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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/153/1614/AKohlerH170303.2.mp3
d2f0f472887d968b2df90cc90be0d7ad
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Title
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Köhler, Helmut
Description
An account of the resource
The collection consists of one oral history interview with Helmut Köhler (b. 1928) who recalls his wartime experience as Luftwaffenhelfer and the breaching of the Eder dam. His recollections cover life in German bombing cities.
The collection was cataloged by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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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 audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
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HZ: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Harry Ziegler. The interviewee is Helmut Köhler. The interviewee, the interview is taking place at Mr Köhler’s home in [omitted] Kassel on the 3 of March 2017. Also Herr Köhler, dann fangen wir mal an.
HK: Ja, also geboren wurde ich am ersten August 1928 und zwar hier in Kassel, im Rotenkreuz Krankenhaus und zwar in der Hansteinstrasse 17 haben wir gewohnt, das ist im Stadteil Wehlheiden, also nicht hier, sondern im Stadteil Wehlheiden. Und da bin ich, hab ich vier, drei Schwestern gehabt, ältere Schwestern, ich bin also nur unter Frauen gross geworden und leider ist mein Vater schon gestorben als ich knapp drei Jahre war, also 1991 ist, 1891 [?] ist schon der Vater gestorben und da war die Mutter mit vier Kindern alleine und der Vater war im Studienrat weil er einen Knieschaden hatte, desshalb ist er im Ersten Weltkrieg kein Soldat geworden, er hat also im Krieg warscheinlich einen Meniskusschaden durch Fussball haben sie gespielt und heute wär das operiert worden, aber damals konnten sie das nicht und desshalb ist er kein Soldat geworden. Und da hatt er hier in Kassel im Realgymnasium eins sein Studium, sein Abitur gemacht und hatt dann auch studiert in Marburg und zwar Geschichte als Hauptfach und hat da auch promoviert. Und a, und, er stammt also aus Gudensberg und die Vorfahren, also seine Eltern und seine Grosseltern und ich weiss nicht wie viele Generationen zurück, die hatten das Baugeschäft in Gudensberg, ein Bauunternehmen und meine Mutter, die stammt aus Rellingen bei Pinneberg in Schleswig-Holstein und die haben sich kennengelernt auf einer Hochzeit [laughs] die ein Gudensberger Freund von meinem Vater und einer Pinneberger Freundin von meiner Mutter, da waren sie beide eingeladen, haben sich kennengelernt neh und so. Na ja gut und so bin ich groß geworden praktisch ohne Vater und musste natürlich dann auch zum Gymnasium, Realgymnasium eins, das hieß damals Paul-von-Hindenburg-Schule. Und bin dann eben wie gesagt vier, fünf Jahre ganz normal zur Schule gegangen und am ersten September im ’39, Ostern bin ich dahingekommen, und im ersten September ’39 began der Krieg und da waren mit einem Schlag in einer Woche die ganzen jungen Lehrer weg und da kriegten wir die alten pensionerten Lehrer und dann waren aber zum Teil Lehrer, die mit meinem Vater zusammen an der Schule gelehrt haben [laughs], das war natürlich sehr interessant, ‚ach hier das ist der kleine Heinrich‘, neh, das war ich dann, neh. So und so sind wir dann, haben wir dann Schule gemacht war ganz normal, aber dann eben wiegesagt bis ’43 und dann wurde der Luftkrieg härter, da waren schon mehr mal Angriffe hier und dann kamen wir, als Schüler mussten wir dann Luftschutzwache machen nachts in der Schule, so fünf, sechs mit einem Lehrer zusammen, kriechten wir oben im Dachgeschoss so‘n kleines Zimmerchen mit‘em Feldbett und so haben wir den Krieg kennengelernt und in der Zeit ging dann auch in ’44, neh ’43, ging dann die Edertalsperre kaput, und das haben wir sehr gut beobachtet wie die Riesenwelle Wasser kam neh, na ja gut. [sighs] Jedenfalls, dann die Sommerferien waren rum und dann wurden wir zur Erntehilfe abkommandiert, vier Wochen mussten wir den Bauern helfen, Ernte zu machen und dann kamen wir kurz in die Schule und dann war am 22 Oktober 1943 der grosse Angriff hier. Und den habe ich in der Hansteinstrasse mitgemacht, wo ich geboren wurde. Und das war wirklich grauenhaft, also was ich da in den Keller so erlebt habe, auch die einzelnen Menschen, die da alle sassen, viel ältere Frauen und auch ein Paar Männer, ein hoher Offizier, der hier beim Generalkommando beschäftigt war der hat da immer ein bisschen beruhigt und so, also, es war schon grauenhaft, die eine Frau, die hat nur dauernd gesungen, vor lauter Anstrengung, und die andere die hat nur gebetet und so, und meine Mutter hat ganz still gesessen da, Hände gefaltet und dann gingen durch die detonierten Bomben dann gingen, flogen dann die Kellerfenster rein und dann, also er war grauenhaft. Na ja, und dann ist unser Haus nicht abgebrannt da sondern auch ein Paar Nebenhaüser und da hab ich mitgelöscht so und dann. Ja und dann waren die Schulen in Kassel alle kaputt, so und da haben wir drei Wochen, haben wir uns gefreut, hurrah die Schule brennt, uns gefreut alle, und so nach drei, vier Wochen dann haben wir dann doch bisschen im Zweifel geguckt und sind wir mal zu unser alten Schule gegangen, da war die ein riesen Trümmerhaufen aber die Kellergewölbe die waren noch da und da hatte die Schulsekretärin ihr Büro eingerichtet im Keller und da hatt‘se dann gesagt: ‘Jungs, also, Schule wird’s nicht mehr geben in Kassel’ und so war’s dann auch. Da wurden nach dem grossen Angriff, da sind ja etwa zehntausend Menschen umgekommen, und die ganze Altstadt, alles ein Trümmerhaufen, also es war grauenhaft neh und da sind die ganzen jungen Mütter mit ihren Kindern in einer Woche alle aus Kassel weggeschickt worden, die kamen alle in irgendwelche Lager, die Organisation die war damals schon wirklich klasse neh. So, und wir kamen in ein verlassenes Arbeitsdienstlager nach Bracht, bei Marburg liegt das, das war so alles ein Arbeitsdienstlager mit Baracken und da kamen wir alle rein.
HZ: Ist es Bracht mit B?
HK: Bracht mit B, R, A.
HZ: Ja.
