1
25
99
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Mrs Auguste Müller, née Mathies, born 17 September 1878, formerly of Turmstraße 4, now of Gottsbüren no. 211, and makes the following statement:
We had been cleaning the house all day. We were expecting visitors. He was the Staff Sergeant Robert Berg. He came from Radom and had arrived barely an hour earlier when his fiancée came (he is engaged to be married); she came in and said he should come to his parents. They had just left as the alarm sounded. They were in the cellar of their building and they managed to get out there.
Then the alarm came. We took our suitcases and went across the street, I and my daughter with her child (Mrs Frieda Breindl and Inge, five years old). So we arrived in the cellar of Widersich’s building). The cellar was already full. The people from the tram came too. We were in the last room, towards Magersuppe’s building. They were three buildings, actually. We heard the hits, I can tell you that. And then we were told that Magersuppe had had the first hits. So, the men ran out, my husband and Mr Heinzerling from our building. They wanted to help fight the fire. Then they came back.
My husband came back in and was shell-shocked. I said: “What did you do with your coat?” “I don’t know.” “Where is your key?” “You needn’t ask, all doors and windows are bust.” I said: “Never mind! As long as we save our lives.” And then, they came back again and said that they would have to take the boys with them. So, everyone was asking whether their building was on fire. “No, but no. 10 is.” Then they all ran away. Then one of the boys came back: “You are already back?” They were completely dazed. Mrs Schalles, the landlady of the wine bar – she’s dead now – lived in no. 6. Her grandchild saw too that my husband had gone into our house to save stuff. Mr Heinzerling came back through the underground passage which connects our house with the Wiedersich’s cellar, underneath the street. According to what Mr Heinzerling said, the house was suddenly in flames and my husband could not get back down. He must have burnt to death somewhere upstairs. He is gone without a trace. Even when the rubble was sifted nothing could be found of him.
Now everyone started crying, Mrs Schalles included; the Frenchmen who were billeted with her tried to comfort her. It was completely dark. Someone shone a torchlight. Suddenly a tall gentleman jumped into the cellar, ran towards the emergency exit and shouted: “All the men, go outside!” But my husband was already gone. But I shouted: “First get all the women and children out!” So, he said: “you are right!” I said: “Frieda, take your child on your arm and then come quickly.” And then we had already our mouths full of smoke. You couldn’t see a thing. There was a handrail, with the children, going up the steps. But people had probably taken their luggage with them, it was all blocked up, and I said: “Frieda, quick, let’s go to our exit.” So we went back to the exit on Turmgasse. There too the stairs were full of people. There was reddish smoke. You couldn’t breathe anymore. People were screaming: “Help! Help! We are going to die here, we are going to suffocate!” And the children were screaming, it was a dreadful to-do. So I made my way up on the left, following the wall, and I said: “I have to get to the water, I have to get to the water.” The door was ajar and I said: “Why don’t they open the doors?” Answer: “He won’t let us.”
The door was only a little ajar. There was a gentleman from the tramways. He went first, and one of the people guarding the exit said: “You can’t get out. There’s phosphorous and the ack-ack’s still shooting.” I said: “But we're are allowed to suffocate.” The man from the tramways ran, jumped out and I followed him. He turned towards Königsplatz. Stones were crashing down, the overhead wires were hanging down, everything was on fire, it was as light as day. I stood in a dark corner. I ran into the dark entrance hall of the Gingerbread House opposite the garrison church. I didn’t know where to go, the whole house was on fire except the entrance hall. I saw light in the cellar. I shouted down: “Is anyone there?” A gentleman came up: “What’s that supposed to mean?” “I’m not sure?” So he went back down and kept the door shut.
The flames now came from all sides and I kept an eye on the door. There was a woman from our building who came running down the street along the buildings. That was Mrs Weber from where we lived; she wanted to get to her daughter in Mittelgasse. But everything was on fire; she could not get through. So, she said: “We can’t stay here.” “Where should we go?” “I don’t know.” The sparks were flying, and stones were dropping and flakes were swirling around us. We didn’t have lying fire [phosphorous] yet. There was a young man; I assume that he had lifted my daughter out of the emergency exit. Mrs Weber said: “Where shall we go?” “Towards Kölnische Straße.” But there too everything was on fire. So, we ran to Königsplatz, there were tram cars but soon they were also on fire. We ran from one corner on the square to the next, from the tram to the bank on the corner of Kölnische Straße, and then one up from there to the Gingerbread House. There, we went into the cellar to soak our clothes, then ran across to Wiegand, the chemist’s. They had a big hall. I found my daughter there with her child. The room was full of people. She was crying so much. I also found Mrs Schalles there. Apart from them, I did not know anyone. There was a gentleman whose family was in there; he was in uniform. He called the members of his family by their names: “Come here; I’ll guide you out but I can’t take too many in one go.” He took me, my daughter and her child with him. He guided us back to the bank building.
A soldier was sitting there with a child on his arm; he had taken the child off a woman who had several children with her. He knew the woman’s name but nothing else about her. So he sat there, with the little mite on his arm. The man in uniform said: “There will be a car to take you away.” After a while, a covered van came. It rolled for two of its lengths and then it could not go on. The men had to get out and push. But it was no use. So we ran back to the tram cars (there must have been three of them) and stayed there. The van had come from Ständeplatz and gone to Königsplatz. The people who came from there were disappointed that the van had gone that way instead of the direction of Wilhelmshöhe. A woman came and said: “Many are running towards the Aue.” But we did not know how to get there because everything around us was on fire. The whole of Karlstraße was burning, including the corner where the chemist Mons is. Then we thought to go through Königstraße to Friedrichsplatz. We just wanted to get out as I saw flames shooting out of the Ufa [cinema]. The flames shot across the street and were as long as the entrance of the Ufa was broad. And the buildings opposite were all burning and there was such a noise, people were saying: “They’re still chucking it down from above.” But it is more likely that we heard the ceilings falling down. It was gruesome on Königsplatz, the fire made a rushing sound, it was terrible. My daughter stood on the tram steps to see when she would be able to get out. Two men from the emergency services suddenly appeared and said: “We’ll come and get you in a minute.”
And they came and got us later; they wrapped the child in a blanket and me in a blanket and said: “You can’t see a thing anyway; it’s all flames.” They had to tell us when we had to jump across beams and finally they got us to Friedrichsplatz and sat us on a bench. And after a while they took us to the theatre. Many people were there already. About an hour later, it must have been towards one o’clock, a gentleman came with a van: “I will take the women and children with me. Who wants to go to Jäger Barracks?” He took us with him. And we stayed in the barracks until the morning.
Later, we looked for my husband but did not find anything. When we arrived there on foot, there were many bodies laid out on Friedrichsplatz. But I could not face trying to find my husband among them. So we went to the Schöne Aussicht where we found other people from our building and Turmgasse. So I said to my daughter: “Your father’s dead. I can feel it.” No one had seen him. And she had to cry really hard. We made our way to Oberzwehren and from there to Elgershausen. From there to Marsberg, to my son. It has been said that a body had been lying right at the entrance to Wiedersich but my son had a look and thought that this was not our Father.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Auguste Müller
Description
An account of the resource
Auguste Müller's account of the events at Turmgasse 4/Königsplatz 36 ½ (Wiedersichscher Keller), Königsplatz.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 100
BKasselVdObmv10100
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Mr Fritz Hundhausen of Essiggasse 6, born 10 March 1917 in Kassel, commercial employee, and makes the following statement:
I was on special leave from 20 to 26 October and stayed with my wife at the time. I am the son-in-law of the innkeeper Paul Nube. For days before [the attack], alarm had been given, always around the same time and therefore we paid of course attention to the radio stopping that evening too. At that time, we had mainly elderly regulars as guests who now, after the terror, stay away, more or less all of them. So because there was an alarm very night, we got ourselves ready when the radio stopped. No one had an inkling on that evening that it was going to be a special attack.
About eight, the red alarm came. The first thing was to get all our relatives into the shelter and the necessary luggage. People were already fairly agitated and there was a much bigger throng in front of the shelter than on previous evenings. The regulars left our inn immediately and went home or to the shelter. I stayed back, as the last one, to observe the sky. All the others went to the shelter carrying their heavy luggage and handbags. People took the most important things with them. I had no idea that that there really would be an attack because it took a while before I could hear the first bombers. After a while I saw from the street that individual searchlights were illuminating the sky. Then they suddenly caught one in their lights. And the ack-ack was firing as if in a frenzy and shortly after the bombs were dropping. But not in our neighbourhood. I can’t say where. You could hear the whooshing and the explosions.
I then ran quickly to the shelter. The door was free but I had to knock in order to get in. In the shelter, people were already a bit flustered. At first, they were all silent. Everyone followed their own thoughts. They were all composed. But the whooshing of the bombs and the shooting of the ack-ack made them flinch eventually and cower under the benches. Many of them wanted to get out come what may, they did not want to stay in the shelter, even if they would die. I went out every now and again to see what the old town looked like. The first time we looked, we saw lights in the sky, probably from the so-called Christmas trees. Individual buildings were already on fire; the building opposite the inn, in Packhofstraße, was one of the first to go up in flames. Then others started burning on Fliegengasse.
The air in the shelter was getting worse and stuffier because it was overcrowded (there were 1,800 people in there instead of 800). I asked people to be quiet so that they would not use what little oxygen there was too quickly through their talking. The majority saw the sense in this. But some of them kept interrupting. I was still wearing my Lance Corporal’s uniform. Some absolutely wanted to leave to save their possessions. They would only let men out, however, and they would not be let back in; they had to stay outside for deployment. My brother-in-law, Hans Kistner – he has died since of smoke poisoning as a result of that terror attack – had originally been deployed in the Schminke building (on the corner of Altmarkt and Fischgasse). He had run down Essig-gasse, through the fire, to the inn, to see how far that was already on fire. He was already fairly exhausted when he came to our shelter and shouted: “All the men – out! We can still save a lot!” Some men with courage followed his call. This was shortly before the attack stopped. The women, on the other hand, all wanted to leave because they are more attached to their belongings. But they did not let the women out. The raid was over by now and the first view of the outside was terrible. There was fire everywhere. ‘Stadt Frankfurt’ was still dark, compared to other buildings.
I got the people from our building together and we went in and looked in the attic to see whether there were any signs of fire. Fires had started in all corners of the house, through flying sparks and incendiaries which my brother-in-law had already chucked out of the window. The most important thing in all the flats was to pull down the nets and to get all the flammable things away from the windows. Some window frames were already on fire but we put them out with water which we had already put there. But it wasn’t enough and when we had put out the fire on one window, another started burning again. I ran back to the shelter to see what had become of the people there. I was assailed with questions: “Is our building on fire? What is happening to our building?”
The air in the shelter had become bad because of the fierce fires so that people were ordered by the police to leave the shelter. The way to ‘freedom’ was very difficult for the women and children. Most of them were scared by the sight of the fire so that they did not want to leave. They had to hold wet cloths to their faces. Some of them even jumped fully clothed into the water vats. The police led them to the Fulda River past burning buildings and falling roofs. They could not walk along the Schlagd, however, because the dredgers and cranes of the firm Freudenstein were ablaze. The only path remaining was the one through the riverbed to the Rondell. We were lucky that the roller weir had been destroyed as the bed of the Fulda River was empty because of this. People waded through the mud to the Rondell.
When I knew my relatives were in safety on the Rondell, where all the other people from the shelter came together, I went back to the house.
Most of those fighting the fire had been blinded by the smoke which got in their eyes. I went looking for the soldiers who had meanwhile been brought in. Some of them were prepared to help us and that was very important. Because we would not have been able to withstand the smoke and the fumes much longer and then our building would have burnt down after all. For the soldiers, the pub was welcome. They were able quietly to quench their thirst and smoke cigarettes. That kept them with us for a while. They took it in turns to put out the flames which kept coming back on the top floor and the staircases. By seven in the morning we therefore thought that the house had been saved. We could not sleep in the house. The walls had burst. We also had to see a doctor because of our eyes. The following night, those people from the house who had stayed, my wife, her sister and my brother-in-law, slept in the shelter. The men had mainly stayed back but the women had been evacuated. One man stayed in the house as fire watch. At half ten that night he came running to the shelter and shouted: “The house is on fire again!”
You could say that we ran back to the house as we were and were horrified to realise that the fire on the second floor was already quite big. We didn’t have any water except for two buckets which were standing under our taps and had been filled by dripping water. The women ran down to the Fulda and fetched water in buckets and fought the fire constantly. We no longer believed that we would be able to save the house. Nevertheless, we didn’t lose heart and after a few hours we had extinguished the fire far enough to be able to approach the source of the fire. There were beams in the walls and the floor which were smouldering and spraying sparks. There was nothing else to do, we had to rip out the beams to have peace at last. We were all really exhausted after this struggle with the fire. I patrolled all the sources of fire with my brother-in-law, Fritz Emde, and touched them with our finger tips to be sure that all the fire had been extinguished. We could finally go and sleep in the shelter. A watch stayed, however, in the house.
We met our brother-in-law, Hans Kistner, and his wife on Saturday morning at the Rondell. He had been blinded by smoke. We dragged ourselves to a place where we could have our eyes treated. On Friedrichsplatz was a doctor who put drops in our eyes. That gave us some relief. But only sleeping in the dark and in good air would restore our sight. My brother-in-law went with his wife and his in-laws to relatives in Gudensberg. He started working again at Fieseler but was always dizzy and died on 18 February 1944 from smoke and blood poisoning. He was buried in Kassel on the cemetery near Holländische Platz. We stayed in the shelter for another eight days and then also moved to Gudensberg. As we were approaching Easter we could move back into our house on Essigstraße and re-open the pub.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fritz Hundhausen
Description
An account of the resource
Fritz Hundhausen's account of the events at Essiggasse 6 (Inn ‘Stadt Frankfurt’), air raid shelter at the Karl Hospital.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-06-21
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 99
BKasselVdObmv10099
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Wehrmacht
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
fear
firefighting
home front
shelter
target indicator
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present are Andreas H., master tailor, born 21 Nov. 1871 and Miss Emma H., born 7 March 1906, formerly of Schomburgstraße 10, now Wurmbergstraße 78 ½, and make the following statement:
When the alarm came I was sitting on my work table and was working on a uniform for someone from the railway – it was war work – normally I have private customers. Then the radio stopped. That was later, however, when my daughter had already come home – must have been after a quarter to eight. (Later, Dad, because I only got home at a quarter to eight.) My daughter had worked until seven and quickly eaten something. Mother had baked oatcakes and said: “You haven’t even tried the cakes. Well, you can do it when we get back up.”
From the window in one room, we could see the train station. This was always an orientation point when the lights were out. And the station was in the dark. So we put our coats on quickly. The girls went down first and Mother and I followed later. We had also packed our glasses but then everything went very quickly and I lost them. When I call it a day, I put the thimbles and glasses in my pockets now so that I don’t lose them again; they are indispensable. We had already left our luggage in the cellar. We had everything down there. People were laughing about us being so cautious. There were few guests in the hotel and so we hardly met anyone on the stairs. We, my sister and I, stood outside the house entrance with a few soldiers. Because a patrol group of the army police was in our house. And we said: “It’ll be nothing.” But then we saw the searchlights and they said: “Time to go to the cellar.” We also spoke to neighbours, the Buttstädts of no. 11, and she said to her husband: “Come on, Karl! Something bad could happen and then we would not be together.” They died, together with her 78-year old mother. And then we went down to the cellar and the ack-ack started shooting. And my sister said: “Let’s put on some more clothes; something might happen.” And I put on this grey dress and two summer coats. My sister put on her favourite coat, I will never forget that. And one of the soldiers, maybe 45 years of age, said to my father: “What a mess! I have my leave pass in my pocket and get the train to Frankfurt at half eleven.” By half eleven he was already dead. The leave pass they found on him four weeks later was his ID.
