Heinrich Schurzmann

Heinrich Schurzmann

Heinrich Schurzmann's account of the events at Obere Königstraße, Town Hall.

1944-04-04

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Record 57

BKasselVdObmv10057

Translated from the original in German: Present is the senior messenger Heinrich Schurzmann, born 19 October 1882, formerly of Ständeplatz 18, now of Wurmbergstraße 48, and makes the following statement:
Every time we had an alarm, it was my duty to go to the town hall as reinforcement of the fire watch. As soon as the alarm sounded – it was half seven – I got myself ready – steel helmet and gas mask – and rushed to the town hall. I got there within five minutes. On the way there, I didn’t see anything yet. Usually, I had already debris flying around my ears. Nothing pointed towards a massive attack. Also no searchlights in the sky. According to the entries in the watch log – I met foreman Bachmann, the school inspector Betting, Erler, Feix (who came after me) – in total, the watch was 15 men – the leader of the watch, Bachmann, told me where I was supposed to stand. This was on the second floor of the wing fronting on Wilhelmsstraße.
Immediately afterwards the raid started, I could hear individual shots, the detonations came. We went at first to our positions but as soon as the terrible explosions started, we went to the corridor of the public health department. And as I got down there, there was already a fire down in the public health department. A bomb had dropped in from the side, where the Henschel fountain is, and it dropped where the laundry of the department was. In the meantime, the detonations became heavier and we started immediately to put out the bomb with the means at our disposal. Some men fetched hoses from the first floor which we intended to connect to the hydrant. But then we realised that unfortunately, we did not have the key for the hydrant and that we could not connect the hoses. It was a triangular key which was missing.
And then the detonations became heavier. We used buckets and the air raid pump to bring water and fought the fire with the pump. We were, however, powerless against the fierce fire with that little water. The rest of the crew tore down the cladding from the walls so that we could carry out the laundry and the blankets. We succeeded completely. We carried all of it in the room next to main office: blankets, laundry, bedding. Then the water supply failed unfortunately; it was impossible to continue fighting the fire. We remained at our posts until the heat became unbearable and the watch leader gave the order to leave because we could not stay in the town hall any longer. After the retreat had been sounded, I went up to the second floor opposite the burning halls, wearing my gas mask, and saved my uniform from my locker. We left the town hall through the cellar after we had wrapped ourselves in blankets which we had soaked at the only tap which had still running water. Then we ran up Karlsstraße, along the wall of the town hall – first through the gateway in Wilhelmstraße – Fünffensterstraße was already impassable. So we reached Schöne Aussicht from Friedrichstraße.
Unfortunately the things we saved were consumed by fire later because the water supply had failed. We could not get through to the archive because the joiner’s workshop was on fire. We also did not have water. The school inspector Betting made an outstanding effort, always encouraging others, until he too was driven away by the heat.