HK: So etwa neh. Ich bin nachher nie wieder da gewesen. So und dann schliefen wir in den Hut, in den grossen Baracken da, zwanzig Leute gingen da glaub ich rein, dann immer zwei Lehrer dabei, die schliefen auf Strohsäcken dann und so und dann am Tag hatten wir da ein bisschen Schule und dann kriegten wir irgendwie die Nachricht das wir zur, als Luftwaffenhelfer eingezogen wurden und wir konnten dann nach Hause also im Dezember 1944, konnten wir, die wir bald eingezogen wurden, schon nach Hause. Und dann am fünften Januar mussten wir antreten Schule [unclear] Schule mit einem Papkarton und da stand da genau drinn was man da alles mitbringen durften, zwei Unterhosen, und ein Paar Socken, alles so was [laughs]. Und dann wurden wir auf’n LKW geladen und da stand da drauf:’Eltern durften nicht da mit’ oder so änlich wurde das da bezeichnet und von meinem Freund Erich, der mit mir grossgeworden ist, die Mutter die war klever, die ist dann hinter uns her gegangen wo wir zum, und wo wir auf der einen Seite von dem LKW standen dann ist sie auf der anderen Seite durch so’n Buschwerk und hat den Fahrer geholt und hat gesagt:’Hören Sie mal, wo fahren Sie den hin, mein Sohn ist hier bei’. Und da hat er gesagt: ‘Nach Heiligenrode’ und da wusste, wusste meine Mutter, hatte gleich Bescheid, wussten die zumindest wo wir Jungen hinkamen. Und da sind wir furchtbar ausgebildet worden, also furchtbar, jeden Tag acht Stunden und das im Januar bei Wind und Wetter und da wurden wir auch fast alle krank und erkältet und alles sowas. Und dann so nach’m viertel Jahr wurden wir eingesetzt und auf, ach so und dann fragte dann der Hauptmann, der Kommandeur, der war im Zivilberuf war der Studienrat und zwar in Matte, Mathematik [laughs] und der fragte dann:’was wollen Sie werden?’ Wir waren ja alle per Sie plötzlich mit fuffzehn Jahren und was wollen sie werden, was wollen Sie [unclear] , und da habe ich gesagt:‘Baumeister, Herr Hauptmann, Baumeister’. ‚Umwertung‘, das war also wo die Zielwege aufgezeichnet wurden, das wurde viel mit Zeichnung das war natürlich was neh. Und ein anderer Klassenkamerad der sagte: ‚ich will Elektroingenieur werden‘, der kam zum Funkmessgerät, das war der Vorgänger vom Radargerät, und so hatten manche schon Vorstellung und die die gar nix wussten die kamen zur Kannonen [laughs] na ja und so wurden wir dann ausgebildet. Und ja und so ging das weiter bis zum, also Januar bis etwa Juni und da wurden wir verlegt von der Flakstellung Heiligenrode zu der Flakstellung Niederkaufungen, da war nämlich ein grosses Heeresdepot und zum Schutz von diesem Depot wurde oben auf dem Berg, das ist heute noch hier, Papierfabrik heisst das, Richtung Kaufungen wenn se da mal [unclear], da waren wir zum Schutz da, so und dann war immer Fliegeralarm aber es passierte nix und da haben wir von der Umwertung, wir mussten auch Sperrfeuer schiessen und das wurde von der Umwertung aus gemacht, das war das Flug-Malsigerät, das war so’n, [unclear] und manchmal wurde Sperrfeuer geschossen, den das Vermessen der Entfernung war sehr schwierig damals neh, am Tag ging das durch die vier-meter Basis, aber am nachts war das schwierig. Und das war in der ganzen, in dem ganzen halben Jahr vorher nicht einmal passiert. Und da bin ich mit’m Paar die den Zielweg nicht aufzeichnen brauchten [unclear] Malsigerät wir haben oben zugeguckt wie da die Flak geschossen hat und da ist wohl das Stichwort gekommen Sperrfeuer und unsere Batterie hat das nicht gemacht weil ich net da war und meine Kumpels. Und da simma nächsten Tag wurde eine zbV Batterie aufgebraut und dann kam der Hauptmann schon auf mich zu und ’Sie wissen ja warum sie jetzt versetzt werden’. Da kam ich zur zbV Batterie mit vierleutenarme [?] und da wurden wir dann umgeschult, sollten wir eigentlich nach Breslau, [clears throat] und da haben wir schon das [unclear] gepackt und alles neh und da kamen kurz davor in der Doppelbaracke da war die andere Seite, da war der Oberleutnant, der Batteriechef und der telefonierte plötzlich, da haben wir alle gehorcht und da hatt er gesagt:’Wunderbar! Ist ja wunderbar! Herrlich! Toll!’ und so und da kam er gleich zu uns rüber: ‘Wir fahren nicht nach Breslau, das ist eingenommen worden von Russen’. Und dann kamen wir zur 12,8-Batterie, wurden wir umgeschult, nach Maronhüls [?], da in diesen ehemaligen,
HZ: Wie heisst das?
HK: [unclear] hiess das Nest, das Dorf, [unclear] ist eine grosse Stadt in das [unclear] gebiet da am Rand und da war eine V2-Herstellungs, so ‘ne Fabrik, die das herstellten oder auch schossen oder wie das war. Und die wurden da immer, wenn Flieger kamen, Feinde, da wurde das eingenebelt neh. Und dann wurden wir ausgebildet an den Kannonen und eines Tages da flogen mehrere Kannonen in die Luft durch Rohrkrepierung, das war also Sabotage von Munitionsfabriken, haben irgendwelche Fehler eingebaut.
HZ: Haben dann bei Ihnen waren da auch Russische Hiwis oder waren da auch andere in den Flak?
HK: Ja, waren da [unclear] dabei, Russische weniger, aber italiener, diese Badoglio-Truppen,
HZ: Ja.
HK: Diese von dem abgesprungenen General Badoglio neh, oder Serben glaub ich und so was, die wurden dann da beschäftigt. Und irgend einer hat da warscheinlich so was erfunden dass das und da krepierten in ganz Deutschland bei der 12,8 die Granaten und da hatten sie keine Kanonen mehr. Da kamen wir wieder nach Kassel, hier oben in Welhheiden da haben wir in so einer Baracke gewohnt vierzehn Tage oder was und dann kriegten wir den Einsatzbefehl zur Vierlingsflak Umschulung am Edersee auf der Talsperre. Die war wieder hergestellt, die war ja kaputt, wissen Sie das durch die Ballbombe,
HZ: Ja, die rolling bombs.
HK: Die da rotierte neh, das war ne ganz, technisch ne ganz tolle Sache neh, da muss ich wirklich sagen also war schon klasse aber als wir hinkamen war die schon wieder zugemauert, also das war für mich als Baumensch ein riesige Leistung innerhalb vom Jahr, oder halbes Jahr was die das alles fertigmachen, so sieht’s heute noch aus, ist da nachgemacht worden.
HZ: Wir sind da mal da gewesen, ja.
