Bombing of Nordhausen (April 1945)
The air raids on Nordhausen on April 3rd and 4th 1945 by bombers of the British Royal Air Force destroyed three quarters of the city. Over 8,800 people lost their lives, and another 20,000 became homeless. Of 13,075 apartments, 82.31% were damaged or totally destroyed (6,187 completely and 4,575 partially destroyed). With such a high level of housing destruction (over 10,000 apartments), Nordhausen was one of the most heavily destroyed German cities; numerous landmarks of outstanding importance, including the 13th to 19th century half-timbered buildings characteristic of Nordhausen, were destroyed. The historic city center, the New Town (Neustadt), and the buildings around Frauenbergkirche were almost completely flattened. The areas west and north of the city wall, Barfüßerstraße, Kalte Gasse, parts of the historic Königshof, as well as the districts of Altendorf and Oberstadt north of Wallrothstraße were preserved. A large part of the severely damaged buildings was demolished after World War II. The destructive overall effect of all bombs and air mines was not even approached by any single air raid against Germany. The bombing of Nordhausen was the greatest catastrophe in its thousand-year city history.
First attacks
On the night of August 25th to 26th, 1940, two British Handley Page Hampden bombers attacked the airfield and dropped four bombs. A small fire broke out, but was quickly extinguished.
According to local reports, several bombs fell outside the city on July 2nd, 1941.
From 1940 to 1943, there were a total of 72 public air warnings and air raid alarms for Nordhausen. As the Allied air raids intensified on German cities located in the hinterland in 1944, Nordhausen became a heavily overflown route for Allied bomber formations, for example when they were en route to Berlin, Dessau, or Leipzig. In March 1945, the average of five to six air alarms reached its peak.
On April 12th, 1944, during lunchtime, two American fighters flying in from the south attacked the city, killing two people and seriously injuring two others.
On July 7th, 1944, the airfield and the neighboring streets, Kameradenstraße, Richthofenstraße, and Legion Condor Straße, were attacked and houses were damaged, resulting in fatalities and injuries. On July 20th, 1944, the airfield was again attacked, with 82 bombs dropped. The rail system east of the main railway station was also hit, disrupting railway traffic for several days. The railway line to Kassel was damaged by bombs near Kleinwerther.
On February 22nd, 1945, at around 12:30 PM, US bombers attacked the shunting yard, but hit the Unterstadt, some facilities in the industrial area, and the former Air Force telecommunication school in the Boelcke barracks. A total of 296 multipurpose bombs were dropped, killing 40 people. On February 26th, the Südharzer Kurier published a death notice for the "victims of the terror attack" announcing the funeral.
On February 28th, 1945, three American aircraft dropped 2.5 tons of high explosive bombs on the city.
On April 1st, 1945, the Auto-Hotel Hesse was hit by bombs and numerous people were killed.
Major attacks in April 1945
In view of the approaching US Army, at the end of March 1945, the city administration led by Mayor (Bürgermeister) Meyer and his Deputy, City Councilor (Stadtrat) Sturm, made preparations for the possible surrender of the city. It was ordered that all secret documents of various agencies, resident registration card files, personnel files of officials, etc. be destroyed. The Order Police and the Air Protection Police, consisting of approximately 250 Ukrainians, were ordered to depart with the Wehrmacht; some civil officials of certain years and politically prominent officials - but not Mayor Meyer - were also to withdraw. These preparations were interrupted by the air raid on April 1st and completely by the major attacks on April 3rd and 4th.
On April 3, 1945, the English bomber squadrons took off around 1:00 PM and reached Nordhausen by 4:00 PM. The 247 Avro Lancaster bombers (capacity of 6 tons of bombs each) and 9 Mosquito multirole aircraft dropped approximately 1,216 tons of explosive bombs in 20 minutes, primarily targeting the outer districts of Nordhausen. The northwest outer districts northwest of the Wallrothstraße-Post/Telegrafen-Zentrum line were hit sporadically but not devastated. Bombs fell around the Neustadt Church and Neustadtstraße in the city center. Heavy bombs and air mines also fell on the surrounding forests and villages of Sundhausen, Bielen, Himmelgarten, Leimbach, and Krimderode. The Boelcke Barracks, which was overcrowded with thousands of prisoners of war and sick Concentration Camp (KZ) prisoners, was also hit, and it is said that 450 people died alone in a hanger filled with tuberculosis patients. The city was without electricity and running water. The injured were collected and taken to Neustadt and Sülzhayn, and the bombed-out residents were given temporary quarters in the city and its surroundings. Many Nordhausen residents fled the city. Two tunnels of the underground facilities of Mittelbau Dora in the Kohnstein began to shelter refugees on April 3, and later 10,000. The city hospital was damaged, and the patients were taken to temporary hospitals in the nearby town of Petersdorf, particularly the Harzrigi excursion restaurant. Bombs also fell on several neighboring villages and their fields, with Bielen being particularly affected. Two bombers were lost on the outbound and return flights. The first attack, however, did not achieve the desired effect. From the perspective of the RAF, the attack on April 3 was a failure. Many residents moved to the nearby Kohnstein on the evening of April 3, where the almost abandoned tunnels of the Mittelwerk provided protection.