So we sat in the cellar, tightly packed, which I found uncomfortable. Because the shooting got fiercer and the drone more terrible. And Mrs Althans said: “Dear God, now we’ll be buried.” And I replied: “Keep calm!” And then the light flickered and I saw dirt trickling on my sister. And Mr Althans, the owner of the hotel, ran into the yard with some soldiers and came back and said: “We’re all doomed, there’s a phosphorous canister lying in the yard. And there’s fire in all four corners, fire everywhere.” And then came an explosive and a terrible bang. And the light came back but very faintly. And then the soldiers went up again to fight the fire in the yard and then the landlord came back and said: “Our staircase has collapsed.” This all happened in seconds and I don’t really know what went through my head.
Then all the soldiers went up to the yard to firefight. One of them gave me a wonderful briefcase and said: “But please do me the favour and keep it.” But I dropped it later anyway and the soldier was left there.
And then came the bomb which buried us all. There was a terrible bang, the lights went out and I was hit in the back by a beam and lay on my knees. I lost a shoe in that cellar when we were buried. But I left it there. Had my father been in the washhouse, he’d have been killed. I still see his torch sticking out. And then the fire came into the cellar from every opening and from the washhouse. That was phosphorous. There were also two boys, the children of the widow Maßberg (they were a quarter Jewish). They were lying in the washhouse and a soldier dug them out. The soldiers worked really hard. So we lay there for a few seconds and I thought: “Now you’re going to die. But when? No, you don’t have to die, you’re still strong.” So I struggled to my feet and the others did too. Now the shouting started, for every single one, to see whether they were still there. My wife was also lying in the dirt and under the rubble; she had a wound about 4 centimetres long on her head. Mother showed terrible courage. A soldier came and said: “We have to get out or we’ll suffocate; the fumes are getting through. So my mother went first with my sister and we followed them. But first we dug my father out from the dirt. He could not get out on his own. Stone, loam and bricks were lying on him. I had a beam pushing in the back of my neck. It had moved slowly, otherwise it would have killed me on the spot. So we made our way through the corridor, over the rubble and it had not settled yet, there were still hollows in it. So we got to the breakthrough and thought: “Heavens, what if the breakthrough is buried?” But it was open; that was a relief.
And people said: “We hope that the stairs from the cellar are still there.” And the stairs of that cellar were the only ones which were still there. (Bahnhofstraße 19, Hotel Vaterland)
So we went out and I got a shock. The building was already burnt to a shell. And my mother said: “What’s that, burning up there?” And I said: “Have a good look, that’s our homeland burning. And my mother said: “I’m not staying here!” And I said: “But where shall we go?” So we went down Bahnhofstraße a bit but on the pavement. Someone shouted: “Get off the pavement! Walk in the middle of the road!” And there was already muck falling from above, beams, bricks and roof tiles and there was still shooting – like from a machine gun. Constant explosions. We were overcome by a terrible feeling when we came out of Bahnhofstraße and saw that the whole city was on fire. Also the heat and the storm which went with it.
So we stepped into a house, that was Bahnhofstraße 7, and we took off our headscarves and coats and soaked them in a bucket of water. A woman was there who said: “Don’t be so unreasonable and use the whole of our water; we still need it to fight the fire.” But the whole quarter was already ablaze. My mother said again: “We have to get out!” Because the storm made it difficult for me to breathe. I still see my mother running in front of me, through the fire, and I’m thinking: It’s like in the movies; she’s running for her life. And fire was on the street, broken glass, up to my knees and I went through it with my bare foot and the torn stocking. The foot was not injured and not burnt.
So we arrived on Lutherplatz. It was still early and not many people had arrived yet. They all came later. Our eyes were burning, do you remember, Dad? There were people and smoke and fire came through the air and soldiers with horses. It whooshed and swooshed everywhere. There were a few young girls who had soaked their clothes so much that they stripped off and dried their clothes first. And I looked for the other people from our building and they said: “Let’s lie down together, we belong together.”
Then I found a pair of my friend's shoes and a woman took my left shoe because she had lost her right shoe.
Oh, we were so tired, we settled against the gravestones. And we really slept. And people said: “If that tower comes down, you will all have to leave. And then the whole of Gießbergstraße collapsed and the buildings on Lutherplatz and Spohrstraße and Wörthstraße.” We were lying right on the corner of Spohrstraße and I thought the houses would fall on top of us. People were very nice and no one complained. And they said: “Now we can understand the people of Hamburg.” And two women suddenly had a conversation about how best to have a dress made by a dressmaker. And it was terrible that you had to go [to the toilet]. People squatted at the corner of the church and people didn’t feel embarrassed. A man said to a woman: “I will do what you have just done” and squatted next to her. And when day broke, it was terrible. Bahnhofstraße was cleared by and by. Soldiers guided people along there. We got through with a real effort. The rubble went up to our knees and the overhead wires of the tram were lying on the street. And we passed our old home. So we went up there and met Mrs Thomas and she was crying (bakery, Bahnhofstraße23) because she’d lost all her pretty things. We said: “Be glad that you got out of there.” So we went up Kölnische Straße which was still burning and learnt that the whole city had been destroyed. You could see that from there. And that’s how we ended up with Hundelshausens. We had made an arrangement with them in case something would happen. And the two ladies Stegemann have taken us in. They are really warm-hearted people and we have been made welcome.
“Dad, you can’t complain, all our neighbours are dead, we did not salvage anything, not even a handkerchief, but we are alive!”
When the alarm came we would not have dreamt that anything like this would happen to us.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Andreas H and Emma H
Description
An account of the resource
Andreas H and Emma H's account of the events at Schomburgstraße 10 (Rheinischer Hof Hotel), Bahnhofstraße 19 and Lutherplatz 7.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-07-11
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 98
BKasselVdObmv10098
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Heinrich West (stage manager at the Theatre at Wilhelmshöher Platz), born 8 July 1891 in Waltersbrück, District Fritzlar, and makes the following statement:
The matinée performance had finished and afterwards I always went home for dinner. The evening performance started at half seven. Shortly after it had begun, at about 8, the alarm came. I had been onstage. After we had closed the stage and switched off the lights, I changed immediately and rushed home. I went out first on the balcony to reconnoitre. I heard the planes approach and shouted that my wife should get herself ready. Then I went down to the street. As I got there, I saw the first marker drop above Wilhelmshöhe. At that moment, I immediately blew my whistle to order all the people in the house to go to the air raid cellar immediately.
After a very brief period of time, the breakthrough was opened from no. 11 and the block leader of the air raid protection league, Mr Klute (who owns the printing shop Martin), came first with the people from no. 11 to us because everything was already lost there. My cellar was not big enough to take all those people. So I led all of them, the people from our building included, to no. 15, after the breakthrough had been opened. Here was a long corridor in the cellar (on the corner to Gießbergstraße). At that moment, all the people from Gießbergstraße 8, 6 and 4 also arrived in no. 15 through the breakthroughs. I must have had between 50 and 75 people in that cellar. I then searched all means and ways to find an exit. I tried to open 12 cellar vents as an experiment but they had been protected with planks and earth but when I tried to get out there, I was met by fire. We had to close the vents again.
When I returned to the cellar, some people had already passed out. Among them was a woman with three children (Zielinski, the children were maybe 12, 8 and 2, she had the little one on her arm). I took the little one off her and gave it to another woman. I sat her up again on a chair and washed her mouth out with a wet cloth. Because I was so busy, as people were calling for me from all sides, I could no longer look after the woman. I then told the women in the cellar to wrap wet cloths around their hair so that it would not burn when we got the opportunity to get out. That was the last instruction I was able to give. At that moment we took a direct hit, the lights went out and I collapsed and I was found the following morning at seven.
I had been unconscious until then. I was taken to the Diakonissen Hospital and from there to Volkmarsen and Saturday evening I became aware that I was in hospital.
I was discharged on 29 October. I then lodged with my parents-in-law in Kassel-Bettenhausen, Dormannweg 25. The real effects started a fortnight later. I had become incontinent. Dr Horn treated me but it got worse by the day. And about 20 November, after the in-laws and I had been making inquiries in the town hall with the Department for Missing Persons, to find out about my wife, I was informed that she had been buried on the main cemetery in a communal grave. That information hit me hard, so hard that I had a nervous breakdown.
Dr Horn therefore referred me to the sanatorium Haina. I spent eight weeks there. I am happy with the treatment and the food. I was discharged on 30 January after a slight improvement and was given good advice by the consultant Schmidtmann to avoid all activity and not to go into Kassel so that I did not have to see the ruins. Otherwise, it was easily possible that I would suffer a setback. And then it was likely that I would not recover. So Haina petitioned the NS welfare organisation to send me away for a recovery break. I started that treatment on 21 March in Hahnenklee-Bockswiese and it was to last for six weeks. It was not successful, however. The consultant had said right from the start that was not the right course of action for me. I should be sent to a proper spa with daily baths and daily observation. So I asked the local relief organisation and they told me to see their relevant medical examiner in the first few days and he would make the decision. At the moment, I am being treated by the specialist Dr Scholl. That’s it so far.
I now live with my in-laws again and the best thing for me is to sit in the garden chair, all by myself. I don’t want anyone around me. I have lost two wives in 25 months – it’s too much. I’d only been married to my second wife for 14 months.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Heinrich West
Description
An account of the resource
Heinrich West's account of the events at Mauerstraße 13/15. Gießbergstraße.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-31
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 97
BKasselVdObmv10097
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
final resting place
home front
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Max Bartels, production engineer, born on 1 March 1881 in Kiel, and makes the following statement:
As production engineer, I was also in charge of air raid protection for the plant. On the day in question, at the time of the catastrophe, the second shift was at work. We were altogether 27 men that evening. The plant was running at full capacity, as usual, in spite of the damage we suffered on 3 October. When the sirens went, the air raid squad took up their positions. We soon realised that a serious attack was coming. We saw flare bombs everywhere. We also saw an individual plane caught in the searchlights attracting the fire of the ack-ack. This diversionary manoeuvre made it possible for the enemy to mount a concerted attack on Kassel. The ack-ack was diverted and the enemy could attack in formation. Shortly afterwards, the bombing started with all means: incendiaries and explosives were being dropped.
I was on lookout, together with Wiegelmann, the foreman. Soon the phone lines had been destroyed. And then, as the bombing started, we saw that Bettenhausen and the Losse plant were also being hit. Close hits but not direct ones, but they took the roofs off all the buildings, without exception, and all the windows and walls were torn open. The connection with Preussen-Elektra [power station] was destroyed, the pylons collapsed and we had electrical shorts. Incendiaries caused seven fires in our plant, but we were able to put out four of them. We were able to save the power switching station – otherwise we would still not have an electricity supply – the depot was saved twice and three fifths of the building with the flats was preserved. I live there and Inspector Kühne. A completely new set of huts for workers, which had been damaged heavily on 3 October and which had not yet been taken into service, burnt down. There was such a heat that we were unable to get close. A stack of wooden poles was ablaze and the fire could only be extinguished much later. The most calamitous fire was in the part which transported the coal. The machine which lifted the coal, twenty meters above ground, burnt out and was destroyed. We would have been able to continue our production if it had not been for the damage to that machine. As it was, we had to shut down the following morning at nine.
The mechanical rake screen where the river Fulda enters the Losse plant was destroyed through a near hit and so we still have to do the cleaning manually. That was that. Now let’s get to the end.
From the plant, we have an excellent view across the city, and at first we could only see the big fires which were closer to us: the docks, the brewery, Salzmann & Co., Leipziger Straße and Schüle-Hohenlohe. We could not see any further because of the enormous smoke developing. The fire storm from the periphery of the city towards the centre made itself felt strongly. It made it difficult for us to fight the fires. Because the drinking water network had stopped working, all the hoses in the plant were under pressure from our own electrical pumps. This had already been prepared in the plans of the air raid protection. We stopped firefighting at about six in the morning and put fire watch teams in the places where the fires had been. It was my duty to make a report and because we had no phone lines, I ordered the technical assistant Höhle to give an oral report to the air raid protection commissioner of the public utilities, Director Dinessen. Only when the messenger returned (it had taken him three hours to get there and another three hours to get back, through smoke, fire and buildings on the verge of collapse) did we learn about the full extent of this terrible calamity.
Because we had been so focused on firefighting, we had not taken much notice of what was happening around us. Of those at work at the time, no one was injured or killed. In Wildemannsgasse, a colleague who was off work was killed in his apartment, the stoker Lange. The families of some of the men who were at work here that night, trying to protect the plant, perished in the fire.
The following morning all sorts of offices asked me when we would be able to resume production. Seven men were there. So I put a plan together and said: If I can get this and that, I can guarantee that we’ll be up and running again in three weeks. And I got engine fitters and engineers and we were back online three days earlier than projected. In the meantime, after we had repaired the connection to Preussen-Electra, Kassel got emergency power from us through that connection after only two and a half days.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Max Bartels
Description
An account of the resource
Max Bartels's account of the events at Lossestraße 14 (Losse [power] plant).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-31
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 96
BKasselVdObmv10096
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
target indicator
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Reinhold Sch. (in his municipal police uniform) and gives the following statement:
It’s very short; it didn’t take very long. Because I was on duty and had only returned from leave the day before. And on the day I was put on night duty. It was only me and two from the tax office but I can’t remember their names. We sat down and wanted to have our tea. I took the phone and we went down into the cellar. Then people came down from the street, maybe thirty of them. They were people living in the building and people who’d come from the street. And then I went up again to get my coat and as I came back down again, the bombs started dropping. And as it is with women and children, there was a big fuss, and I tried and tried to calm them down and when I went up to have a look as to what was happening, the sports hall at the back was already on fire and the house above, we weren’t able to see that.
So we wanted to get out. I had taken my things down with me and as I went back up to get my things and to fight the fire, flames were already shooting out from the first floor. That’s how fast it was. So we went back down and I had to calm people down. The ventilation pumps started working but that did not help at all because they sucked hot air in. The cellar was filling up with smoke and shook with each detonation. I had thought we might be able to hold out in the cellar but that was no longer possible. So, and as we had the big hit, the lights went out and people became agitated and we opened the breakthrough because we could no longer get up into the building because of the fire and we left through the pub on the corner of Fünffensterstraße. And outside were soldiers and air raid wardens and they guided us to Schöne Aussicht. Our clothes, coats and hats, we had soaked in water, otherwise we would not have got through the rain of fire.