HK: Also das ist also eine riesige Leistung gewesen, wie die das alle gemacht haben, das weiss ich net, jedenfalls dann wurden wir auf der Vierling, da hatten wir oben auf der Mauer da war so’n holz, Holztürmchen aufgebaut da standen vier, drei Vierlingsflak [laughs] und da soll’n wir nun, wurden wir ausgebildet. So und dann am zwanzigsten, so und dann weil wir vier Kasselaner waren dann wurden wir immer weggeschickt zum Kurierdienst weil man der, Autos gab’s ja nicht, sie mussten also die Kurierpost, die musste zur Heeresgruppe, zur Luftwaffengruppe, des war hier in einer Kaserne auf der Hasenhecke hier in Kassel und da konnten sie an einem Tage nicht mit der Bahn hinfahren und wieder zurückkommen und da haben sie uns vier Kasseler immer eingeteilt, da konnten wir zuhause schlafen. Und da hatten wir das natürlich wunderbar. Und [unclear] ich mal wieder wegblicken, Anfang Februar oder irgend, Mitte Februar war das, da sagte mir der Schreibstubenbulle da, sagte:’Hör mal, wenn du jetzt nach hause gehst bring dir mal ein Paar Zivilklammotten mit’. Ich sag:’warum dann das?’. Das habe ich dann gemacht und dann zwei Tage später bei der Befehlsausgabe, da sagte der Hauptmann: ‘Wer hat Zivilsachen mit?’ Ich, Herr Hauptmann’, ‘morgen Abmarsch’ und da war die Entlassung hier neh. 20 Februar 1944 wurde ich von der Flak entlassen, ich war der erste [laughs], werde ich nie vergessen. Na ja, und dann war ich ein Paar Tage zuhause und da kriegte ich die Einberufung da, die hatte ich ja schon und dann hatten wir den Angriff hier etwa, ich weiss des Datum leider net mehr, am zweiten März oder irgendsowas, muss jetzt, grade jetzt auf die Zeit [unclear] muss das gewesen sein,
HZ: Ich hab mir.
HK: Da ist das Haus getroffen worden und ich war da zu Hause und da war ich mit ein Paar Freunden in einem Bunker.
HZ: Ja?
HK: Das erste Mal in meinem Leben in einen Bunker gewesen, weil da einer Musik machte, da war immer so’n bisschen was los. Und da kam ein Junge rein der sagte: ‘Helmut, stell dir mal vor, bei euch da in der Strasse brennt’s wie verrückt’. Und da bin ich raus, der Luftschutzwache wollte mich net raus lassen, da hab ich ihn weggeschoben, das war mich ganz egal [unclear] und da kam ich hin polterte die treppe hoch so, kurz vor mir ist die Holztreppe eingekracht, desshalb würde ich heute als Baumensch nie eine Holztreppe bauen, immer ne Betontreppe [laughs]. So und da stand ich unten und sah wie aus unserem Wohnzimmer, unserem Herrenzimmer die Flammen [unclear] schlugen und ich konnte nix machen. Da guckte ich so an mir runter da hatte ich Hose an und Schuhe an, keinen Kamm, keine Zahnbürste, da kam ich mir vor wie der ärmste Mensch den’s gibt auf der Welt, wirklich dieses Gefühl, das habe ich schon meinen Kindern erzählt, das war furchtbar, da stand ich da ach Gott, mein Wintermantel der hängt da an der Gardrobe, alles so und kam ich da gar net dran, das war eine furchtbare Nacht. Da bin ich mit meinen Freund, der war auch zufällig da, und da sind wir in den Keller, haben das bisschen was Mutter so’n Paar Koffer und so was, haben wir dann raus auf die Strasse gestellt, na ja und das haben wir dann, haben wir später mit einem Pferdefuhrwerk geholt und alles nach Gudensberg geschafft zu Verwandten.
HZ: Ja, die Geschichte wo Sie da noch zur Stadtkommandantur gegangen sind [unclear] mir erzählt haben.
HK: Ja, das ist da passiert.
HZ: Ja, die könnense noch amal für das Band erzählen.
HK: Ja, gut und da hatte ich ja di Einberufung und dann, so die hatte ich ja vorher schon deshalb bin ich ja bei der Flak entlassen worden, und dann einberufen sollte ich werden, das glaub ich am 6 März oder irgendwas sollte ich da antanzen und am zweiten oder so dann passierte der Bombenangriff und da hat der Onkel gesagt, neh, richtig, der Onkel hat gesagt:’Neh, das geht net, da kannste net weg’, ich sage:’Was mache ich den jetzt?’ ‚Ja dann, geh doch mal zur Ostkommandantur’, und da bin ich dann nach Kassel, ich glaub sogar gelaufen, [unclear] viele Stunden, und dann war die Geschichte ja mit der Ostkommandantur, wo ich draussen stand der Posten und da sagte ich, ‘Luftwaffenoberhelfer Koeler hier der will zum Ostkommandanten sprechen’, [laughs] das ich überhaupt den Mut hatte da staune ich heute noch, und wo er dann, wo ich dann sagte: ‘Ich bitte da um ein Paar Tage Urlaub, meine Mutter ist alleine und wir haben ein Paar Sachen rausgeholt aus’m Keller, die stehen da alle noch und ich muss, meine schwangere Schwester kann auch net helfen und so neh, und dann hat er dann gesagt also, na ja, mich mitleidig angeguckt und da hat er gesagt: ‘Na ja, melden sich in acht Tagen wieder’. ‘Jawohl!’ Und dann bin ich dann los und dann hat der Onkel gefragt: ‘Hat er überhaupt gefragt wo du wohnst?’, da hab ich gesagt: ‘neh’, ‚das ist gut, da gehst du nicht mehr hin‘. Und dann haben wir den englischen Rundfunk gehört abends, ‘Hier ist England, Hier ist England’. Und dann habe ich dann nun, haben wir dann nun bald erfahren wo die Amerikanischen Truppen, die sind dann in Remagen über’m Rhein weg, und dann waren sie schon über Frankfurt weg, und dann sagte der Onkel: ‘Das dauert keine zwei Wochen dann sind die hier’, und es stimmte auch. Am ersten April waren die ersten Amis in Gudensberg. Und so bin ich davongekommen. Und vorher hatte ich noch, da hatte mich mit so’n Mädchen da getroffen, standen wir so im Hauseingang, Ich konnte ja nur abends weggehen, am Tage lies mich der Onkel net raus, da kam einer plötzlich [makes a noise] stand einer neben mir, guckte mich an, sagte: ‘Bist Du den verrückt?’, der dachte ich wäre so’n Desertierter, er war nämlich auch einer. ‚du stellst dich hier hin, eben haben’se drei da oben erschossen‘, die haben’se erwischt neh, und da wurde es mir natürlich unheimlich, da bin ich auch abends weggegangen. Ja und bis die Amerikaner kamen. Das war ein Karfreitag, erster April 1945 [laughs], Karfreitag war das. Und die Tante hatte vorher schon ein bisschen Kuchen gebacken und dann sassen wir dann am Küchentisch und haben Kuchen gegessen. Auf einmal klopft es an der Haustür. Da kamen die ersten Amerikanischen Soldaten. Vor jedem Haus hielt ein, wie nannten die sich diese drei-achsler?, LKWs, na ja gut, weiss jetzt nimmer, und da sassen immer zehn Mann drauf, Amerikaner und im jedem Haus kam da Einquartierung und da mussten die Zivilleute alle raus. Und da kam der Unteroffizier oder was er da war, weiss ich net, der kam als erste sah mich an: ‘Raus!’, so ‘Raus!’