Gustav H

Gustav H

Gustav H's account of the events at Schlößchen Schönfeld, city plant nursery near Schönfeld Park, Hinter der Waage 9.

1944-05-11

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Record 86

BKasselVdObmv10086

Translated from the original in German: Present is the labourer Mr Gustav H. from the city’s plant nursery and makes the following statement:
It’s a very short story. At eight, we started our watch and as I made my round in the garden, the leading airplane appeared above the city and whilst I made preparations, the ack-ack fired the first shots. So I was forced – because the nursery does not have its own shelter – to walk to the Schlößchen Schönfeld from the former botanical gardens – that’s about 300 meters. As a result, the hothouses and greenhouses and the office were without supervision during that time. During the raid I went up several times – I was on my own – together with the people from Park Schönfeld, to see what was going on. The villa was on fire but we had no water. When the attack died down, we did firefight so that only half the building burnt down, the living quarters of the tenants and the work areas. At the end of the attack, I immediately made a round through the nursery and I found that the quarters of the French – a wooden cabin – had been destroyed by fire. I found it more important to help with the villa instead of wasting my efforts on this wreck.
I helped with firefighting until about 3 in the morning and then left my area of work to see what had happened to my family. I lived in Hinter der Waage 9.
So I went along Frankfurter Straße, up the Weinberg and along Schöne Aussicht to Friedrichsplatz and tried to get into the old town from there. That was completely impossible so I went up to Ständeplatz but I could not get into the old town from there either. There were only a few people on Friedrich-Wilhelms-Platz. The buildings were all ablaze. It was the strongest storm, it ripped the helmet from my head. I found a single person lying where Wilhelmstraße is – I guess they had passed out – and took them into the underground public urinal. There were five or six people in there already. I tried to resuscitate the person but without success. Then I went back to Friedrichsplatz and from there to the Aue. From there I went to the Marställer Platz and followed a squad of firefighters down to the Freiheiter Durchbruch. A bit after the Hirsch Pharmacy, Hinter der Waage, I could see already that all the buildings had burnt down. A further search seemed useless and so I walked towards Fulda Bridge and went down the wooden stairs to Renthof and then from there back to my place of work in Schönfeld Park. In the Aue were thousands of people who had saved themselves. My watch finished at seven when I handed over to the director (v. Eichel). At about eleven my wife came to the nursery after I had looked for her everywhere without success.