Then I wanted to get home – Rothenditmold – but was unable to get through the fire. That was about eleven o’clock. I then stood on Adolf-Hitler-Platz. And then two colleagues came from my station, they took me with them via Frankfurter Straße and Philosophenweg to Tannenwäldchen. Fire was everywhere and as I came to Philippistraße, I could not pass. So I made my way through the allotments, Naumburger Straße, past the Zahn, it was dangerous because the fences and everything were lying around. And then Beier’s building collapsed, that was on fire on Naumburger Straße. And then I turned into Engelhardstraße and looked for my apartment. There was nothing left except the scaffold and a few pillars. It was burnt out. Only my wife had been at home. She had her things in the cellar; she fled in her underwear and a coat. She had to flee all the way to the cemetery. I found her there at three in the morning among the graves and she only wore her underwear and coat and had a shopping bag with her. The people in our cellar in Frankfurter Straße all got out.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Reinhold Sch
Description
An account of the resource
Reinhold Sch's account of the events at Frankfurter Straße 26/28 (Municipal Police Department), Engelhardstraße 8.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-31
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 95
BKasselVdObmv10095
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
firefighting
home front
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Emil E., warehouse supervisor, born 24 March 1902 in Kassel, formerly of Pferdemarkt 27, now of Bahnhofstraße 228, Zierenberg, and makes the following statement:
I am the leader of several blocks and I belonged to local group Altstadt. My command post was in Schäfergasse at the back of the food wholesaler Weber. On the evening of terror, I was at home and was doing my paperwork. I had a dairy shop at Pferdemarkt. Then the alarm came. My wife ran the business, I had been working for Strippel and Heller for eight years. I took my family down to the cellar immediately. But I had no idea that it would be such a massive attack. I also brought the other people living in the building down to the cellar quickly, out of caution.
I then made my way as fast as possible to my command post in Schäfergasse. The attack took me by surprise in lower Schäfergasse. It was very dark, not a single person on the street. All the searchlights were directed at an airplane which was caught in their lights. And our ack-ack shot as much as the barrels could fire. Then the sky was immediately illuminated by flares and markers and then the first bombs started dropping. I could barely get myself to safety. But then, in the yard of the wholesaler’s, I received such a blow that I landed on the ground. I got back on my feet and got into my bunker in a flash. You can jump that far, I learnt that. Here, in the command post, were about 80 people, mainly women and children, and my party squad, about ten men, and the squad of the air raid warden George.
People were still fairly quiet; the uniforms above all had a calming effect on them. About twenty minutes after the attack had started, acrid smoke started to get into the cellar vault. I ran out immediately into the yard towards Schäfergasse and discovered that all the attics around the yard were already on fire. Incendiaries and phosphorous canisters were lying in the yard and burning pieces dropping from the roofs started to block our way into Schäfergasse. The blockbusters had probably been dropped already. I only informed my deputy Seligmann so as not to cause a panic. I made my way discreetly to the second exit in Königsstraße and informed the self-protection squad leader George. We discovered that that exit too was completely buried. We could only see smoke and burning ruins. We were caught as in a mousetrap.
I went back into the cellar and calmed people down and said: “Keep calm, we’ll get out of here, I’ll make sure of that. As far as the smoke is concerned, it comes from the burning buildings around us. But that is not so dangerous!” I knew exactly, however, what was happening. I therefore gave my orders and discussed with that George chap how we could get out again. Bombs were still dropping, we could hear that. Listen, at any rate we made our way through the rooms in the cellar towards the wall where the plywood depot was on the other side, on Schäfergasse. Here I had a manhole opened big enough for a single person to get through. The wall was at least a foot of concrete. Because I was thinking of my family, the work did not go fast enough for me. I took the pickaxe and made the hole myself. I can name Mr Käseweber and party comrades Peorge, Barte and Terjung and Seligmann as witnesses for that. We really managed to break through the wall. I went through first to see whether the way was free. And we were lucky because the depot was not on fire yet.
I went out first through the exit to Bremer Straße and discovered that it was a sea of flames around us. Every now and again individual people ran down Bremer Straße towards the Wall. They only had blankets around them, dripping with water. I thought briefly and decided not to lead people down Bremer Straße but through the breakthroughs of lower Schäfergasse as far as Köhler’s bakery. I was certain that none of the people would have followed me outside into Bremer Straße because they would have been too scared. I immediately made my way to the people waiting for me. They were all waiting for me; no one had gone outside. And then I discovered that people started to feel faint and fall because of the smoke. So I gave the order to lead women and children through the hole into the plywood depot in Schäfergasse. I managed to get every single one out of there. But this was only because of the effort of my squad. I had to be brutal and violent because people did not want to leave. I discovered later that we had been really lucky because twenty minutes later the plywood depot had collapsed and was ablaze.
In all the buildings on the left side of lower Schäfergasse, towards Müllergasse, all the communities of building residents were still in their cellars by eleven o’clock and they were all alive. Everywhere was acrid smoke and not enough air to breathe. Men, women and children were sitting on chairs and benches, wet cloths in front of their mouths, the eyes bandaged, even the children, and all were acting in the belief: We are safe here in our cellars. Here too we had to use brute force and my squad made great efforts to clear the cellars and to make people get out towards Müllergasse (through the Marienfeld pharmacy and Köhler’s bakery, the corner-house on Bremer Straße). In that house I met many people who had saved themselves there from the street. All powers of persuasion were not enough to add weight to my orders. People were afraid of the firestorm. On the spur of the moment I went out into the street. I saw that the whole of Müllergasse was on fire, Schäfergasse too and that the upper part of Müllergasse, which leads to the Pferdemarkt, had already collapsed. I went back into the house and told the people there that I was sure that the girls’ school at the Wall was not on fire yet and that would be our salvation. Because the corner houses were also on fire, everything was ablaze. I consulted my squad and then we took action and drove the people on the street, again with the use of brute force. That’s how they saved their lives.
During that time I ran to Müllergasse where my family was. There was quite a bit of debris on the ground. When I came to the junction with Kruggasse, the whole of the wall of the building on the corner fell across it so that I was unable to climb across the burning heap of rubble. I went immediately back to the Golden Lion [a pub] and tried to get to Kruggasse through the breakthroughs in the cellars so as to get to Müllergasse. This route was also blocked because the cellar had caved in when the corner house collapsed. I noticed here too that the people living in the houses were still assembled in their cellars (on the left side seen from the Wall). I managed also to get most them out of their hiding places by directing my people. Some of the cellars were dark, others still had electric light. The whole kerfuffle happened between half twelve and midnight. As the main witnesses of my actions I can name Mrs Brehm from the furniture shop. I continued my actions and brought people to the Wall regardless.
Müllergasse and Schäfergasse were impassable and the all the throughways to Pferdemarkt were blocked and it was impossible to get through. I therefore had to fall back together with the others to the school at the Wall and towards morning it became clear that I had lost my family.
The following morning I reported in Renthof to the local group leader, party comrade Werner. He was very pleased that I was still alive. I immediately reported for duty and directed the rescue operations at Pferdemarkt, Müllergasse and Schäfergasse together with party comrade Flohr. And then came the saddest part. We found mainly many children in those cellars. Many were unrecognisable; the horse butcher Herrmann in Schäfergasse was completely incinerated and had shrunk to about half a meter. They were like dolls. Other bodies were terribly bloated and defaced. Others were easy to recognise, as if they were still alive, but all were dirty and blackened. Several days later, I got an SS squad to break open the cellar of Eisen-Ketsch in Müllergasse and here we discovered that more than a hundred people had met their deaths. When we broke the cellar window, we felt a great heat and blue-ish fumes started to escape. We had to wait until eight the following morning until we could bring the bodies out.
Unfortunately, everything was still smouldering. In the afternoon, we were in there, the bodies were lying in rows in the cellar. I had myself roped up because I had the greatest interest in finding my wife and child. But it was impossible to find anything. You could only count up to fifteen and then had to get out again. I’d guess that that when the oxygen came in when we opened the cellar, the heat ignited everything. We found remnants of bones and rings but we could not recognise anyone.
That’s pretty much it. I did ten days rescue service but then gave up as I had a nervous breakdown.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Emil E
Description
An account of the resource
Emil E's account of the events at Schäfergasse 21, Müllergasse, Pferdemarkt.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-26
Contributor
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Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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Record 94
BKasselVdObmv10094
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
fear
home front
incendiary device
shelter
target indicator
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Oskar Spieß, master hairdresser, born on 2 April 1891 in Ascherode, formerly of Jägerstraße 1 (the salon was in Bahnhofstraße 15), now lodging with Liebehenz, Wilhelms-taler Straße 71 in Calden near Kassel, and makes the following statement:
I lost seven relatives in that night of terror, my wife and daughter…
At first I had no idea that Kassel would be the target of a massive attack. And as the attack started, the building in lower Königstraße which borders on ours, was immediately on fire. And the flames came into our coal bunker in the cellar. So I informed the other people in the building that I would stay in the coal bunker so as to prevent the coals from catching fire. We were the first in the cellar, my son’s father-in-law (my son was a British prisoner of war) and I. (The father-in-law is Mr Heinrich Wiegand.) People came down carrying heavy suitcases, my family too. We had already carried down a laundry basket. We had thrown our coats and jackets in it. Exactly thirty people from our building were in the cellar.
I tried to loosen the bricks of the breakthrough to the building which was on fire. Because I thought the people there could come over and take refuge with us. The people over there were already shouting through the first gaps: “We’re dying in this cellar! We can’t breathe for smoke!” So those people fled into our cellar. They came with their hand luggage but the lights had already gone out and it was difficult to see what was happening. We worked by torch light. Children had also come over into our cellar. Our air raid shelter was situated awkwardly because it was on the street corner. That’s why we mainly stayed in the corridors. They were solid and vaulted. Then the building next door, Jägerstraße 3, also caught fire. When we opened the breakthrough the people there shouted already: “We can’t stay here.” So we let those people also into our cellar. At the end, I estimated there were seventy people in our cellar.
Our house too was already on fire. So my son-in-law and I went back up and to get the bedding from our flat on the first floor. And then an incendiary dropped into the chimney and got stuck there. So I asked that the hole from which the chimney got cleaned be opened and filled with sand so that fumes would not get into our cellar. Then I said from the bunker where I was, because the fire had abated a bit: “Someone go out and have a look what’s happening outside.” Unfortunately, no one followed that request. I tried again a couple of times and finally said: “Well, if no one wants to go, I’ll go.”
I was not happy about this because I wanted to stay where the fire was. And when I reached the door to the cellar, my son-in-law (Christian Mantel): “Dad, do you want me to go?” So I said: “No. You take the boy from the pram (his son, Günter Mantel, 13 months old), wrap him in a blanket and as soon as I come back, you’ll have to follow me immediately.” So I ran to Bremer Straße and looked for a black spot in the sea of fire and I saw one at Holländische Platz and my eyes went to the left to the arsenal which was on fire but the entrance was still black. So I went back to the cellar and shouted to the people there: “Everyone out! Follow me!” And I went back to the middle of Jägerstraße and waited for them to come but no one did – so I went back to the cellar again and shouted again that they should come out and opened both wings of the door so that there would not be any holdups. But no one wanted to leave. I was alone on the street. It was still during the attack, about three quarters of an hour after the alarm. When I tried for the third time to get into the cellar in order make people leave, the flames already barred my way and I could not get to the cellar anymore.
So I went down Königstraße. There I met people from the house where Bär has his shop. They wanted to go up König-straße and I shouted out to them: “Are you mad? Walk away from the fire instead of into it!” Later, I met by accident someone from that building, a Mr Michel who worked for the municipal office for war damages, and he confirmed that all those who had run up Königstraße perished in the fire and that he and his family were saved because he ran towards the black with me.
When I reached Holländische Platz, it was impossible to get through because everything was on fire. But I wanted to get back to Jägerstraße, to our cellar. So I tried to reach it on indirect routes, via Möncheberg, Eisenschmiede, Quellhöfe, Holländische Straße, Mombachstraße, Unterstadtbahnhof, Wolfhager Straße and Sedanstraße – I could not go any further than that – a big military lorry stood there. It was bound for the main train station. So I said to the driver: “Me too.” And I stood on the running board and he drove up Sedanstraße into the sea of fire, up to Grüner Weg. And when he wanted to turn into Grüner Weg, the overhead wires was hanging across and he had to abandon the lorry and I ran from there through Grüner Weg to Lutherplatz. And just before I reached Lutherplatz, the gable of the house on the corner of Grüner Weg and Bahnhofstraße (Lutherkeller) came down and people on the Lutherplatz were shouting: “Run, the gable is falling down.” And the air pressure threw me the last twenty metres into Lutherplatz. And from there, I wanted to try again to get to Jägerstraße through Gießbergstraße but the army forbade this, unfortunately. So I lay down on the square next to the gravestones under the trees. The central nave was on fire and the fire brigade tried to protect the tower, which they managed to do. Because otherwise the people there would have had to flee again. But where to?
The following morning, when day broke, I made my way to Jägerstraße 1 through the debris in Gießbergstraße despite my swollen eyes. So I found someone else from our building (Hofmann) who had been working the night shift at Henschel, trying to open the exit of the cellar. And as we entered the cellar, we saw to our greatest sorrow, that everyone in the cellar was stiff and dead. We carried three bodies out first. They were completely stiff. Our landlord was among the first we carried out. The people had all been sitting one next to other, some on each other’s laps and had slowly gone to sleep and they were lying there as if they were asleep. And as we came close to the cellar doors, we saw that neither the doors nor the stairs were buried.
I had to travel to Frielingen near Hersfeld and informed the relatives as to what had happened to their father. Because my son’s father-in-law had been sent from that village to do war service in Kassel. On the Monday I returned and the remaining bodies had been carried out. So I went to the cemetery to identify my relatives. My grandson did not have the smallest mark on him, also no cadaveric poison as the policeman confirmed. I would be able to take the boy on my arm without risk and put him in his mother’s arms.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Oskar Spieß
Description
An account of the resource
Oskar Spieß's account of the events at Jägerstraße 1.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-22
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 93
BKasselVdObmv10093
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
firefighting
grief
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present are – exactly six months after the terror attack – the Staff Sergeant Otto St., born 22 October 1919 in Marktbreit, Lower Franconia, night reconnaissance pilot decorated with the Iron Cross, 1st class, and the Feindflugspange, and his wife Margarete, née L., born 13 March 1924, and make the following statement:
(The husband does the talking, his wife sits next to him without saying a word.)
22 October is my birthday. I came on leave early that morning to visit my wife. We had been married for a few months but were still living with her mother. When the alarm came, we made ourselves ready for the air raid cellar. I brought the necessary luggage from the third floor to the cellar. On the stairs, we met other people living in the building. They were all calm and no one thought it would be a massive attack. The women stayed in the cellar. I stood with some other men in the yard and we waited to see what would be coming. Ten or fifteen minutes after the alarm we observed a plane shooting off a green flare. I advised those present that it would be better to go down to the cellar now.
I was the last to enter the shelter. No one was left in the yard. We could already feel the first tremors caused by the explosions. Now people became agitated, particularly the women. They wailed and screamed and called for their husbands. The children were relatively quiet in comparison. The commotion got worse when heavy bombs dropped in the immediate vicinity. We could feel the air pressure. It pressed on the ears. Dust was blown up. The lights flickered but stayed on. I gave the order that people should kneel on the floor with their faces down, because of splinters and the foul air. Near the floor the air is always better. Because of the dust, people were already forced to put wet cloths over their mouths so that they could breathe. I left the cellar with some brave men to have a look as to whether the building and everything were still in order. It must have been half eight.