. Da sag ich: ‘Moment muss ich Schuhe anziehen‘, zieh am ende Schuhe, dann kam ich die Treppe da runter und da standen zwei mit der MP und haben sie mich abgeführt zum Ostkommandanten. Und da war so’n netter kleiner Dolmetscher und der fragte: ‘Warum sind sie kein Soldat?’ Sag ich: ‘Ich war bei, als Luftwaffenhelfer’. Konnte er nix mit anfagen. [unclear] Und diesen Luftwaffenhelferausweis den hatte ich in der Tasche und dann wollte ich ihn zeigen und da fiel er vor lauter Aufregung fiel mir da hin, da war der schneller da und, ‘Ach!’ sagte ‘jetzt weiss ich was sie waren’. Da ist er zu seinem Boss hingegangen, zu dem Kolonel oder, neh Kolonel war er net, also der Offizier neh, und da kam der raus und dann guckte der mich an. This fellow is [unclear], ab und da bin ich auch schnell nach hause und so bin ich davongekommen. Draussen standen dann da, die haben sie alle aufgesammelt, die verwundet waren, Verwundetenurlaub und so und die sind dann alle nach Frankreich abgeschoben worden. Mussten ein Jahr im Bergwerk arbeiten und so. Ich bin da davongekommen. Das war meine Zeit in Gudensberg und da war ich eben fünf Jahre in Gudensberg, Fussball gespielt und so, das war eine schöne Zeit, aber in Kassel gab’s keine Schulen, des erste halbe Jahr gab’s nix. Und mein Freund hier, der Erich, der ist in Kassel weiter geblieben und der hat mich immer mal besucht in Gudensberg und der sagte eines Tages: ‘Helmut, im Herbst geht die Schule wieder los‘, die Albert-Schweitzer Schule, hier in der Kölnischen Strasse, die hiess damals Adolf Hitler Schule während des Krieges [laughs], und der sagte der Rektor da das ist der Ale Witschi [?], der mal zu uns in der Flakstellung kam und mit dem habe ich jetzt mal gesprochen über dich und der hatte gesagt ich sollte mal kommen, sollte mal gucken, der hätte einen Plan für mich. Da bin ich dann hingegangen, habe einen Ausbildungschef gefragt, hier ‚n Meister, darf ich da mal dahingehen? Ja selbstverständlich. Und da hat er gesagt: ‘Gut, zwei Tage Schule haben wir in der Woche. Und in den zwei Tagen kannste zur Schule gehen und die anderen vier Tage, weil ja Sonnabend auch ein Arbeitstag war, da gehste in die Lehre. Frag mal deinen Lehrmeister ob er das macht.
HZ: Und was haben sie da für eine Lehre gemacht?
HK: Maurerlehrer.
HZ: Maurerlehrer.
HK: So ich war im Baugeschäft, und meine Mutter stammte auch aus dem Baugeschäft, also für mich gab’s gar nichts anderes, ich war, begeistert bin ich heute noch. Ich wollte Baumeister werden, was das damals war weiss ich net, aber das wollte ich ja einfach werden und da musste ich, ja Schule gab’s nicht mehr und da hab ich gesagt, jeden Tag beim Onkel Stall misten wollte ich auch net, ich will Lehre machen und so. So ist das gekommen. Und die Tochter von dem Bauunternehmer hier in Kassel, die war eine Freundin von meiner ältesten Schwester. Also wir kannten die, die Familie kannte sich persönlich sowieso. Nun dann bin ich zum Vitrokin [?], das war der Rektor, der Kommissarische Rektor von der Schule und der hat mich begrüsst wie ein alter Kumpel den der kam in unser Flakschirm das hat man auch Unterricht gekriegt [unclear] Flakschirm weil wir Schüler waren neh und dann hatt er manchmal gesagt [unclear]:’Ach Jungs, habt ihr noch mal, nimmt mal eine Tasse Kaffee für mich’ Und dann kam so, alles zu Fuss, [unclear] und der war wie’n Kumpel für uns, das war der Lehrer, und dann hat er mich begrüsst wie ein alter Kumpel da neh, sagte mach dein Lehrmeister einen Vorschlag und da machste bis Ostern das und dann kriegste das Zeugnis der Mittleren Reife, das hatte ich auch net, hatte ich nix, Schule kaputt, und so haben wir das gemacht. Dann bin ich zwei Tage zu Schule gegangen, richtig noch Latein und Matte und alles sowas neh und dann habe ich so ein Einheitszeugnis, so gross, stand ‘Alles befriedigt’ [laughs]. Na ja gut, und das ist meine Schulausbildung gewesen, kein Abitur gemacht, gar nix. Na ja, und dann habe ich dann studiert, habe ich dann meine Maurerlehre gemacht, an der staatlichen Ingenieurschule beworben, und das war ja auch so tragisch. Da musste zwei Tage Aufnahmeprufung sein neh, mit dem bisschen Wissen was ich da aus der Schule hatte und dann waren, dreisig haben, wolltense aufnehmen, und driehundertsechsig Bewerber kamen da in die Schule am Königstor als Offiziere und hatten noch ihre Offiziersmäntel an und so weil wir nix kaufen konnten [unclear]. Und da bin ich natürlich mit Glanz und Gloria auch durchgefallen. Und da habe ich mich auf die Hose gesetzt. Mit einem Freund aus Gudensberg zusammen, den Roman [unclear], der stammte aus Litauen, der war da Flüchtling, und da haben wir da richtig gepauckt. Hier neben uns da wohnte der Doktor Enders, Mathematik, Studienrat, war’n Kollege, Freund von meinem Vater, genau hier in der Parallelwohnung in der [unclear] und der hat uns dann Mathe beigebracht. Plötzlich viel es mir wie Schuppen von den Augen, plözlich konnte ich ne Gleichung mit zwei Unbekannten, das war gar kein Problem mehr. Und so bin ich dann zur zweiten Prüfung ein halbes Jahr später und da hab ich’s bestanden und so hab ich meine Paar Semester, fünf, sechs Semester glaub ich, [unclear] Ausbildung
HZ: Gemacht.
