Bombing of Lübeck in World War II

There were few defences^[4] so many crews attacked at 600 metres (2,000 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.^[3] 191 crews claimed successful attacks.^[1]

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.^[3] 1,468 (or 7.1%) buildings in Lübeck were destroyed, 2,180 (10.6%) were seriously damaged and 9,103 (44.3%) were lightly damaged; these represented 62 per cent of all buildings in Lübeck.^[1] 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, Lübeck. There was another minor area of damage north of St. Gilles (Aegidienkirche). Also St. Lorenz a residential suburb in the west of the Holstentor was severely damaged. The German police reported 301 dead, 3 persons missing and 783 injured, more than 15,000 (ca.10%) lost their residences.^[3]^[5]

Arthur "Bomber" Harris, Air Officer Commanding Bomber Command, wrote of the raid that "[Lübeck] went 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". 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 moon lit 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".^[6]

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 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 techniques were effective because cities such as Coventry had been subject to such attacks by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz.^[7] In the opinion of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi's Propaganda Minister, the raid fulfilled the RAF's directive for 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".^[8] To help offset the damage the raid had on German morale, the German hierarchy launched a well published raid on Exeter on 23 April 1942, which was the first of the 'Baedeker' raids.^[7]

Red Cross port

In 1944 Eric M. Warburg, liaison officer between US Army Air Force and RAF, and Swiss diplomat Carl Jacob Burckhardt as president of the International Committee of the Red Cross declared the Lübeck port a Red Cross port to supply (under the Geneva Convention) allied prisoners of war in German custody with ships under Swedish flag from Gothenburg 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, who was in charge of the White Buses too. (Bernadotte met Heinrich Himmler in Lübeck in spring 1945, when Himmler made his offer of surrender to the allies.)

Lübeck martyrs

The Lübeck martyrs were a group of three Catholic clergymen and the Protestant reverend Karl Friedrich Stellbrink who were arrested following the raid, tried by the People's Court in 1943 and sentenced to death by decapitation, all of them beheaded 10 November 1943 in the Hamburg prison at Holstenglacis. Stellbrink explained the raid next morning in his palm Sunday sermon as a trial by ordeal, which the Nazi authorities interpreted to be an attack on their system of government and as such undermined morale and aided the enemy.^[9]^[10]

Reconstruction and memorial

Under wartime and postwar conditions it took until 1948 to remove most of the construction waste and demolition rubble.^[11]

The remaining and the rebuilt parts of the old town are now part of the World Heritage Site. The memorial for the bombing is in the ground floor of the southern tower of St. Mary's church: The bells as they fell out of the burning tower. 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.

Time line for air raids on Lübeck

Contents

Main raid

Retaliation

Red Cross port

Lübeck martyrs

Reconstruction and memorial

Time line for air raids on Lübeck

See also

References

Footnotes