When we got into the yard through the corridor, flames were shooting out from the garage towards us. It seemed as if it had been hit by a phosphorous bomb. The petrol created explosive flames. A stack of wood was ablaze. The flames were also shooting out from the ground floor flat, from all the windows. Other floors had also started smouldering, the flames were licking all the way up to the attic. I crossed the hall and went to the front entrance and stepped onto Moltkestraße. From the windows on the ground floor the flames were shooting out even into the hall, they were like fire curtains. I stepped briefly onto the street. I could see that both rows of buildings were on fire. People came running towards us from the neighbouring buildings – we were still in the middle of the attack – because they thought they were safer where we were. So about 25 people came to us, mostly women, a few children; a three-year old was among them. I tried to get into our flat on the third floor. But it was impossible. The front doors of the flats were on fire on all floors and the stairs also started to catch fire. I returned to the cellar and tried to calm people down.
I had hardly got down there when we were shaken by a big explosion. There had been a hit in the immediate neighbourhood. No. 9, right next to us, had taken a direct hit. Bang, the lights went out. I ran with my torch towards the breakthrough to no. 9 and people from that house came towards me. Some of them had been buried under the debris. Some were injured. It may have been twenty people who escaped from their cellar and took refuge in ours. I also saw six to eight children and women. I just wanted to get back into the shelter when I heard the air raid warden tell people to get ready to leave the cellar through the breakthrough to no 9. Everyone ran towards the breakthrough. I had great difficulty stopping people because the escape was cut off through the collapse of the cellar. But the outcome had been that all the water in the cellar had been used up. Because people had soaked their coats and blankets. The number of people in the cellar had increased from seventy to about 180.
You could barely squeeze through. It also became uncomfortably warm. More and more smoke and fumes entered the cellar. I had the feeling that we would not save ourselves by staying in the cellar. I left the room again and went through the burning hall. A man came from the other direction. He shouted: “Don’t turn to the left, bomb craters in the street!” I gained the impression that the best way to go was towards Königstraße. The firestorm had already started. Sparks were raining down on the street. Flames were shooting out of all the windows. Burning debris was lying on the ground. I decided to leave the shelter and make my way towards Königstraße.
When I got back to the cellar, I explained to the people there that it was high time to leave the cellar. The situation was serious and staying was out of the question. I said: “Those who have the courage to follow me can walk behind me.” I would go first and lead but could not take responsibility for individuals. As there was no water left, I wrapped my mother-in-law in my air force greatcoat. About seven people followed me, among them Mrs Hammacher and her son, Fritz, and also Mrs Siebrecht. I walked ahead, supporting my wife and my mother-in-law. As soon as we stepped into the street, the firestorm burnt our hands so that we had to drop the blankets. Mrs Hammacher and my mother-in-law fell to the ground. I lifted them up. Then my wife fell and I had to lift her up. Fire was already on the ground and lay there in burning ash but sometimes the street was still free from this. But the sparks were flying everywhere in the burning wind.
We were separated a bit. Alternately, I supported my wife and my mother-in-law against the storm and rain of fire. I could no longer see Mrs Hammacher and her 13-year old. The following day they were found dead in the cellar and must therefore have gone back. Then I saw that my wife’s hat and coat were on fire. I tore them off her. My cap was on fire too. I threw it away. Then I saw 10 metres behind me my mother-in-law on fire. I wanted to run back when burning debris, a gable end or something like it fell on her and she disappeared behind a curtain of fire. I could no longer see her. I had to look after my wife. She was lying helplessly on the ground and begged me not to leave her. I laid myself on top of her to protect her from the flying fire so that she would not burn. Her knees, hands and face were already burnt. It was a moment – you can’t explain to anyone what we suffered and felt.
We wanted to live or die together. The will to live pulled up young blood once more. I took my burning wife on my burnt hands and carried her through the firestorm in the direction where I thought Königsstraße was. I couldn’t see anything and my eyes were swollen from the fire and the dust. I walked down Königsstraße in direction of the Henschel plant. I heard voices and turned towards them and got to the dugout in the garden of the synagogue. It was about half nine. I must have passed out for a short while but then came to again. My face and hands had third degree burns. My wife was a terrible mess. We lay there until five in the morning without medical help. Round about five we were taken to the shelter in the Henschel plant. A Frenchman fetched a doctor. Mrs Riedel and Hannelore Riedel had reached the dugout after us. But the ten-year old Hannelore died later anyway.
We were then taken to the Red Cross [hospital] and from there to hospital in Wildungen of which a part is operated by the army, and we are now in the hospital in Ansbach, where I come from, also a facility shared by civilians and armed forces. My wife is still being treated. Her hands won’t be able to work again. They are burnt and crooked. That’s our story.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Staff Sergeant Otto St
Description
An account of the resource
Staff Sergeant Otto St's account of the events at Moltkestraße 7.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-22
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 92
BKasselVdObmv10092
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
home front
incendiary device
shelter
target indicator
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Mr Heinz Grässel, director of the library, born 5 January 1888 in Munich, and makes the following statement:
We had no air raid watch in the building of the library, next to the Guildhall. Because four families lived in the house, we had a caretaker and a public shelter. The keys for the public areas of the building were deposited with the caretaker. We therefore had a form of self-protection. I was bombed out in Ihringshäuser Straße 25 and with great effort I found a place for my family where they could stay the rest of the night. Towards half eight, I rushed to Holländische Straße. The Guildhall was already burnt down and had collapsed.
A door which originally connected the two buildings to the storerooms and which had been bricked up, stood open. It seemed that because of this, the fire had already spread to the storerooms. Next to the door was a cupboard with materials which had already been destroyed by the fire. Under the parquet flooring you could feel a smouldering fire. I found a few buckets full of water. I fetched some more water from a fire engine and kept pouring water on those parts which seemed to burning from below. I put out the fire on the panelling of my door with the help of Mrs Rathgen, the cloakroom attendant, whom I had met. It appeared as if the fire had been put out. Some of the books in the storeroom, near the door, had already been burnt to a crisp. I then tried very hard to reach the leader of the fire engine, to save the rest through water hoses. But the man told me that he had to try and put out the fires in no. 17. Such were his orders. In short, he refused to help. Despite my efforts, the fire had continued to smoulder under the floor.
When I got there on 24 October, everything which was in the main reading room was burnt to cinder and ash. Everything which was in my office was undamaged because the parquet flooring stopped. I could at least save that. The reading room on the ground floor was also unscathed. There was no damage from fire. We only had damage from the air pressure. For three days, I did not get out of my clothes. In Ihringshäuser Straße, I was also on fire watch.
About 15,000 books were destroyed, in part in the library, in part in the bookbindery Berard in Hohenzollernstraße and in part in readers’ homes.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Heinz Grässel
Description
An account of the resource
Heinz Grässel's account of the events at Holländische Straße 21.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-19
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 91
BKasselVdObmv10091
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
1943-10-24
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
firefighting
home front
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Miss Kitty Michel, born 26 February 1891, of Druseltal 2, and makes the following statement:
It was eight o’clock. All the staff reported: two workmen from the old town; when the alarm came, a third man joined us. Driven by some anxiety, the staff went down to the cellar to check that everything was in order. We noticed that the common room of the shelter was filled with the smell of gas which was seeping in from the boiler room next to it. I gave the order to open the air vents. That’s when the full alarm came. Two people took care of getting rid of the smell of gas. I went with one of the watchmen to the front door of Marställer Platz. Everything was quiet. After about five minutes the searchlights came on, on all sides, and after another ten minutes, we could hear engine noise approaching from afar. The noise became stronger and stronger. At approx. 20 past eight, I could see the first bombs dropping and I could see phosphorous canisters burst on the roofs of the lower new town.
I returned into the house immediately and ordered that fire extinguishing equipment be made ready. On the square outside, you could hear the police shouting: “Large-scale attack in progress!” They shouted on Königsplatz and everywhere. Because of this, two of the men went up to the ground floor, equipped with fire extinguishers. The enemy planes were flying over the old town. The tremors in the house made us aware that the first bombs had dropped on buildings. The Housing Department was the first to be on fire; phosphorous canisters were dropping through, doors and windows were torn open and it was impossible to go up in the stairwell because smoke and fumes from the neighbouring buildings and ours got into all the rooms. The building could not be saved. It was impossible to stay in the building. The firefighters therefore went down to the cellar and tried to get through the breakthroughs. This was not possible because the neighbouring buildings (half-timbered houses) had fallen down and there was too much smoke. In the direction of Schloßplatz, everything was on fire. We therefore only had one way out left: With a great effort we managed to get onto Marställer Platz. The stairwell was already destroyed and the entrance hall had collapsed.
Here, we were met by the police. The men tried to get into the Aue. As the attack was still underway, however, and because I thought getting through to the Aue would not be possible, the police took me on the fastest route to the shelter underneath the old Luther church at Am Graben. With great difficulty we reached the cellar through flying sparks, and over burning beams, and I was glad to be safe for the time being. It may have been around nine that evening. I saw several hundred people from the old town, women, children, old men and an especially exemplary leadership of the shelter: local party group leader Werner, the sexton Pinkenburg and the businessman Krummel. They did their utmost, they constantly controlled the cellar, checked the exits, for example, which had fire in front of them, and calmed people down in exemplary fashion. Tongues and throats became dry through the dust which came in. In the cellar – they are old cross vaults made of brick – you could hear the constant drop of explosives and blockbusters. The cellar shook, it was easy to believe that it would be impossible to escape from that hell.
I asked the local party group leader whom I knew through work, whether we would ever be able to get out of the cellar? He said that they knew what it looked like outside. “We will do everything to lead people out of here as soon as possible.” By now, the smoke was burning in our eyes. The pain was reduced somewhat by holding wet cloths to the mouth and cleaning out the eyes. You could barely see out of your eyes. There were terrible fumes in the room. People had become anxious through the shaking of the room and through the smoke and the dust. The children were screaming constantly, the mothers were jumping up with every explosion. The older people were exhausted and were lying on the beds. It was very irritating that the doors to the shelter were pulled open with great force while the bombs were dropping, so that people thought the whole thing would cave in. Then clouds of smoke and dust came in. The lights had stopped functioning early on. The water supply worked until the end.
When the drone [of the planes] was getting less, people urged the shelter leadership to let them out. Provision had already been made that women and children should leave the cellar first. I helped them with moving prams and suitcases so that they would get to the front quickly. Mothers were holding their children by their hands or carrying them on their arms. There was a long corridor with a bend. We reached the exit through that. A few minutes later they came back because the exit was blocked by smouldering beams and fire. So the shelter leadership fetched sand and water to create a way through the fire. Then we were told: “The brave-hearted first!” We were told that everyone was to wet their clothes in the vats and should wrap wet cloth around themselves. Next to me was old Mrs Kühlmeier from Tränkepforte ½. I took her by the hand and pulled her with me to the exit. I was the first one out.
The flames were shooting out at us from both sides. We ran quickly through the flames and to the stone porch of the rectory. Above us, everything was ablaze – just imagine! At the porch stood a policeman and he directed us to run as fast as possible past the fires on Marställer Platz and through the indescribable firestorm. You had to be quite brave to follow that instruction. But the idea that we would get under free sky drove us forward. Forward all the way to the Rondell on the Fulda. Here too stood a policeman who gathered the refugees from the old town. I looked back and observed that people from the shelter were running after us and was horrified to see that the whole of the old town was on fire. The court building, the Schloßplatz, Tränkepforte, Marstall, Wildemannsgasse, Brüderkirche, Renthof, it was one sea of flames and an indescribable firestorm. The exhausted people were put on the lawn in front of the courts and given first aid. All the other ones were sent up to the Court building. Here, we were met by soldiers and they led us in single file across bomb craters down the steep slope on the River Fulda to the mouth of the little Fulda. Here more soldiers stood and helped women and children to get across the water to the other side. We could not use the Löwen Bridge because all along the government building was one crater after another. A large number of people went through under the old Löwen Bridge on the right, towards the theatre hill and from there to the meadows along Affenallee.
It was touching that people still showed some calm and composure after that terrible experience; I did not hear a single reproach or accusation. Everyone had salvaged something, the most precious were the little children. They were carried on people's backs in rucksacks or laundry baskets out of the city. Everyone went calmly and quietly to the holding areas as directed. From the Affenallee we could see that the upper new town, the old town, the Frankfurter Tor and even the restaurant in the Aue Park were on fire.
After an hour’s rest alongside the refugees from the old town most of whom I knew – they had already greeted me in the shelter with a big hello! – as they saw me now, they were crying and saying: “We have no homes anymore!” I comforted them and said: “We will rebuild and then the Housing Department will work again and you all will have lovely flats again!”
Then I tried to get home via the Philosophenweg. This was impossible, the corner of Frankfurter Straße was ablaze. It was the same in Tischbeinstraße. So I returned to the Aue. Along Landaustraße, there were many bomb craters which made it impassable. Then I tried Wittichstraße, up to the Auefeld. Then I crisscrossed Wehlheiden. In Kantstraße, I had to take cover in a house because duds were going off nearby. Then I got to Wilhelmshöher Allee. I passed burning houses and fleeing, crying people. At the Wilhelmshöhe train station, there were great fires and much damage. The bridge was nevertheless passable. Because of the fires, Landgraf-Karl-Straße was impassable. So I turned back to Wilhelmshöher Allee and made my way to Baunsbergstraße, fires on both sides, people who had to watch from the street as their buildings were burning down, until I got to the Wahlershäuser church where the police had cordoned off the street. A blockbuster was lying there and it had turned the houses, tram and the overhead wire into a terrible tangle. After half an hour, I was allowed to pass.
And here I could observe the steady arrival of vehicles and rescue parties from the surrounding towns and villages. Looking back on the city you could see a grim picture. Our beautiful Kassel was burning and the wind drove great clouds of smoke into the distance.
It was about four when I arrived at my flat. The building where we lived was still standing, my siblings were alive and were preparing to go into the city and look for people who could stay with us. The flow of people leaving the city must have lasted for a fortnight. The organisations of the party helped people. Cars came, carriages drawn by horses and oxen, lorries; it was a crying shame to see all that.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Kitty Michel
Description
An account of the resource
Kitty Michel's account of the events at Platz der SA (Housing Inspectorate), old Lutheran church am Graben.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-17
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 90
BKasselVdObmv10090
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
displaced person
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is the senior official Heinrich Stöppler, born 10 April 1877 in Steeden, and makes the following statement:
Regarding 3 October:
When the alarm started on 3 October, I went together with the other residents of the house, the caretaker Lange, to the shelter of the depot in the docks. At the same time, the three people from the watch arrived. After a short period the attack started. We realised fairly soon that the attack was aimed at the area around our properties. You could hear and feel the bombs dropping. We tried on several occasions to leave the room so that we could see what was happening. The bombs kept dropping, however, so that we had to wait. After some time, there was a lull. We stormed out and realised that the roof of the stables was ablaze and we also saw that the attic of the administrative building was on fire and also the depot with straw and oats above our shelter. Because the horse stables were solidly built and did not seem to be in any immediate danger, we fought the fire in the administrative building first.
While we were doing this, more explosive and incendiary bombs dropped. We did not, however, stop fire-fighting. Our wives too came from the shelter and helped carry water and tear down net curtains and to empty rooms. The ceiling had burnt through in one of the apartments on the top floor, the blankets were on fire and the furniture too. In the meantime someone had noticed that there was much smoke in the horse stables. We could at first not see why because the smoke was too dense. You could not see your hand in front of your face. We tried to pull the horses out but they did not want to follow. But it was impossible to get into the stables without a gasmask. After we had put the gasmasks on, we could just barely save three of the horses. The fourth horse dropped with smoke poisoning in the gateway. As a result, the exit was blocked and we could not pull the other horses out. They suffocated. We established later that the smoke had been caused by an incendiary which had dropped through the food hatch in the solid roof. It had ignited the animal bedding. As you know, that stuff creates terrible smoke.