HK: So ist das geworden. Und dann fanden wir keine Arbeit und so. Und dann bin ich da mit einem Kollegen hier rumgelaufen ob als Maurer ein bisschen Geld verdienen konnten, als Maurer kriegten’se [unclear] Arbeit das war ’52.
HZ: Das war [unclear].
HK: Das war ganz ganz schlimm neh. Und dann hatte ich durch einen Onkel, der war in Bielefeld Stadtrat und der hat mir vermittelt beim Bielefelder Tiefbeamt eine Aushilfstelle für einviertel Jahr und habe auch bei denen gewohnt, es waren so Industrielle die haben da heute noch so Fabriken und so was Graustoffwerk und da hatten sie aber keine Planstelle und mittlerweile habe ich mich beworben bei einer Hamburger Firma die ein Onkel von mir kannte weil der Besitzer, der Vater von dem jetzigen Besitzer er war, war ein Studienkollege von meinem Ober, so hat sich das ergeben. Und die bauten Helgoland wieder auf, weil Helgoland ja ein Abwurfgebiet von der Britischen Armee war nach’m Kriege, da haben sie X Bomben ausprobiert, die ganze Insel Helgoland die war praktisch unbewohnbar, Blindgänger und die mussten wir, wurde praktisch umgepflügt die ganze Insel, drei meter da weggetragen und dahingepackt und da gingen natürlich immer die Blindgänger und die Bomben hoch. Die Bagger die hatten solche Stahlplatten davor, das der Fahrer net verletzt wurde. Und kurz davor kriegt ich ein Telegramm, das habe ich übrigens noch, nächste Woche nicht, Telefon gab’s ja gar net, nicht nach Helgoland sondern Mönchengladbach. So, Telefonummer aufgeschrieben, da bin ich nach Mönchengladbach gefahren da kriegte, hatte die Firma einen grossen Auftrag gekriegt, das englische Hauptquartier, das Hauptverwaltungsgebaüde, das steht übrigens heute noch, da habe ich auch jetzt ein Bild gefunden noch davon und das hatte ja zweitausendzweihundert und so und soviele Zimmer, Britische Rheinarmee. Und das habe ich, da war ich Bauführer nannte sich damals. Waren wir drei Mann und hatten teilweise bis vierhundert Leute beschäftigt. Britische Rheinarmee hiess das glaub ich. Und da habe ich auch die Einweihung mitgemacht, da haben wir noch, vorne in den Haupteingang, in dem Pfeiler, da haben wir noch eine Kassette eingemauert die muss heute noch [unclear] sein, sind noch warscheinlich noch Namen die ich noch merkte, ich weiss es nimmer so genau, mit ne silbernen Kelle haben wir da [unclear]. Und das war meine Grösse und auch eine, da habe ich viel gelernt [unclear]. Ganze drei Jahre war ich da. Das war sehr interessant und da habe ich mit einem Englischen Pionieroffizier viel zu tun gehabt neh, das waren die die eher kein Deutsch konnten. Und ein Ziviloffizier der war mittlerweile dann, er war früher auch bei den Pionieren gewesen und der war dann entlassen worden wegen Alter, der war dann schon Ende fuffzig oder irgendwas, und der wollte noch als Zivilingenieur und der schlief auch in einer Barakke von uns und dem haben wir auch Skatspielen beigebracht.
HZ: [laughs]
HK: Und dann haben wir auch mit dem die Weltmeisterschaften damals wo Deutschland Weltmeister 1954, da hatten wir noch kein Fernsehen und alles so was. Da hat er mit uns geguckt, da haben wir auf’n Stuhlen gestanden und [laughs], na ja und das war der mister Webster und der hat mich so ein bisschen aufgeklärt, der sagte, hören sie mal Herr Koehler, der sprach ganz gut Deutsch, weil er eine Deutsche Frau hatte aus Aachen und der sagte: ‚Die können bestimmt auch Deutsch‘, und da habe ich mal irgendwie was falsch verstanden und da hat er mich zur Rede gestellt. Mister Buru, was er für einen [unclear] hatte weiss ich nicht, Major, Major Buru, und da habe ich gesagt: ‚so Major Buru‘, habe ich in Deutsch dann gesagt, ab jetzt kann ich kein Englisch mehr‘ und da hat er gelacht und da kam der mister Webster dazu und da haben die ein bisschen gequatscht und seit dem haben wir nur noch Deutsch gesprochen und mit den anderen Kollegen genauso [laughs]. Das war nun meine Zeit mit den Engländern und ich wollte immer nochmal nach’m Kriege hin, nach der Zeit hin, aber ich bin nie wieder dahingekommen. Es muss heute noch da und wenn sie mal da in der Nähe sind, Mönchengladbach, Ortsteil Hardter Wald, das ist ja’n Riesenbezirk, das sind ja, das ist hier wie ‚ne Stadt, da lebten fast zwanzigtausend Menschen, da gab’s Schulen und für die Offiziere, und Offizierskasino und Kino und Theater und da haben wir mehrere Baustellen gehabt, das war meine schönste Zeit so mit
HZ: Aus [unclear]
HK: Und von da aus sollte ich dann nach Berlin da kriegtense in Berlin ‚n Auftrag, und weil wir nun damals für das Englische Hauptquartier bauten, da waren wir für die DDR Feinde. Das war der Karl Eduard von Schnitzler hiess der, Sudel-Ede hiess der, der brachte so politische Kommentare jeden Tag, das war so’n Richter. Ich weiss nicht ob sie den Namen schon
HZ: Den Namen kenn ich noch ja.
HK: Eduard von Schnitzler, der Sudel-Ede hiess er bei uns, und der hat da mal gesagt: ‘Es gibt sogar Deutsche die für die feindlichen Truppen heute noch bauen’ und da haben wir sogar, wurden die Namen genannt, unsere drei Namen. Und ich hab’s selber net gehört, das haben sie von Hauptbüro aus Hamburg habense uns das gesagt, also hütet euch, die Verbindungsstrasse zu fahren zwischen Helmstedt und Berlin, [unclear] vielleicht festgenommen. Und dann sollte ich nach Berlin, da hätten wir nun fliegen können von Hannover aus und da hab ich dann hier alles mögliche mobil gemacht hier in Kassel neh. Durch so‘n befreundeten Architekten, dann kriegte ich dann ‚ne Stelle bei einem Architekten hier und von da aus, na ja, das interessiert sie jetzt [unclear]. Und so bin ich nachher bei der Stadt gelandet, bei der Stadt Kassel und hab für die die Kläranlage, das war der erste grosse Massnahme, die Kläranlage baute, seit dem haben sie mich übernommen und da war ich naher auch in zwanzig Jahren Sachgebietsleiter vom Brucken und [unclear] Bau. Wenn sie jetzt über eine Brücke fahren ist alles so [laughs]
HZ: [laughs] kann ich sagen.