The air defense leadership, consisting of the Mayor Meyer and Major of the Protective Police Dettmann, went with the city administration's working group to the command post at the chicory factory on Stolberger Straße in the afternoon. According to another account, Meyer and the senior officer of the Wehrkreis Command, Major Quelle, were in the command post in the basement of the city hall on April 4. They remained there for the most part until the second attack the following day, on April 4, 1945. Mayer, Major Dettmann, and Major Quelle were not seen at the Zichorienfabrik command post after April 5, 1945. Due to the injury of School Counselor Dr. Koch, the commander of the People's Militia, on April 4 in the Riesenhaus, Captain Sigurd Rudloff was appointed both as the commander of the Nordhausen People's Militia and the combat commander of Nordhausen on April 5, 1945. This appointment was probably made by Dr. Koch.
On April 4 at around 9:00 AM, the second major attack by the RAF began. The squadron approached via Gotha, Bad Langensalza, and Schlotheim. The Boelcke Barracks was ordered as the target for 93 bombers, while the remaining 150 were to attack the city center. Two bombers had to return early, and 10 more missed their military target, so 231 of the 243 aircraft participated in the air strike. One bomber exploded over the city for an unknown reason; according to an eyewitness account, it was possibly shot down by a German fighter plane.
While a few fires from the previous day could still be fought, the local fire department, if still present, was completely overwhelmed by the situation. The streets were impassable for fire trucks due to debris and bomb craters, and water pipes were disrupted in many places. The remaining firefighters, who were deployed without leadership or support from outside, quickly gave up the fight against the flames. Only the Kassel fire police, who withdrew with the Wehrmacht from Kassel and arrived in Nordhausen on the evening of April 4 with two fire trucks, managed to rescue some people and extinguish fires at some points. However, nothing could be done to combat the widespread fires.
Panic gripped the surviving population, and tens of thousands fled the inferno of the city to the forests, villages, and in the direction of Kohnstein. They were also targeted by fighter bombers outside of Nordhausen. The city was a glowing sea of flames that could be seen for miles on the evening and night of April 4. In the center of it, the tower of St. Petri shone like a giant torch that collapsed and fell onto the church nave around midnight. RAF pilots returning from a mission in Merseburg reported at 11:00 PM about "good fires at Nordhausen." The Nordhausen-born writer Rudolf Hagelstange wrote in his German family chronicle about the firestorm in his hometown: "And the heat was so great that in most streets, if they were not paved, the asphalt had melted, and some fleeing people had sunk into it, some irretrievably and thus condemned to a flaming death."
After the bombing
The British Bomber Command reported as a result of the two major attacks that "the city was almost completely destroyed, including the barracks blocks." The situation for the population after the attacks can only be described as an "inferno." The city center could not be entered for days. There were still numerous fires raging, and the piles of debris radiated unbearable heat. Bombs with time fuses went off. The smell of corpses soon hung over the ruins, particularly in the area of the Boelcke Barracks. On the nights of April 6 and 7, the sick and wounded from Nordhausen and the surrounding area were evacuated to the Kohnstein by all available vehicles, especially horse-drawn carriages. The Nordhausen population was estimated on April 7 as follows: 6,000 (8,800) victims dead under the rubble, 6,000 survivors still in the city, 10,000 in the Kohnstein, and 20,000 in the surrounding villages, especially to the northeast of the city.
Mayor Herbert Meyer left Nordhausen on April 3 or 4, 1945, and did not return to his duties. In addition, the police chief and the entire security and air defense police withdrew with the remaining German military. The attack on the city halls and the city hall caused a complete disruption in administrative work. The city administration, made up of "a few conscientious administrative staff," gathered in the Gehege. After a few days, the administration was able to work in makeshift fashion in the local pubs; the main task was to issue certificates for damage caused by air raids.
On April 8, Allied planes took "excellent quality" photos of the destroyed Nordhausen. The attached report states: "The heart of Nordhausen was devastated by the two attacks, from the northwest suburbs through the city center to the airport and the Luftwaffe barracks on the Helme River in the southeast..."
Victims
In the April 1945 bombing raids, around 8,800 people were killed. This number dates back to estimates from February 1948. The exact number of people who died cannot be determined.
Before the attack, there were around 65,000 people in the city (42,000 permanent population, military personnel, prisoners, foreign workers, specialized workers in the war industry, evacuees). On June 17, 1945, the communist "Antifascist Committee" of Nordhausen estimated that over 10,000 people had been killed in the bombing raids.
In the first days after the Americans arrived, the US city commander had the bodies of the dead lying in the streets brought to the special cemetery on Schlageter Ring (now Stresemann Ring). Others were buried on the spot in bomb craters. A significant number of civilian victims and German soldiers were then buried in mass graves in the higher part of the current cemetery of honor.
Approximately 1,300 dead prisoners from the concentration camp satellite camp were recovered from the wreckage of the Boelcke barracks; among them were hundreds who died from the air raids, but also from exhaustion, malnutrition, and illness. It is no longer possible to determine how many prisoners died directly from the bombing.
600 bomb victims from the city were buried in the front part of the old main cemetery in Leimbacher Straße.