Then some workers from the neighbourhood came to our aid. The roofs of the workshops had caught fire. First and foremost we had to save tools and machinery. The buildings, however, could not be saved. The vehicles in the endangered buildings we had already moved into the yard, either by using their motors or by pulling them (water wagons, dust carts, lorries). They stood on the yard.
Regarding 22 October:
After the alarm we went to the shelter; the watch was already there. It did not take long till the first bombs were dropping. We noticed that the building was shaking and quaking, a sign that a large number of big bombs were being dropped. It was impossible to step out of the room. Attempts at getting outside which were undertaken a few times failed because the doors were literally torn from your hand. When the attack abated, we jumped up into the yard and noticed again several fires. All the garages were on fire and also some of the vehicles housed in them. By the same token, flames were again shooting from the roof of the building where the offices and the apartments were. Some of us ran to the building where we lived to fight the fire, others ran to the garages to pull out the vehicles. Six bombs had dropped on the admin building, three of them into the stairwell. My front door was on fire. Two of the incendiaries were lying on the stairs but had not ignited. I threw them out of a window with a shovel. I was able to put out the fire on my front door. On the roof, a dormer was on fire but we could put that out with the hand pump.
Several vehicles which were already on fire were saved by the people from the watch and Dutch workers from the municipal cleaning department who put out the fires. The other vehicles had already been moved onto the yard. The 450 gas bottles which were in a shed which was on fire, seemed to pose a greater danger. Next to it was a shed with wood for the generator. The flames were licking at the gas bottles, the roof of the shed was already on fire, the gas ignited. Now the fire jumped from one bottle to the next. Because of a small explosion, the asbestos disks (valves) were blown off. Because of this the gas could burn away without explosions. There was nothing to be put out where the bottles were. We could not get closer than 20 metres. The whole stock was consumed by fire. It burnt for 24 hours.
I would like to add that we had no water on 3 October and even less on 22 October. What little we had of stored water had mainly been used on the living quarters. In order to save the vehicles, we had used all the fire extinguishers. In this way we could save some of the vehicles even though they had been damaged.
The damage to the main building was also extensive through the blockbusters which had dropped nearby. On the top floor, some of the walls had fallen out. On the other floors the doors and windows were broken. Apart from that the damage was the same as everywhere else.
Because workers came quickly and helped we managed to save quite a number of things.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Heinrich Stöppler
Description
An account of the resource
Heinrich Stöppler's account of the events at Franzgraben 85 (Municipal Cleaning Department).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-15
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 89
BKasselVdObmv10089
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
animal
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Mr Heinrich O., principal air raid warden, born 8 September 1895, in Heven, Hattingen District, formerly of Brüderstraße 14, and makes the following statement:
It all happened very fast. I was notified of the pre-alarm. I got a move on and made my way up to the Dept. for Economic Affairs. And I got to where the art gallery is two minutes after the alarm. And then, as is my wont, I made sure that everything was in order. The people (we were seven altogether), the caretaker Bornemann and his wife, furthermore Lucke and Leck, and two of the staff were present. We carried the machinery into the cellar – they were the most important. We put them in the designated spaces in the cellar. Then I went up again. As I got upstairs, I rang the warning service to find out what the situation was. Then I went outside and watched the searchlights move and catch an enemy plane in their cross; there were several shot at by the ack-ack. This was towards Waldau. After a minute or so I was called to the telephone to speak with the senior civil servant Mr Willy Schmidt. He asked how things were. I said to him: If anything happens, I’ll ring you immediately.
I had just put down the handset when the first bombs dropped in the closer neighbourhood. They were coming from the direction of the train station. So I gave the order to wait out the attack in the cellar. We had hardly got there when the building took a direct hit on the wing with the glass roof. The bomb dropped all the way into the cellar. We could see the sky from the cellar. It was a light explosive bomb. And then, a little later, there was a heavy explosion from the direction of the side street and the gate on the exit was so heavily barred and bent that we could not open it anymore. Then the bombing died down for a bit. I had already seen that the Landeskreditkasse Bank was on fire. So I gave the order: Everyone up to the attic to see whether it is on fire. From the first floor upwards we did not need lights because the fire lit up everything. So I had the hoses connected. As I wanted to get into the attic I was met with so much smoke and such a wall of fire that it was impossible to enter, not even with the gasmask on. So I gave the order to start the water but the hose remained empty. So I went back and told everyone to go back down.
And as I crossed the corridor, a new attack came and the airplanes were so low above us that I ordered everyone to get back into the cellar. I did not want to put people’s lives at risk. So I tended first to the air raid shelter in the cellar. Because there was so much smoke and fumes down there that people could no longer breathe. In order to get fresh air in, I had all the iron hatches on the chimneys opened and had the soot scraped out. That worked because better air came in. At the same time, some others opened the breakthrough to Bröckelmanns. A few people from Hohenzollernstraße had already sought shelter there because in their street the first buildings were burning fiercely already. We were joined by some more people from there, some women and children came to us. And the women shuttled between the cellars. We still had a bit of light. The lights stayed on until the end but were very weak. I felt very uneasy and I gave the order that three or four men should carry water up. And as we came up, the office of Chief Inspector Stützer on the third floor was already on fire and the beams from the ceiling were coming down. And as I entered the office, I saw that one of the beams in the ceiling had burnt through. And then the hand pump refused to work. So I just poured two buckets of water on the fire. This was about as useful as spitting into a furnace. The others too came with water but it was not enough.
And then the bombing started again and we had barely returned to the cellar when there were such explosions that the air pulled us from one side to the other. I kept an eye on Bornemann and thought: if only he bears up. And his wife had such an expression on her face – I won’t forget that face. And then I went up again but had to turn back already on the first floor because rubble and beams blocked the stairs. Door frames, doors, bannisters were all over the shop. And as I got to the entrance, people from the neighbouring buildings came and were seeking refuge with us. But I told them they would have to go somewhere else because we too would have to evacuate shortly. In the meantime some of the men had come up into the entrance hall, among them Leck, the night guard. And because I saw a woman and child, I told him to take the child and to make sure that he brought the two to safety. No matter where. And so Leck left, followed by other people. I knew that Leck had turned into the fire, towards the train station because the Ständeplatz was one sea of fire.
So I gave the order to bring Bornemann’s linen and bedding down to the cellar. So we all mucked in and carried the things down. Then I went back up into the house to satisfy myself that the house could not be saved. In the cellar, some walls had already caved in through the explosions. So I gathered everyone together in the big room where the breakthrough was and explained to those who did not belong to us that they could not stay. And because blankets were in the water in a bath tub, I said that people should try and get through the fire, wrapped in these blankets, and make their way towards Jordanstraße. The women screamed when they saw the flames shooting out of the bank and towards us. But I was clear in my mind: We had to leave and everyone had to see for themselves where they could go. So I closed the door again and got people to prepare themselves by drenching themselves and then I soaked my coat in water and put it over me and a child of six months and left with the woman after I had made sure that everyone had wet blankets. Then it was everyone for themselves; I could not take responsibility for those who remained.
The sparks were flying as in a wave, about a half a metre above ground. So I waited for about half a minute and went out first with the child and the mother followed us. We went in the direction of Jordanstraße. We were about half way when Weißenburgstraße started to burn too. So I turned round with the woman and we went towards Ständeplatz and as we got to Friedrichstraße, I saw the others running down there because there was a way through the fire, about half a metre across, where the flames did not yet meet. So we got the Garde du Corps Square. This was still alright. The trees still had their leaves but the garages were already on fire. So we gathered under the Luther Oak where quite a number of refugees were already standing. So I counted my people and found that they were all there.
Bornemann was there too and was gasping for air because he had had a heart condition for years. And I asked him: “Did it work and did everyone get out?” And he says: “Yes, all the people followed you and got out!” And then he said: “I don’t feel so good” and keeled over. I caught him and laid him down. People tried to give him spirit of ether. But he showed no sign of life. It was clear to me that he had breathed his last. And then a lorry came with an army officer. I begged him to take all the women and children with him on the lorry. He said: “I don’t have an order but I will do so on my own responsibility.” So they took off in the direction of Wilhelmshöher Allee. I also begged him to send a second lorry so that the other women would also be taken away. Shortly after, a second lorry came and took the remaining women and men with them. Only Mrs Bornemann, Lucke and little old me stayed on the square. In the meantime, a police sergeant came and took down the details of the deceased. He promised that they would take the body to the morgue as soon as possible. So we put a piece of paper with his details on his chest and covered him with a blanket and then we asked where Mrs Bornemann wanted to go. She wanted to go to her parents. Lucke and I wanted to look for our own families. That was the end of that sorry story.
So we went on in the direction of Wilhelmshöher Allee and Adolf-Hitler-Platz. There were thousands of people. Friedrich-straße was not yet on fire. And then Lucke and I went down to the town hall. Once there, we realised that there was no way to get through to Friedrichsplatz. The town hall was already on fire as far as councillor Moog’s office. I can’t tell you what time that was. It may have been an hour after the attack. Towards midnight, I arrived at the Rondell. I walked down from Schöne Aussicht, the Department for Agriculture was already on fire down to the first floor. The health insurance building was on fire down to the ground floor. I did not see much of the theatre because I had damaged my specs when I was rubbing my eyes near the town hall. Near the theatre, I stumbled into the first big crater. In Du-Ry-Straße incendiaries were everywhere. And when I got to the Auetor, the ammunition of the ack-ack position on the roof there went up. Then I made my way over rubble and debris to the Rondell. On the lawn in front of the court house there were many small and medium-sized explosive bombs and canisters with phosphorous. I tried to get into Brüderstraße but that was not possible because the gables of the Deichmann building and the Leist building had collapsed on it. In Wildemannsgasse, three quarters of the buildings had already burnt down, Renthof, Marstall…
From there I went to Fulda Bridge via the Schlagd to get to Brüderstraße via the emergency footbridge. As I got up there, I realised that from this side, too, my way was barred by fire. And then I asked everyone I met after my wife and daughter. Amongst them was the block leader and he said that he had made his rounds and my wife and daughter had wanted to salvage all sorts of things from the house. But she said that they still had time. So I made my way back into the Aue. Amongst others I met my sister-in-law there who was looking for her sister, my wife. There is no need to describe the misery I saw there. That will be written about enough. And I met many people I knew who were also looking for members of their families. Someone I knew claimed to have seen [my wife] as she was talking with people from his building and those people wanted to go to Frankfurter Straße where they had relatives. So I tried to get to Frankfurter Straße. I could not get through though because Albrechtstraße was blocked off at the tennis courts in the Aue because there were still heavy explosive bombs with timers.
So I went back to the Wire Bridge and said to my sister-in-law that I would be in the Fürstengärten at eight in the morning if I found anything. On Friedrichsplatz, they were already dragging the bodies out of the Bürgersäle. I wanted to make my way to Ständeplatz because I thought they had gone there to look for me and as I was walking past, two workers came with an empty stretcher. And an officer came who needed people to help rescue the wounded. So I went with them to Königsplatz where I met a group of soldiers who were rescuing people from the cellar in Wiedersich’s building. I joined them and helped by putting gags into the mouths of those who were still showing signs of life. So it got to six o’clock. By then we had rescued all those who were still alive, about 20 people. All the others were dead. On Königsplatz, we saw a wounded German who was on the arm of a French PoW. And he told us that the Frenchman had saved him. And I then made sure that they were both evacuated.
Then I made my way to the big air raid shelter in the Weinberg and looked everywhere for my wife and daughter. And then I went to the art gallery and there I met neighbours and they told me that they met my wife in town where she was looking for me. And I told them too that I would be in the Fürstengärten where city employees were supposed to meet. But not one of the employees came. So I went to the Party district offices. Amongst others I met the Mayor there who told me the Department for Economic Affairs was now in the civic hall. So I made my way there. On Sunday, I found my wife and daughter with relatives in Schiffelborn.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Heinrich O
Description
An account of the resource
Heinrich O's account of the events at Ständeplatz 16 ½ (Department for Economic Affairs), Brüderstraße 14.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-13
Contributor
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Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 87
BKasselVdObmv10087
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
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.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Gustav H
Description
An account of the resource
Gustav H's account of the events at Schlößchen Schönfeld, city plant nursery near Schönfeld Park, Hinter der Waage 9.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-11
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 86
BKasselVdObmv10086
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
firefighting
home front
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present are the book binder Mr Wilhelm Galenbeck, born 2 July 1884 in Kassel, and Chief Inspector Karl Bunge, born 6 October 1877 in Leipzig, and make the following statement:
We were on watch duty. I was the person in charge and Mr Galenbeck was there too. We were sitting comfortably in our guard room and were reading our newspapers when we received a message from the warning centre in the town hall: air alert 15. We got ready to make our way in the cellar because the alarm came. Mr Galenbeck took the telephone with him and reconnected it downstairs. Then we went out on the street again and the searchlights were moving and you could see airplanes in their lights. One turned off towards Söhre. The other flew in direction of Fürstengarten. This one was being shot at. It was giving signals in various colours. Then you could see how the famous Christmas trees were being set. And at that moment, the bombs started to drop. That’s when we ran into the cellar. People who lived in the buildings in the neighbourhood were already there and a squad of paramedics from the emergency services from the building. Then we tried to get a connection with the phone but that was impossible. The behaviour of the people in the cellar was impeccable. They were really calm because the walls of the cellar were so strong that you could hardly hear the explosions. Some of the children cried of course. When the noises got really loud, you could see some of the people flinch. We quietly made our rounds and took the children in our arms and calmed people down.
I can’t remember times. The light had gone out. We switched the torches on. Then we heard knocking from the adjoining building (no. 16). So we opened the breakthrough. About fifteen people entered the cellar: men, women and children. We also opened the other breakthroughs towards Karlsplatz, and not before time, because the people in the cellars there were looking for shelter because the collapse of Karlskirche had created much anxiety among them. I managed to get them into the cellar of the Youth Welfare Office through the breakthrough in Lottermoser’s big wine cellar. Because it was dark, I made them walk in single file, each with their hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them. Because we tried to find out whether more people looking for shelter were left in the cellar at Karlsplatz, Mr Galenbeck and I walked several times more through the wine cellar. It was spacious and full of nooks and crannies, a right labyrinth towards Karlsplatz, and we noticed that the exit leading from the wine cellar to the yard of the Youth Welfare Office was buried and that phosphorus was seeping into the cellar through the joints between the bricks. Much of the packing material – straw sleeves, wooden crates for the wine bottles, corrugated cardboard and sacks too – had caught fire and together with the people from the paramedic squad, we fetched water from the air raid cellar and used it to put out fires where we could not just do it with sand and stones. Because we had also moved easily flammable materials, there was no fuel for the fire anymore and it was contained to the stairs of the exit. The smoke from the fire had created some anxiety among the people in the cellar because it moved slowly over there (Karlsplatz no. 2/all people).