HK: Na ja gut das ist mein Lebenslauf.
HZ: Ehm, so, weil sie schon mal angefangen, angesprochen haben mit dem Bombenangriff auf Kassel, was denken sie eigentlich wären so prägende Erlebnisse gewesen die sie vielleicht auch heute noch beschäftigen?
HK: Ja, die mich heute noch beschäftigen, ich seh’s jetzt erstmal vom baulichen Standpunkt her. Die ganze Altstadt, die aus‘m Mittelalter noch stammt, die ist mit einem Schlag innerhalb zwei Stunden war alles kaputt und zehntausend Menschen in den Kellern, so, und die haben einen schönen Tod gehabt. Die sind an Sauerstoffmangel eingeschlafen. Den Keller hat wir ja früher net met waagerechten Decken gemacht sondern es waren nur Gewölbe, sonst ging aus staatlichen Gründen net anders neh. Und da sind die eingeschlafen, die sind regelrecht gebacken worden, oben bis auf diesen brennenden Schutt rauf und dieses Gewölbe war wie Backofen beim Bäcker. Da sind die zusammengeschrumpft so wie wir, wir wären plötzlich so gross gewesen, dieses ganze Wasser wäre verdampft neh. Die haben eigentlich einen sehr schönen Tod gehabt. Entschuldige wenn ich das so sage heute, das will ja keiner hören. Die sind eingeschlafen, Sauerstoffmangel, eingeschlafen und nie wieder aufgewacht. Und sind gebacken worden. Denn Ich habe die ja nachher gesehen wo sie aus den Kellergewölben rausgeholt wurden, von Gefangenen her, die ehemaligen Nazis und die mussten die da rausholen. Nach’m Kriege und so neh.
HZ: Sind da eigentlich beim raümen weil sie da auch dabei waren, sind da auch Zwangsarbeiter und Kriegs, wie heiss’ns, Kriegsgefangene eingesetzt worden?
HK: Ja diese, Kriegsgefangene, waren da auch. Das will ich noch mal kurz sagen. Die Flakstellung wo wir waren bei der Flak. Ich war nun bei der Umwertung, und der, war mein Schulfreund hier und der Elektrofritze da, wir hatten zuhause, der Mann, der Ober der war schon ein grosser Elektroindustrielle und so, Funkmessgerät und so. Und wennse zur, an’s Geschutz kamen, da war, drei Kannoniere waren Luftwaffenhelfer, die stellten diese Messgeräte an, wir konnten das ja viel besser als die Soldaten die vorher da waren, weil wir schneller und pfiffiger waren neh, das waren drei Luftwaffenhelfer an jeder eine Kannone, die die Breitengrade, Höhengrade und die Entfernung eingestellt haben und der Ladekannonier das war ein Deutscher und die Zureichen die Munition, das waren meistens Russische Kriegsgefangene. Müssen sich das vorstellen, die saßen, oder Französische, die saßen mit uns in dem kleinen Wald da neh und haben gebibbert. Dann habe ich dann auch von denen die, zum Teil Deutsch, hattense immer Hunger und dann kriegten sie von uns immer eine Scheibe Brot neh und alles so was. Wir hatten ein gutes Verhältnis mit denen, das war das mit den Kriegsgefangenen und die waren natürlich auch viele in der Industrie hier in Kassel, in Kassel hatten wir die Junkerswerke und so,
HZ: Da hätten [unclear] der Fieseler.
HK: Fieseler und so. Und auch die Munition herstellten [unclear] war früher neh und so und deshalb war ja auch die Flak hier rings rum und so. Ja und so haben wir viel mit den Kriegsgefangenen, wie viel da nun tot gegangen sind hier in der Stadt, die wohnten ja net hier in so, die wohnten immer ausserhalb in so Lagern, desshalb sind net allzu viele da umgekommen von den Kriegsgefangenen.
HZ: Nöh, ich hab bloß, ob die dann auch eingesetzt, ob die dann auch eingesetzt wurden beim raümen. Ich hatte da, ich hatte da von dem, da hatt schon mal einer Überlebensberichte veröffentlicht ‚93, die habe ich mir mal angeguckt und da sind auch zumindestens zwei Holländer und ein Franzose dabei. Aber, weil halt dann die Zeitungen hier, die Regionalzeitungen, die fragen ja dann schon nach Zuschriften, aber weil das ja dann immer bloß regional gemacht wird, da kriegt man ja dann immer bloß die Deutschen Stimmen,
HK: Richtig. Richtig, genau. Richtig.
HZ: Die von dem anderen, da hört man ja nix und das wär natürlich auch mal interessant.
HK: Nein also Holländer waren viele, Kriegsgefangene Holländer waren viele hier in Kassel. Und hier eine kleine Episode wo wir aus dem Keller mit meinen Freunden, aus dem, irgendwo brannte es, aus dem Keller haben wir dann die Paar Sachen rausgeholt, die lagen tagelang, vier, fünf Tage auf der Strasse, da hat keiner was geklaut oder irgendwas neh. Und dann wo wir dann mit dem Pferdewagen hier nach Kassel kamen und haben das dann abgeholt wollen, da war mitten in der Strasse, also die Hansteinstrasse, die Uferstrasse ist, genau in der mitte der Strasse war ein Riesenbombentrichter. Wir konnten also mit dem Wagen garnet zu unserm Haus finden.
HZ: Ja.
HK: Es war nur so’n schmaler Streifen an dem Vorgarten links und da hätten wir die ganzen Sachen da vorne an die Hauptstrasse bringen müssen, wo der Wagen stand, und da bin ich unten in die Hauptstrasse rein und da kam mal zwei Männer und da sag ich:, kommt mal her, wollt ihr mir da ein bisschen helfen?‘, das waren Holländer und die haben mir geholfen diese Sachen dahin und da habense so’ne Flasche Wein also von meinem Vater her, der hatte noch so‘n Weinschrank und da waren noch ein Paar Flaschen Wein drin und da hab ich ihnen eine gegeben und eine habense mir noch geklaut, das hab ich aber erst später gemerkt aber das hab ich ja eingesehen, das war schon richtig neh und so und das waren Holländer. Die haben mir dann geholfen. Also die liefen dann hier rum, so Freizeit, haben net dauernd gearbeitet, aber wie das war weiss ich net. Also über diese Verhaltnisse weiss ich eigentlich wenig Bescheid, die waren nur da, aber was se sonst so gemacht haben weiss ich net.
