Grayling, A. C. (2006). ''Among the dead cities''; Bloomsbury (2006); . pp. 50–51 *Harris, Arthur (1947). ''Bomber Offensive'', Pen & Sword, (Paperback 2005), ; p. 105
Royal Air Force Bomber Command 60th Anniversary: Bomber Command Campaign Diary


Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lübeck, Bombing of World War II strategic bombing of Germany World War II strategic bombing by populated place
Bombing A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...
1942 in Germany Conflicts in 1942 Germany–United Kingdom military relations March 1942 in Europe 20th century in Schleswig-Holstein