Every now and again we tried to get out through the main entrance of the cellar to salvage what we could find. But the bombs kept dropping so that we had to give up on that intention. The corridor in the cellar collapsed – the stairs were already on fire and the air pressure caused everything to cave in – we were forced to abandon our attempts at salvage. There was no immediate danger to the people in the cellar yet because the cellar was closed with two iron doors. When we realised that no further bombs were being dropped, and when we could see through the emergency exit that the town hall opposite and the buildings on its right were on fire, one of the emergency squad climbed up to the street, based on a prior agreement with us, in order to see what was happening. He came back very fast and advised me to evacuate the cellar. That is what we did. The man from the emergency squad and I (Bunge) climbed up to the street through the emergency exit and we stationed ourselves there in order to help the people in the cellar to get out. The building of the Youth Welfare Office was on fire down to the first floor. Mr Galenbeck had stayed in the cellar and urged people to leave. It was difficult because they wanted to go back as soon as they saw the fire. We drove them out with good words and with blows. I got many a kick myself because they thought I wanted to drive them to their deaths.
The two gentlemen outside took individual people over to the yard of the town hall and so I had to crawl out, too, to be able to pull people out. There were as many as 60 or 70 people by now. Then I went back into the cellar because no one wanted to come out. With the greatest vigour I managed to convince the apathetic to look for a way out. We managed to get all the people out of the cellar. I then walked round again and called out to make sure that no one had been left behind. I was the last to crawl out. When I stood on Karlsplatz, I did not know where I should go. I did however find the way to the yard by calling behind the town hall and the last ones pulled me with them, up Karlstraße and to the art gallery. Physically I was completely exhausted because it had required a great effort to get the people out of the cellar. I (Galenbeck) still live in Herkulesstraße 61 where my flat had been spared.
Bunge: I would also like to mention something else. After we had brought all the people out of the cellar, I helped with further rescue operations on the houses in Obere Karlstraße and with directing the refugees, who were wandering about aimlessly, from Friedrichsplatz, Wilhelmstraße, Königstraße and Fünffensterstraße. Friedrichstraße was still safe. You could not fight any fires because there was no water to be had, not even from hydrants.
I stayed with many hundreds of refugees in the free space in front of the State Museum where the heat was bearable although all the buildings around were on fire. I stayed there because I was unable to reach my flat in Heerstraße near the Wilhelmshöhe train station because Wilhelmshöher Allee and Hohenzollernstraße were still burning too fiercely. Smoke and flying sparks were bothersome and the lack of water to drink. When the first soldiers came down from Wilhelmshöher Allee into the city to help, I asked them whether the Allee was passable. And when an officer confirmed this, I started to make my way home. Half of the Allee was on fire up to Germaniastraße. From there on, the houses had only partly been destroyed by incendiaries. Only when I approached the Wilhelmshöhe train station did I notice larger fires again. No one fought the fires because there was no water. My building in Heerstraße 25 had been spared. In the neighbourhood canisters with phosphorus and incendiaries had destroyed some buildings. An aerial mine had dropped on the house of Mr Hartwig, a senior official with the railways, and it tore apart the innards of the house but the walls are still standing but it also blew the roofs off our buildings.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Wilhelm Galenbeck and Karl Bunge
Description
An account of the resource
Wilhelm Galenbeck and Karl Bunge's account of the events at Obere Karlsstraße 18, Karlsplatz 2 (Youth Welfare Offices and print shop).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-10
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 85
BKasselVdObmv10085
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
displaced person
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
shelter
target indicator
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is August Keppler, born 18 August 1893 in Kassel, senior inspector in the Public Welfare Office, and makes the following statement:
That evening I was on air raid watch with the temporary employee Wasmuth, the administrative employee Mössner and Miss Kühlborn. After the alarm came the reinforcements: Inspector Grein, Secretary Dehmel and the Assistant Gockel.
When I arrived at eight in the evening, I already thought that something was going to happen. I immediately issued instructions to connect the hose of the hand-held pump to the tap in the yard and to unlock the padlocks on the iron doors on the exits from the shelter. I had been on duty during an earlier raid and had observed that these little locks were difficult to open in the dark. After we had connected the hose, I personally opened the door to the shelter in no. 14. The alarm came while we were busy with our preparations.
Then we went into the cellar and connected the telephone. We noticed the so-called Christmas trees in the sky and immediately after that the first bombs were dropping. If we consider morale, when the first bombs dropped, you could always hear afterwards the buildings crumble and collapse. A few people from the neighbourhood came into our room too. It was not really a public shelter but some of the buildings around us did not have suitable cellars. Because of the suction from the air, the doors were pulled open outwards, including the iron guard doors. The result was that the gasses from the fire and the explosions were pressed into our room. The air became very bad for breathing and most of the people were sitting there with soaked handkerchiefs. We made various control rounds in the building and put out an incendiary which had dropped in. When I went up next time, the sports hall with its tarred roofing felt was on fire and the upper floors of the old town hall too. When I got to the first floor, the ceiling had already burnt through so that you could not be sure in those narrow corridors whether the way back had been cut off by fire. We tried nevertheless to fight the fire but there was no water anymore. Otherwise we might have been able to save the lower floors.
The air raid shelter was so full of smoke that I had to give the order to evacuate. Some people did not want to leave because they were afraid. So I said: “Those who don’t leave now will be lost.” We wanted to try and jump across the rain of fire above the entrance – in the meantime we had soaked our coats and blankets with water in the cellar. I just wanted to jump when someone shouted: “We could try to get through the breakthrough towards Fünffensterstraße. The breakthrough leading downhill could no longer be used because the houses were already burning low down. But the same started to happen uphill and it was high time that we got through there. I was the last to leave the cellar through the breakthrough. The others had taken the lights with them. I shouted to make sure that no one was left. It was very dark around me. We got out through the corner building on Fünf-fensterstraße. The house was on fire down to the first floor. We than ran up Karlsstraße to Friedrichstraße. We could still run there without too much trouble. And from there we got to Schöne Aussicht where the art gallery is. There we lost one another in the throng.
When I got home to Kaiserstraße 68 via long detours, I was surprised to find that the building was still standing.
I then made my way to the civic centre – it must have been about half three in the morning. Everything was dark here and no one from the city employees was there. It had been agreed that this is where we would meet after a terror attack. I then tried on a circuitous route to get to the agreed meeting point, Murhardpark. I went along Hohenzollernstraße to get to Murhardpark. But I could not get beyond Annastraße. So I had to take Parkstraße, Kölnische Allee, Viktoriastraße and got to the square in front of the railway station. Here, it was mad. Only men on their own were scurrying about. The railway station was on fire, Fürstenhof, Kaiserhof, Nordischer Hof, all the great hotels and buildings too. In Bahnhofstraße, one could hardly breathe. The rain of sparks were so heavy that I had to turn back again. A few buildings had already collapsed and on Orleansstraße was a wall of rubble and I thought to myself: No one has got out of this alive. So I tried Kurfürstenstraße. The tram wires were on the ground and it was a terrible mess. I finally got to Murhardpark via Theaterstraße, Friedrichsplatz and Schöne Aussicht. I could not find anyone there either. The fire in Wilhelmshöher Allee was not so fierce anymore, most buildings had already burnt down, and one could get through. By about five, I went home. At half seven I went back to the civic centre to report for duty.
In Opernstraße the savings bank was on fire and you could not get through that way. I had difficulties getting back to Friedrichsplatz.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
August Keppler
Description
An account of the resource
August Keppler's account of the events at Obere Karlsstraße 12/14 (Old Townhall, Public Welfare Office).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-10
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 84
BKasselVdObmv10084
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
fear
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
shelter
target indicator
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Mrs Elisabeth Sch., née A., born 26 January 1908 in Vollmarshausen, and makes the following statement:
My husband was home on leave and we had been a bit boisterous and we had not heard the alarm at first but then we went into the cellar, my husband, our three children and I. We could not stay there for long. All the people from the building were down there with us. We heard hit after hit. We thought everything was going to fall down on us. Smoke was not coming in yet and we could also not smell limestone but it smelled of dirt. So we went through the breakthrough to no. 7 and then went on to no. 5 because that was a public shelter. So we stood there for a while and then went into this corner and then into that and the men had a look as to whether we would be able to get out and when the lights went out, my husband said I should sit down with our youngest. He kept moving about and looked for a way to save us. At the end, when he couldn’t go on, he said: “Come on, let’s lie down over there, it’s no use.”
The people in the room were fairly calm, only the little children were screaming terribly. So we lay down on an air raid bed, my husband, the little girl and I, and the twelve-year old boy lay across on top and the girl on the floor in front of the bed and then I went to sleep. I don’t know anything after that. I woke up on Saturday, in Jägerstraße where we were lying in the street. I could not get up and a soldier came and asked me my name. And then they carried me away to Lutherplatz and from there I was taken to the Red Cross. The next morning I had such a yearning for my loved ones and I tried to walk and I could about manage, and then they wanted to take me to Witzenhausen but I said: “I have to find out first where my husband and children are.”
So I walked alone from the Red Cross [hospital] to Jägerstraße, half unconscious. That was Sunday morning. And there was my husband, lying on the street, dead. And then we were told there was another alarm, we had to leave. So I made my way to the shelter at the Schlagd. And when the alarm was over, I went back. And when I came to Jägerstraße, the first one lying there was my boy; they had brought him out in the meantime. And I started screaming so much that they told me to go away. I went to Vollmarshausen to my brothers and sisters and went to bed. And my brothers and sisters went to Kassel every day to look and on the cemetery, and they watched every van being unloaded and they always said the girls were not among them (11 and 4 years old). And when they could not find them, they started looking in the hospitals. And so they found the little one in Kirchditmold, in the Katharinenstift. And my Margaret also must be alive if she was not among the dead. She would have been eleven this March.
I had been at my sister’s in Vollmarshausen with the children and because my husband came on leave on 10 October, we went to our flat in Kassel and that’s where fate befell us.
They got them all out of the cellar and no one was burnt and my husband and the boy were buried as identified and all the people in Jägerstraße knew them. She has to be alive. A woman told me that she had seen my husband die in the street. Why did they only bring them out on the Sunday? My husband was young and strong, I am sure that he had still been alive.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Elisabeth Sch
Description
An account of the resource
Elisabeth Sch's account of the events at Jägerstraße 9 and 5.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-10
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 83
BKasselVdObmv10083
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
home front
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present are the assistant to the manager, Mr Erich Thom, born 10 November 1885, and the meat inspector, Mr Karl B., born 29 September 1897, and make the following statement:
I (Thom) was in the command post and was writing something. We had already received news before eight o’clock that the British were approaching. Then the alarm came and it did not take long for the first bombs to drop. An incendiary hit the hut at the front of the street. It was the first to burn down. We were still in the porter’s lodge and the outbuilding was hit and the whole mess flew around our ears, including window panes and frames. So we made our way to the cellar. As we crossed the yard, we saw the light in the sky. Everything around us was on fire, the machine hall, the admin block and the outbuildings – they were all ablaze. The people were already all in the cellar, the canteen operator and his wife, the caretaker and his family and also strangers who lived in the neighbourhood, all were down there because it was a public shelter.
Then came one hit after the other, we held the shelter doors shut because the air pressure kept blowing them open. It was an iron door. There was a woman with a child (less than a year old) and about another twenty people. Every now and again we had a look outside. Everywhere the roofs were on fire. The stables and flats were burning fiercely. We could not get at them. As things had calmed down a little, we went out and tried to put out the fires. We connected the hoses and poured water on the machine hall and we saved the roof truss and all the machines. But there was fire all around us and it was impossible to fight all the fires. Next to us, beams dropped down and half our things were destroyed by fire. We made sure from the start to save at least the machines. If we had not done this, our firm would not exist today. Butchers came and other neighbours, they helped us. The stockyard was completely engulfed by fire. But I think only one horse died which I had signed in that evening. Now at the end of the week, we have few animals in the yard. The abattoir has its own water supply but it had little pressure and the fire-fighting was heavy-going. The fire was too enormous for human strength. The main outbuilding was on fire at the top. We extinguished the fire in the attic using a handheld sprayer; that’s why it wasn’t destroyed. We tidied up and saved other things until about Saturday lunchtime.
Where I (Thom) live (Schwabstraße 40), everything had been torn too apart but luckily, there had been no fire, an explosive bomb had just blown the roof off.
I (B.) went the following morning through Schlachthof-straße where everything was on fire and it was a sea of flames. I wanted to go to my flat (Leipziger Straße 79). In Müllergasse the houses were falling down so that I tried to get there through Artilleriestraße; I turned the corner at the arsenal and at Töpfenmarkt everything was a sea of flames, fire all around. So I turned back again and at the bottom of Bremer Straße I made my way through the flames because I couldn’t find another way. I got some burns. Hands, arm and my clothes were singed. I went down Katzensprung and into Schützen-straße.
There I stood for a moment and took a breath. I could not see [out of my eyes]. There I saw the first people sitting on the street wailing. Then I crossed the Hafen Bridge and went along Scharnhorststraße and when I came to Leipziger Straße, the whole street was eight inches under water because all the sewers had been destroyed. I found nothing of the building where I lived but a smouldering heap of rubble. So I asked someone from the emergency service what had happened to the residents. They told me: “Those from the red brick houses went towards Schwanenwiese and those from the old houses on the other side of the street where I lived had made their way up there.”
A boy said to me: “Are you looking for your family? They are in the public swimming pool.” There, people all sat in the cellars, crying and grief-stricken; they had not saved anything except for what they were wearing. My wife had tried to save some stuff from our flat on the second floor. When she came back down, she could not get back into the cellar because it was buried. So she banged and shouted that they should get out because the house would be falling down, with the result that they all went through the breakthroughs and saved themselves. The air raid warden actually did not want them to go out. But when they had all left, the building collapsed. My wife saved all the people in the house. My grandchild and the daughter-in-law who was heavily pregnant and four children and nine adults from the building have been saved.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Erich Thom and Karl B
Description
An account of the resource
Erich Thom and Karl B's account of the events at Mombachstraße 10/12 (abattoir)/Leipziger Straße 79.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-09
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 82
BKasselVdObmv10082
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
animal
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
firefighting
grief
incendiary device
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Miss Grete G., born 25 October 1917 in Kassel, now of Parkstraße 38 and makes the following statement:
On the evening in question, I was visiting a friend, Mrs Ilse Weber, in Große Rosenstraße 9. I was knitting a jumper when the sirens started wailing. I didn’t feel like going into the cellar. When ack-ack started shooting, we took the child and went into the cellar. It was a terrible din. Maybe fourteen people were in the cellar, mainly residents from the building, and a Hitler Youth leader from the self-protection troop stood at the door. So we sat down. After ten minutes a terrible cloud of dust came into the cellar and I got really angry about getting so dirty. I hadn’t imagined anything like that. And then came hit after hit and we had to wrap wet cloths around us. We took the baby’s nappies, soaked them in water and tied them so that they were in front of our mouths. After the first shots had been fired, we ran up again because we realised that this time, it would be serious. We fetched down some things, clothes. Then we heard stones falling and the Hitler Youth leader came back in and the air pressure had knocked him down a couple of times and he was bleeding from the head. My friend bandaged him with a nappy. When we ran up the stairs earlier, I was afraid, I was terribly afraid and my knees were trembling.