HZ: Da hat’s, ’95, die haben mal eine Wiedervereinigung hier gemacht, da haben sich welche hier in Kassel sogar wieder, wieder getroffen. Aber wie gesagt, die, man hört halt die Stimmen, man hört halt immer bloß die, also die Deutsch waren und auch hier im Gebiet geblieben sind, weil ich glaube das da einer in Bad Nauheim zum Beispiel die Hannoversche Allgemeine liesst, die werden, da gib’s halt dann keine Zuschrifften, desswegen habe ich da bloß immer so, so gefragt.
HK: Also es gab ja viele persönliche Schicksale auch neh, das auch sich Freundschaften gebildet haben. Zum Beispiel hier hatte mein Onkel in Gudensberg, der kriegte einen Polnischen Kriegsgefangenen, so als Hilfe, und das war ein Polnischer Student, war ein hochintelligenter Kerl, Jurek hiess er, und der hatte vorher noch nie was mit Landwirtschaft zu tun gehabt, der musste da milken lernen und so, der hatte es sehr gut beim Onkel, der durfte nur net am Tisch sitzen, sondern der musste am Küchentisch, da wurde so’ne Platte rausgeschoben, da sass der. Und mit dem bin ich dann zusammen auf’n Acker und hab gehackt und so und da hab ich ihm die Deutsche Grammatik beigebracht, das wollte er gerne wissen und ich hab da auch die Polnische Grammatik mitgekriegt, also das war aüsserst interessant. Und die Geschichte, er interessierte sich für alles, also war schon interessant neh. Hatten ne richtige Freundschaft geschlossen neh, der war nur zehn Jahre älter oder was, aber trotzdem. Und der ist auf einem Polnischen Zerstörer Soldat gewesen und da kamen die Stukas gleich am ersten oder zweiten Tag und haben den versenkt in der Ostsee und da haben sich ganze drei Mann retten können und er konnte gut schwimmen und hatt dann, durch’s schwimmen hatt er dann sich’s Leben gerettet. Und dadurch das er nun gut Deutsch konnte und sehr intelligent war, ist er in dem Polnischen Reisebüro Orbis nachher angestellt gewesen, in Danzig, neh in Posen glaub ich war das, neh Danzig, Stettin, entschuldigung, es ist, so ist das heute mit dem alten Kopf, Stettin. Und der hat mich hier mehrmals besucht. Der war der erste Polnische Reisende der hier in Deutschland sich bewegen durfte und der hat die Deutschen Reisegruppen, die wurden an der Grenze abgefangen und dann, die mussten ja alles ohne Aufsicht neh und wenn ne Deutsche Reisegruppe war, dann haben sie ihn eingeteilt weil er auch Deutsch konnte und wenn hier eine Reisegruppe aus Kassel kam, dann hatt er gesagt: ‚Sie kommen aus Kassel?‘, ‚Ja‘ ,Kennen sie Helmut Koehler?‘ ‚Nöh‘. Dann hatt er ihn die Telephonnummer gegeben, ja da hatte ich schon Telephon richtig, Anfang der 60er Jahre oder wann das war, ändert doch, ja so ungefähr, was soll denn, und da hatt er gesagt: ‚Rufen sie an wenn sie jetzt zuhause sind‘. Und da kriegt ich da X Telephongespräche hier von allen möglichen Leuten, ich soll sie grussen vom Yurek, [laughs] war schon interessant. Und dann kam er dann wirklich mal an und hat, er war der erste Polnische Reisende der hier nach Deutschland kommen konnte. Und dann kam er hier an, hatte vorher angerufen, war meine Frau da, die kannte den Jurek ja net und dann sagt’se, rief sie mich an im Büro, sagt‘se:‘Der Jurek hat angerufen‘. Jurek, ja dein Polnischer Freund, ja ja. Und dann haben wir am Fenster gestanden, um fünf oder was wollte er kommen und hatt sich dann, savott, [unclear] sieht genauso aus. Und der war jahrelang gleich nach’m Kriegsende hier in einer Kaserne auf der Hasenhecke da kamen die ganzen Polnischen und Russischen Kriegsgefangenen wurden da erstmal einquartiert und da war er Chef der Lagerpolizei. Da hat er mich eingeladen zu seiner Hochzeit, da hat er geheiratet und da hat meine Mutter gesagt: ‚Du kannst da net hinfahren, erstmal komste da gar net hin‘, erstmal von Gudensberg aus nach Kassel fuhr gar kein Zug richtig, und dann von hier aus laufen bis zur Hasenhecke das war in Waldau ganz, ich weiss net ob sie das genau so kennense.
HZ: Wir sind heute oben gewesen.
HK: Waldau, das ist so ganz unten an der Fulda da neh. Das ist noch mal mindestens zwei Stunden Fussweg neh, wie willste denn dahin kommen und da bin ich da net hin. Und da hat er mich am Bahnhof abgepasst, ich hab ja da schon gearbeitet, da hat er gesagt:‘So, du bist auf meiner Hochzeit nicht gewesen‘, da hat er mich ein ganzes Jahr lang net angeguckt, da kam er [unclear]. Und der, ich hab noch Post von ihm heute, da hatt er mir, ach, x-mal geschrieben und da kam er hier und dann hatt er mir von der Polnischen Politik berichtet, hier bei mir durfte er das jetzt sagen. Also das waren Zustände, wissense [unclear], soundosoviel Quadratmeter eine Person, durfte glaub ich nur zehn Quadratmeter Wohnfläche haben für eine Person sonst musseste zahlen, also unmögliche Zustände. Na ja gut, das war mit den Polen.
HZ: Und noch, noch irgendwas von der, noch irgendwas aus ihrer Zeit von der, bei der Flak?