Then a few people tried to get out. I did not know the building and the cellar. A bit of wall had been knocked through; I suppose it was a breakthrough. And a few people crawled through that. And I ran with my friend up to the entrance hall but this was full of fire; she had the baby in a basket, and she said to me: “I can’t go on. Try it on your own.” But I stayed with her. So we went back down into the cellar. But everyone had gone with the exception of an old lady (Miss Bock) who lodged with my friend and she sat, godforsaken, on a bench under the cellar vault. The cellar was already full of smoke; we had to cough constantly and the light had gone out. The Hitler Youth leader was also still in the cellar. And I was spooked because there were so few people in the cellar but four people came back from the cellar next door because it had got a direct hit. And I told them: “Sit down over there!” That’s what they did. There was on old quilt lying on the floor which we used to stuff into the window opening to stop the smoke from coming in. My friend had to use the climbing irons as it was the emergency exit. And then she plugged the hole.
So we sat there for a while – I can’t tell you anymore how long – and then one of the four who had joined us fainted and started to groan terribly. And so I said to my friend: “Ilse, do you think we’ll die in here?” And she said: “Nonsense; don’t talk like that!” And then there was another terrible blow and I fell forward and I was out before I hit the floor. Then I must have come to again because as I felt around me, everything was lying on the floor. So I said to my friend: “I feel terribly cold!” And she said: “So do I.” And I went back to sleep and then I came around again. And then I had the feeling as if lots of bricks were falling on the Hitler Youth leader. He took his pistol and swore terribly and then shot himself. And I was so afraid that he would shoot me too and I positioned myself in defence. And he ranted: “Why do I have to struggle so much! We won’t get out of here anyway! Bloody hell!” And as I went back to sleep and woke up again, it felt as if my right arm had gone to sleep; it felt as heavy as a sack. So I used my other hand to lift it and move it up and down because I thought this will get the blood to circulate but the arm stayed as it was. It was a bit as if it wasn’t my arm at all. And then I asked: “Ilse, are you still alive?” And she answered very softly; “Yes!” The baby started to cough and to cry and I don’t know how long it took until the crying and coughing stopped. And when I touched the baby a little later, the legs were cold (five months).
And I tried several times to get up and pull the blankets from the holes so that we could see something because the darkness was terrible and the others were groaning loudly and I thought, I don’t have to groan. But maybe I just didn’t hear my own groaning. And then I felt sick and had to vomit several times and then I had something in my eye which felt like a knife and I kept shouting: “Someone pull this out of my eye or I’ll go mad!” And then I rubbed and it got worse but then I had to cry and the tears washed it out. It was all made worse because I knew: You won’t get out of here again! Then I tried to get up and managed to kneel and then I fell over again. And then I shouted at one of the soldiers to take the axe off the Hitler Youth leader and to use it to open the window and I said: “Give him a shout” and immediately corrected myself and said: “You don’t need to call him, he’s been dead a while.” But the others did not know that yet. I got the impression that I had been awake more often than the rest of them.
And then the sister of one the soldiers kept whining: “I will die, I will die!” And I was really brutal in that moment and said: “Shut up! My father will get us out of here!” I knew very well that my parents had no idea where I was but I was certain that I wouldn’t die and felt no fear of that. And then the soldier got up and went through a second door. He came back immediately, however, and said: “There’s such a terrible heat, we won’t get out of here.” We guessed later that this must have been about Saturday lunchtime. And then I had to vomit again. And the cellar had already half caved in. And I tried to get up again and feel around me and there was a rump, probably Miss Bock. And then I fell over again. And then someone kept kicking me in the head with heavy boots. I had bruises from that. And I said: “Stop kicking!” But the worst was the thirst. And then I slept and dreamt of leather bags – I can remember that.
And when I came to again, the others were talking. And I called for my friend but she didn’t answer. And suddenly the soldier shouts: “There’s fire in the cellar.” So he kicked some rags to one side and there was a torch which lay underneath. So he took the torch to his mother who was lying under a gasmask on an air raid bed and who was already dead. So the daughters grieved over her. And one of them said: “We have to get out of here, even if we get roasted.” And they pulled the Hitler Youth leader away from the door and put me on my feet. But I had no sense of balance and kept falling over. Then we opened the door and I said: “Look for my friend.” And as they shone a light on her, her eyes had rolled up and as he touched her hand, she was already cold. Strangely enough, I was very matter-of-fact about her death, which I could not understand afterwards because we had been very close. I could not understand it afterwards. At the time, I did not care much.
Then we climbed over the smouldering rubble, the soldier first, then me and then the sister who at first did not want to come. The soldier had taken me by my left arm because the other one was just dangling and the others held onto my clothes and kept pulling on them. One woman was the soldier’s sister, the other his cousin – they are now in Kolberg (their last name is Janus). I felt very odd and kept thinking ‘I won’t die’, maybe the others and I will be the only ones who survive. As the cloud of dust came, I thought: Thank God that you’re wearing old shoes and stockings. To have such petty ideas in the face of death! It was very odd and I was disappointed that I didn’t have greater thoughts.
So we got out of the entrance hall, two meters of rubble on the entrance hall and we stood on top of the smouldering rubble and could not get down. It was night above us, but there was air and I can’t describe how that felt. I think I sighed. We still thought that it was the same night. So we crawled more than walked to the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Platz, I don’t know why that was, but my knees kept buckling and I got annoyed about it but I could not do any better; I kept falling over. Be that as it may, as we stood on the square I thought: ‘God, what a sight! I am sure none of us are left. And I regretted that we’d come out. But then we lay on the lawn and it was wonderful that we could breathe again. And then came footfall and we shouted but I only heard things as if from a distance as if I had soap in my ears. We could also barely talk. One of us was completely hoarse. And then a soldier came and another man and they told us first that it was about eleven on Saturday night and we were shocked that we had lost a whole day.
So I asked what it looked like in town. And the said: “It’s really terrible, the same as here.” And then I asked after Hohenzollernstraße and they said: “Completely destroyed up to Annastraße.” And then I had hope that my parents might still be alive. And because I was so thirsty, I always opened my mouth so that the rain could fall in. The two wanted to bring us the bunker at the railway station. But that was so over-crowded that we made our way to the police lodgings in the labour exchange building. They did not have as much as thimble-full of water either; we nearly died of thirst. One of the two gave me a sweet; at least that produced a bit of spit. They also gave us some bread but I just wasn’t able to chew it. And my eyes hurt and were all puffed up. They put us on straw where we could lie packed like sardines. We were terribly cold. But I must have fallen asleep as some point anyway. And we were longing for the next morning. And the following morning I managed to get up on my own. And then I sniffed at my arm and thought it had been frozen but it was only the smell of the blanket I had been lying under.
At about six, the four of us went to our house and as we got to Parkstraße, I kept thinking: Please God, let our building still be standing! And it was still standing there. And suddenly I felt so strong, I ran up the stairs, would you believe it? Well, and then I was home again and with my parents and I lay down on the settee and cried but it was a good feeling, liberating, unending wellbeing and knowing yourself safe.
The arm had been paralysed by carbon monoxide but it’s getting better.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Grete G
Description
An account of the resource
Grete G's account of the events at Große Rosenstraße 9.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-08
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 81
BKasselVdObmv10081
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
fear
grief
home front
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is the master smith Ernst Exner, born 9 January 1888 in Kassel, formerly of Kastenalsgasse 5, and makes the following statement:
I had gone to fetch a few glasses of beer from Rudolf – he’s also dead now – and as we were having dinner, the alarm came. So we quickly got ready and made our way into the cellar. I had carried a couple of valises down. My wife had her handbag and her shopping bag with her. When we were in the cellar, we could hear the bombs falling. There was a terrible draught. The people from no. 3 were shouting and knocking on the breakthrough because their stairs had already been buried by rubble. So I opened the breakthrough. We were forty people in the cellar. My sons were not with us. People came also running from Pferdemarkt. The neighbours came through the breakthrough and then we opened the breakthrough to no. 7. I went upstairs, however, and intended to get the kerosene lamps in case the lights went out and I looked out on the street and I saw that the whole street was on fire. So I thought to myself: Stop, now you have to get going. So I went back down to the cellar and said: “Soak your blankets in the vats, we have to get out!” And to my wife I said: “Come, I go first!” So that she would take courage. And I brought her up the stairs and then I realised that no one had followed us.
So I went back down to talk to them. “For heaven’s sake, running out into that hell!” And there was also an air force sergeant who also thought that it was safest to stay in the cellar. And I said: “Yes, now maybe but what about later on?” And others thought they would rather try and get through the breakthroughs. And I said: “Make up your minds. If you want to try the breakthroughs, fine, but I will go above ground. Those who want to try, come with me.” Then I searched for my wife in the house because she was gone when I came up. So I asked several people I didn’t know whether they had seen my wife who had been standing here? Well, a few people had just run away from here, they said. The house opposite started leaning towards us and it collapsed so that our gate was blocked too. So I said to myself: There’s no point hanging around and got on my way. I still believed that my wife was ahead of me.
I went left and wanted to go to the Wall. But there was Bornmann’s building and Bechtel’s which collapsed. So I had a look through Kruggasse. It was passable but the fire was fierce. The flames came shooting out left and right so that I ran through up to the corner. And then a house collapsed in Müllergasse. So I turned right into Müllergasse and went as far as Schäfergasse and then more people came. Together we went to Holländische Straße and Holländischer Platz to the bunker in Henschel’s main building. And then I went under a roof which was sticking out and lifted the grate and we went into the cellar of the building. And women came with two children and I helped them down as well. And as we got there, there were already a great many people, I was taken directly to a doctor and he treated my eyes. I couldn’t see a thing for three days. I stayed there until the following morning. Then they put some more drops into my eyes and then I went to Sommerweg to my in-laws. There too I asked whether my wife had arrived – the in-laws’ house was badly damaged but they weren’t bombed out. And I only heard: No, she wasn’t there.
So I ate a piece of bread and had some coffee and then I went to the police. And they only had a hundred soldiers to clear up. I told them exactly where the entrance to the cellar was but they could not do anything because they had no water and the ruins were still smouldering. And so they did nothing for six days. Then they dug out the stairs to the cellar and brought the dead bodies out. Altogether there were 80 bodies in Kastenalsgasse 7 and 5 because more people had sought refuge there. But my wife was not among them. So I thought you’d better have a look yourself and a soldier came with me who was also looking for his wife (Frank) – he had just come on leave. I had taken a light and a hoe with me. And then the son of the Baker Diehl, on the corner, said to me: “Here on the floor is your wife’s ID.” And there was also the ration card which we found in the cellar of no 9.
So I went through all the cellars where the water was standing a foot high because people had opened the taps to get water and to cool themselves down. And in the same cellar, there was a heap of old rags, blankets. And as I pulled them apart with the hoe, the soldier says to me: “Look, there are all kohlrabi underneath!” But they were skulls, browned by the heat. And in the water, we also found feet in shoes, they had not been burnt. And a few ribs were also there. But none of the shoes fitted to my wife. I did not find a trace of my wife. The people were all lying in a heap. Maybe they had been trying to get through the breakthrough and then a big suitcase had blocked the way. And then they fell on top of each other – that’s at least what I think.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ernst Exner
Description
An account of the resource
Ernst Exner's account of the events at Kastenalsgasse 5.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-15
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 88
BKasselVdObmv10088
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
home front
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is the beer delivery driver Andreas N., born 11 April 1894, and makes the following statement:
We were standing in the yard. We saw an airplane drop a flare bomb and we (I, Seitz, Weckmüller and senior city official Stöppler and Mr Lange): “It’ll be a massive attack!” So we went down into the cellar. Every now and again we had a look as to what was happening and when the incendiaries came, we fought fires on the steps to the bunker and on the yard, in the washroom, in the office and in the attic and in the admin building. Around us, in the garden and in the fields were explosive bombs. So we fought the fires until we ran out of water, carried the air raid beds from the cellars, the tables and everything else we could salvage. We carried many bits from the office into the cellar. Those things were saved. But then the cars in the garage started burning and then the water was gone and we could not do anything further. The gas bottles with the propellant caught fire too and so we spent the whole evening like that. The sheds burnt out, and the washroom and the roof. Everything else was already destroyed by fire on 3 October. Ten horses died in that fire. Only one is still alive.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Andreas N
Description
An account of the resource
Andreas N's account of the events at the City Cleaning Department, Franzgraben 85.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-06
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 80
BKasselVdObmv10080
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is the sergeant of the air raid police Wilhelm Carl, born 9 April 1886, formerly of Wildemannsgasse 32, now lodging Leipziger Straße 13, and gives this statement:
(My son-in-law, the PFC Heinrich Straßmann and my daughter Elise Straßmann, née Carl, are missing. Our grandchild Gerhard has been buried with my wife.)
I was off-duty that evening and was in our flat until a quarter to eight. I had to be back in barracks for eight. All four members of my family were still in the flat when I left. The following morning, that was Saturday, I met a boy who was maybe eight or nine years old and who also lived in our house (he was the grandchild of the Papens). I asked him: “Listen, where are coming from? Have you seen anything of my wife or the Straßmanns?” “Yes, they were all in the cellar and three more soldiers with their wives.” “Good, and where are you coming from?” “I don’t know. We wanted first to get out through this breakthrough and then through that and then we ran into Fischmann’s house.” And this is where I found the bodies of my wife and grandchild. So I said: “How did you get out?” “Well, the door of Fischmann’s cellar was a little ajar and that’s where I squeezed through and ran to the Wall.” His grandmother died too, his mother had been out of town. I suspect, because of what the boy said about trying to get out first through one breakthrough and then another, that they ran into another breakthrough which may have collapsed and their buried by the debris. That’s all I know about the missing.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Wilhelm Carl
Description
An account of the resource
Wilhelm Carl's account of the events at Wildemannsgasse 32.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-05
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 79
BKasselVdObmv10079
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
home front
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present is Mr Otto Kappel (painter and decorator), born 28 April 1874 in Kassel, formerly of Wildemannsgasse 24, fourth floor, now of Gilsa in Oberhof, and gives the following statement:
Amongst other roles, I was also the block warden and air raid warden. After the alarm, I gathered all the people in the house in the cellar, as is usual. The cellar had a solid barrel vault and was eighteen steps deep. It must have been around half eight when my wife went up to the entrance hall and at that point, the whole of the neighbourhood was already on fire. The houses owned by the merchant Herjett, all of them corner houses, were on fire. In my house nothing was on fire yet except for some little bits which I put out. Sparks had flown into my room but I extinguished them with water. I then had to get down again because my wife was calling for me and Mr Weckesser shouted: “Allmeroth’s shop is on fire!” (This was on the ground floor of our house.) Now my wife came from the cellar and mobilised everybody: soak blankets and hold them in front of your mouth and out of the cellar. We now crawled through the breakthroughs down Wildemannsgasse up to the fourth house. There we could not go on because the house had fallen in. It must have been Wildemannsgasse 30.
So we made our way back and through the other cellars towards the lower Marktgasse. And my wife got nearly everyone out of the cellar. In our cellar were: 3 people from the Stark family, three people from the Henkler family, children, we had only two, from the Mohnsam family. The Kappel family were three, Kappes two, Engelke four, Allmeroths weren’t there because they were already living in Altenhasungen, Lehmann two, Müller three, Weckesser two and Mohnsam three. – We had more or less everything behind us. The street was all on fire and it was too narrow. We could not get through there. Where the Hirsch pharmacy was, we turned left. We’d only collected our daughter from the hospital that morning and she pulled and the whole lot went on because everything was dark, a wax candle here, a stearin candle there, and we did not know anymore where we were and we pushed on and so we got to the Fischmann’s house. But we did not go into their cellar but stayed on the street because the passage to the furniture house Metz was blocked. People shouted from the other side: “You won’t get through there.”
Behind us were Mr and Mrs Henkler, both over seventy, they got out. Mr Lehmann and his daughter came with us to the Hirsch pharmacy where they stayed. They are dead. Richard Kappes and his sister Hilde also stayed back; they’re dead too. Mrs Weckesser had a heart attack on the way into the cellar and keeled over. Her husband sat down and stayed with her. They were both about seventy. Richard Kappes had been in Stalingrad and gone through a lot as a soldier and then he was killed that night. The last my wife saw of him, he had lost his hat and his hair was standing on end. And if you had been there and lived through it, you would understand it, because if you looked out, you could not see anything but fire and sparks. I had a blindfold and my wife pulled me out. She is 52 and comes from the countryside and a long line of farmers. My first wife died 1918 and then my second wife came into the house, and I saw her, loved her and married her and it’ll be our silver wedding anniversary in ten weeks. I had four children with my first wife and two with my second. I have lived in the fairy tale house since 1915. I’ve lived in the old town my whole life, I was also born there.
When we got out of the cellar, we saw only fire. Burning beams were sailing through the air, gables were falling down, we made our way down from where the watchmaker Voigt was, then through Fischgasse, Zeughausstraße, Weserstraße, Schützenstraße to the Ahne River. There we climbed over the railing and went down to the river. Hundreds of people were lying there.
On the Sunday, my wife went into the town, together with our daughter. I didn’t see anything but the two of them saw how the dead bodies were brought out from the houses. My wife did not want me to see that. We also lost a daughter in Kölnische Straße 10 (Mrs Marie Metz, née Kappel) and her husband, Wilhelm Metz and the boy was called Walter.
When we were in the cellar, we felt very strong air pressure because the bombs must have had immense power. The front door blew open and the iron doors to the cellar were flapping back and forth, we had to tie them together. The strong draft of the fire also made the fire jump from one house to the next. We also suffered terribly from the fire storm in Fischgasse until we finally got through. In outward appearance, people seemed all very calm. My wife said: Here, it’s no use, soak bits of cloth and hold them to your mouths. Everyone had a suitcase with them. I had a few packages with underwear with me.
Our belongings were dug out of the buried cellar by soldiers a few days later. The cellars were free of smoke and perfectly preserved. We found our belongings in the Renthof where they had been stored. We could show our papers and collect them.
We lived on the fourth floor under the attic where [unintelligible] kept pigeons. We had been talking about moving elsewhere and every now and again had an opportunity to do so but it never happened. And now we moved house without a removal van. We would not have believed it.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Otto Kappel
Description
An account of the resource
Otto Kappel's account of the events at Wildemannsgasse 24, Fisch-gasse.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-05
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 78
BKasselVdObmv10078
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
firefighting
home front
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: Present are the municipal engineer Gottlieb Sunkel, born 24 December 1891, and the town clerk August Lehnebach, born 5 November 1883, and make the following statement:
It was like this: Four of us were in the Civic Centre, among them a Miss Völker, on duty for air raid guard. We had only just started our shift when the alarm came. So we lit our lamps, fetched the steel helmets and gas masks from the guard room and fled into the ventilation shaft. Every now and again we went out to observe. Shortly after, the air protection command at the back was on fire. Shortly before nine, the lights went out and a heavy explosive bomb dropped on Hindenburgplatz. The doors flew open and the glass was blown out of the windows. Gobrecht and I (Sunkel) went to the big hall after that and found an incendiary in the middle of it. The whole of the side where the garden was, now lit up because the windows had been destroyed and the light from the fire came in. The incendiary was a dud. We threw it into the garden. We searched the building inside and outside. In the attic we found the aluminium mantle of the incendiary which had dropped into the big hall. The roof had also been damaged in places.
As soon as the all clear came, I (Lehnebach) went home and Miss Völker came with me. The whole of Elfbuchstraße, where I live, was on fire. I fetched a steel helmet and made my way through anyway and helped fight the fire in my house (Auguste-Viktoria-Straße 19). We saved the house. Only the roof and the attic rooms have been destroyed by fire.
In the morning, towards 6, I returned to the Civic Centre and brought my steel helmet back.
During the raid, about a quarter past nine, the Mayor came on a motorbike. He requisitioned the Civic Centre for the Council because the city hall was on fire, and all officials who could be seen, should come to the centre early in the morning. After the raid, he came back and ordered that the centre should be used as a reception centre for those who had lost their homes. Towards ten, the local group leader Schlegel from Stadthalle party group turned up and organised an emergency service. We then took the air protection beds immediately out of the ambulatories on the garden side and put them up in the vestibule. And towards ten, the first refugees arrived already. These were mainly guests from the Hotel Schwaneberg (Kurfürstenstraße). And then more and more came and the evacuation of refugees began. Women and children and men, they were all lying in the cloakrooms downstairs. Everyone made themselves as comfortable as they could. We also had straw sacks. During the night we also closed windows and doors as best we could. Everyone helped, including boys from the Hitler Youth. Towards four, we had the first coffee and towards 6, food arrived. Mrs Witt and Mrs Burchard helped local group leader Schlegel to administer first aid. Doctors and nurses had also arrived and bandaged the wounded and those with burns, treated eyes and so on. Miss Völker, who is also bombed out, helped all night through as she is a trained nurse.
Towards half seven the municipal employees arrived, the Mayor, again, and Mr Schwarze and others, and they set up municipal departments. The work of the Department for Property Damage started and towards 11 the first people received money.
I (Sunkel) wanted to go home towards morning. But as I heard on the way that the whole of the old town had burnt down – I am a widower – I turned around. I used to live in Kastenalsgasse 7. They all died, with the exception of four people who were not in the house that night. I now live in Landgrafenstraße 17. Until last month, I had installed myself in the Civic Centre.
Towards 10 we received food supplies. The inflow of people was immense. We had put six hundredweight of butter on sandwiches on that day. The mobile supply unit ‘Bayern’ of the army arrived about noon on Saturday and brought clothing, undergarments and rations. They even handed out real coffee; how people were running towards them because they handed out real coffee. The food was wonderful. Because people could not be supplied with gas, they came for three weeks to be fed. High or low, they all came with their mess kits and fetched their food. The Civic Centre also served as emergency shelter for people who had lost their homes. Every evening we gave out blankets. We catered for several thousand people a day.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Gottlieb Sunkel and August Lehnebach
Description
An account of the resource
Gottlieb Sunkel and August Lehnebach's account of the events at the Civic Centre.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-04
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Record 77
BKasselVdObmv10077
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
Creator
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Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
displaced person
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
shelter
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
Description
An account of the resource
100 items. Translations of statements held by Stadtarchiv Kassel recorded by the Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel about the bombing of Kassel 22/23 October 1943.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-06-26
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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Translated from the original in German: Present are Messrs. Ludwig Heinemann, commercial agent and employee of the Office for War Damage, born 20 September 1892 in Dennhausen, and Karl M., employee of the City Tax Office, born 25 March 1912 in Schöningen, District Helmstedt, and make the following statement:
Well, the story was this. The night of terror started with the alarm. We were on duty. We opened the shelter immediately for the public and made the whole building ready for the raid. Then the attack started. And right at the start, a heavy explosive bomb came down near us and coal gas entered the cellar. We had approximately 40 people in there, children and old men. The women too kept very calm. We then started the ventilators. Then we gave the public water so that they could wet cloth for their noses. Because we had much smoke and dust and dirt (lime dust) in the cellar. Buildings everywhere were on fire. After nine our building started burning too. So we tried to save machines and telephones by carrying them into the cellar. Then we started looking for a way out of the sea of fire. Together, we were five men on duty, two as fireguards and three as reserves.
When it got worse and the lights went out, we thought it was about time that we went outside. We guided people through to Fünffensterstraße. Because we could no longer get out through our own entrance hall. As far as possible, we gave people wet blankets. Someone from the municipal police was also with us. On the corner was the pub at the junction of Frankfurter Straße and Fünffensterstraße. Outside, everything was ablaze. People could just abut get through on our side; on the opposite side, where Bangert’s was, everything was already a sea of flames. We also had a disabled woman with us whom we guided to Schöne Aussicht. A sergeant took her off our hands there. The raid as such was already over but the actual fire had only started. In the house next door was a bomb with a timer which went off just as we got out of the corner house and everything was blown up. People behaved tremendously. Before we went out, we poured water on all the wooden parts and also on the air raid beds. But from the street so many sparks were flying through the window that everything was going to burn down.
On the square, the houses were destroyed by fire, the theatre was ablaze and then it consumed bit by bit the whole of Schöne Aussicht. The pub Zur Krone in Frankfurter Straße went up in flames first and from there, the whole of Friedrichstraße started burning.
I (M.) still tried to get home – to Hartwigstraße near Weserspitze – I ran past the Rondell and across the wire bridge. I couldn’t take Blücherstraße because houses started to collapse and bombs with timers went off. People tried to salvage what they could but there wasn’t much that could be done. Then I passed the Rondell and tried to get through via the Schladg. I climbed up to Fulda Bridge via the emergency stairs and got as far as Fischgasse. That was as far as I got, the house of the clockmaker Voigt was just collapsing. It nearly flattened me. So I went back to the Rondell and to Schöne Aussicht. Then we went together in the shelter underneath the Weinberg. I was completely exhausted.
Then I tried to get home via the upper part of the city, through the Tannenwäldchen and Rothenditmold. I got as far as the railway bridge but then a munitions train went up and I was held back and had to turn around. So I went back to the Schöne Aussicht and the Rondell and rested a bit. By that time it was about half five. So I went up the footbridge, crossed Fuldabrücke, passed Holzmarkt and went along Leipziger Straße – everything was totally damaged there – and smoking rubble – then through Hafenstraße, across Hafen Bridge and through Gartenstraße to Hartwigstraße. That too was on fire. The house where I lived had burnt down to the first floor. The people in the house had thrown many incendiaries out of the windows but the house had perished anyway. Then people tried to salvage their belongings. I too could get some of my stuff out of the first floor because it also started to burn. I folded what I could into a wool blanket because the walls started already to collapse. At Weserspitze I put all my stuff together. Two of my suitcases and my winter coat were stolen there while I was looking for friends. I can’t have been gone for more than ten minutes.
Heinemann: My experience was more tragic. I live in Wolfsschlucht 22. I was the last to jump with the storm lantern from the cellar. M. shouted: “Heinemann, jump to the left!” and that’s what I did, otherwise the whole gable of Frankfurter Straße 28 would have dropped on me. Then I got to Schöne Aussicht. My first shock was that my son Ernst, who was home after being wounded for the fourth time, was not at home with his bride. I met him there. I said: “My boy, I meet you here?” “Dad, I had gone into town with my bride but I will try to get to get to mum immediately.” But he came back because he could not get through. So I tried to get there from the theatre and Friedrichsplatz. But in Königstraße the smoke was so thick that I had to turn back. Then I tried it again in the morning. The house had been burnt down completely to the cellar. So I stood there and did not know whether she lay beneath or what was going on. I tried to gain access from the school yard next door. But even the cellars were smouldering. All the coal and my nice things in the cellar had been burnt. Fortunately the caretaker of the grammar school came. I asked him whether he heard anything about the Heinemann family. He said that they had been seen in the Karlsaue, during the night.
So I went to the Orangerie and looked for them there. But I did not find anyone. I went up the stairs where the theatre is. Those who were poisoned by smoke inhalation were taken away. Corpses were also lying there already, already during the night, from Karlstraße. Tables were being set up along the theatre and Schöne Aussicht and the wounded were constantly ferried away. It was a horrifying sight how people were fighting for their lives.
I learnt from the people there that women with little children had been accommodated in the barracks. I assumed that my wife would have preferred the Jäger barracks in Frankfurter Straße. I therefore marched off and asked the guard. Then I searched the individual wings. After I had searched three or four wings, I heard that women and children had been in the wing on the left at the front but that they had moved on by dawn. My wife and our five-year old had made their way to Körle and I assumed that that’s where they had gone and took the same way. I arrived at Körle in the evening, completely demoralised. The five-year old came running towards me near the house – heavens, what was that a moment, the boy with his five years pressed himself against me so that I thought a much older person was squeezing me.
My wife told me that there had not been one man in the whole of the air raid shelter in Wolfsschlucht 22. When the attic was on fire, they opened the breakthrough to no 20. Unfortunately, there was a passage of four metres and the women could only open the second breakthrough (under the gateway, towards the Barmer Insurance building) with great difficulty. After a great effort, the women opened the two breakthroughs. In that corner house they finally had better air to breathe. Soldiers and Stormtroopers also came into the cellar and they said: If it gets worse, we’ll come and get you out. In all that ado, the little one got wounded and had a cut from a stone splinter on his cheek and when it got hotter and hotter, his mother soaked the blankets, hung them over their heads, took the suitcases and the boy, got out towards Königsplatz, made her way through the burning Königstraße where she was no longer able to carry the suitcases and the luggage. She was lucky because a soldier came and took the boy and carried him to Schöne Aussicht. A Hitler Youth girl took the suitcases. But while fleeing to the theatre, she lost the girl and so the suitcases were gone. The soldier was also gone. So she wandered around Schöne Aussicht. Luckily she found the boy after an hour and then fled via the barracks to Körle where I found my loved ones again.
When they tried to get out of the cellar, they already heard the floors above them collapse, third floor, second floor, they were despairing that they still could not open the breakthrough with their feeble strength.
As I was standing in front of the ruins, I went at first weak in the knees but then I clenched my teeth. I said: You won’t cry, you cried when you lost your fine specimen of a boy. But not now. That was 1940. He gave his life for his people.
M.: As I wanted to go home and came back from the wire bridge, I ended up on the Rondell. From there, we could hear terrible screams for help which must have come roughly from the area around Fuchsgasse. People went over on a boat but they could not get any further. After a quarter of an hour, the screams became quieter until they fell silent. But the flames were to powerful and no one was able to bring help.
When we guided people through the breakthroughs, many a scene unfolded. In front of us was a very plump elderly lady who could not get through the breakthrough. Her daughter pulled from the front and I pushed from the back. And the disabled woman behind me shouted: “I don’t want to burn to death!” And so I told the ladies: “You will have to choose between your hairdo and your coat and dying. So make your coats wet and pull them over your heads and then we get out.” The disabled woman whom I brought to Schöne Aussicht had developed new strength in her fear and fled away from the flames. The women with little children conducted themselves in an exemplary manner. Flames of ten metres were shooting out of Bangert’s house.
M.: That morning I met a friend who lived at Holzmarkt. He told me: When the smoke got so thick and people were beginning to go to sleep, no one wanted to go out into the fire. So I hit my wife on the backside to make her go through the fire and I threw the child across to her. And then I went back to chase people out. Four people came with me but then someone said: “People, we’ll die in these flames.” So they turned back in fear and all of them perished. It was the house on the left side after the bridge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ludwig Heinemann and Karl M
Description
An account of the resource
Ludwig Heinemann and Karl M's account of the events at Frankfurter Straße 26/28 (City Tax Offices, public air raid shelter), Hartwigstraße, Wolfsschlucht 22.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-05-03
Contributor
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Harry Ziegler
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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Record 76
BKasselVdObmv10076
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kassel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
fear
home front
shelter