HK: Von der Flak, neh. Ja gut also, wie gesagt, hier wo wir am Edersee waren, alle, zweimal in der Woche musste ich nach Kassel fahren, ich hatt’s natürlich gut, da brauchte ich keinen Dienst mehr zu machen. Und so habe ich auch viele Angriffe mitgemacht, die letzten Angriffe neh. Und da war ja meine Mutter und meine [unclear] schwangere Schwester die waren dann schon in Gudensberg, aber die Wohnung war immernoch da, die ist erst ganz, ja, letzter Angriff oder vorletzter Angriff auf Kassel. Und da war die Nachbarin die hat ja gesagt: ‚Helmut, kannst ruhig hier schlafen, wenn Fliegeralarm kommt da mach ich dich schon wach‘. Weil ich das [unclear] gehört habe, als junger Bursche [laughs] und so war das neh. Ja also da gibt’s eigentlich und dann die Angriffe hier. Dann eines Tages hatten wir einen Blindgänger im Haus, das war in der Silvesternacht, vom ‚44 auf ‚45, da war ich am Edersee und Neujahr musste ich Kurierdienst machen und da war ein Zettel an der Haustür: ‚Vorsicht, Blindgänger‘. Alle Leute [unclear] raus, die mussten alle weg. Da ist durch die Decken, durch die Bäder, wir hatten sogar schon Bäder damals, ist die Bombe durch die ganzen Bäder durch und über der Luftschutzkellerdecke ist die Bombe hängen geblieben, wenn die explodierte waren sie alle tot. Und meine Mutter, wir wohnten im dritten Stock, die ist als erstes raufgegangen, die wäre fast da reingefallen in das Loch, die hat das erst gar nicht gesehen weil ja kein Licht da, kein Strom und nix. Und dann hat sie geschrien und dann die Leute alle: ‚Ach Gott!‘ durch die Badewanne durch, war plötzlich ein Loch [laughs]. Na ja, und das haben’se dann wieder irgendwie geflickt, bis es dann ganz kaputt ging. Ja und als Luftwaffenhelfer das was insofern ‚ne interessante Zeit weil das für uns eben, ja, wie soll ich das sagen, wir waren aufgeweckte Gymnasiasten und wir hatten plötzlich eine Zeit vor uns die, die wir net richtig begreifen konnten, habe ich ja eben schon gesagt was is wenn der Krieg jetzt zu Ende ist, was passiert denn mit uns? Diese Gespräche hatten wir schon.
HZ: Das könnten sie auch für das Band nochamal dazu sagen, weil das haben sie mir ja schon vorher mal erzählt. Die Gespräche dann das die vielleicht, das da vielleicht die Flakhelfer so einen Sieg des Dritten Reiches gar net so entgegengesehn haben.
HK: Ja, das war zum Beispeil nach dem Angriff, nach dem Attentat auf‘m Hitler, das war der 20 Juni, Juli, glaub’ich, Juni.
HZ: Juni.
HK: 20 Juni 1944.
HZ: ‚44.
HK: Und dann, wie gesagt, dann in der Kabine, von der Funk, ach wie heisst der, wo die Nachrichten kamen, da wurde dann immer so die Lage da mitgeteilt, Hitler ist davongekommen undsoweiter, aes wurde da immer mitgeteilt. Und da kam der Hauptmann, Leutnant [unclear] und konnte dann [unclear] hören. So und da haben wir abends im Bett gelegen und haben dann gesagt: ‚Hier, das was wohl jetzt wird hier‘ undsoweiter und der Hitler ist davongekommen und da hat der einer gesagt.‘So’ne Scheisse!‘ [laughs], das werde ich also nie vergessen. Und da haben wir schon drüber unterhalten. Was wäre gewesen wenn und da haben wir aber auch debatiert drüber was des auch der Stauffenberg neh, was der auch für Fehler gemacht hat. Wenn er schon sowas macht, das Attentat auf’n Hitler, dann hätte er das auch richtig machen müssen. Er hätte warten müssen bis der tot ist, net vorher schon weglaufen. Er ist ja weggelaufen wo es da explodiert ist, er hätte sich erkundigen müssen, ist er nun wirklich tot oder so, und dadurch ist [unclear] das alles entstanden, wäre er danach stehngeblieben und hätte anschliessend erschossen, dann wäre er zwar auch erschossen worden aber so ist er auch umgekommen. Also das haben wir damals diskutiert, also der Stauffenberg hat da Fehler gemacht. Also so sachliche Gespräche haben wir als junge Leute gemacht, das ist mir noch gut [unclear] aber sonst mussten wir immer das machen was befohlen wurde, eigene Initiative konnten wir net haben.
HZ: Die, ehm, da werden verschiedene Zahlen angegeben, wie viel Flakhelfer einen Luftwaffensoldaten ersätzt hätten, ‚43, da heisst es, die einen sagen das wären, ein Flakhelfer für einen Soldaten gewesen, andere sagen das seien drei Flakhelfer für zwei Soldaten gewesen. Wissen sie da irgendwas?
HK: Hab ich ihnen ja eben gesagt, also diese Posten die wir hatten an der Kannone, die wären sonst von Soldaten gemacht worden
HZ: Also eins zu eins.
HK: Also jede Kannone wurden drei Soldaten gespart. Und wenn’s so’ne Grosskampfbatterie, die hatten acht Kannonen, acht ortsfeste Kannonen, also drei mal achzehn, vierundzwanzig Soldaten wurden schon alleine Kannonen gespart. Und dann kam dazu noch Kommandogerät, da hatten wir auch pfiffige Schüler von uns, die waren am Kommandogerät, da waren auch mindestens dreie, ich weiss es heute nicht mehr so genau, jeden [unclear] und Funkmessgerät. Und dann hier die Umwertung, wo wir nur Luftwaffenhelfer waren, da waren ja früher Soldaten. Also ich hatte alleine, ich war mal eine Zeitlang [unclear] Unteroffizier der, des Befehlsgewalt hatte über die Umwertung, der musste zum Lehrgang, da muss ja einer Stellvertreter sein und da hatt der Hauptmann bestimmt das war ich. Und in der Zeit ist das passiert mit dem Sperrfeuer und da musste ich natürlich bestraft werden, da kam ich zur zbV Batterie [laughs] das ist so kleine Erinnerung, da wurde ich bestraft. Na ja aber schon, das sind dann schon also vierundzwanzig, ich möchte mal sagen schon fast dreissig Soldaten wurden da schon gespart an einer Flakstellung, und wir waren ja ungefähr dreissig Luftwaffenhelfer.
HZ: Sind da auch welche von denen die sie gekannt haben, sind da auch welche gefallen?
HK: Neh.
HZ: Neh.
HK: Also wir haben zwar einen Bombenangriff mitgemacht und zwar in Kaufungen, da wo des grosse Lager von Panzern und LKWs war von der Deutschen Industrie, da ist genau zwischen der Flak, zwischen der Geschützstellung und zwischen der Befehlsstelle, da waren ungefähr, hundert, hundertfuffzig meter dazwischen und genau da ist mal ein ganzer Bombenteppich runter [unclear], genau dazwischen, und da hatt einer noch hier, am Fuss hier, irgendwie‘n Stein oder was da, kam ins Lazzaret hatte eine Verse kaputt. Das war das einzige was ich erlebt habe. Aber hier vorne, in der [unclear] hier, wenn sie hier ein Stückchen runtergehen, zum Auestadion, da ist, geht’s links die Ludwig-Mond-Strasse hoch und das war früher alles freies Feld und da stand eine Flakstellung, die haben viele Tote gehabt da. Da ist mal ein ganzer Bombenteppich über die Flakstellung weg, aber wie viel das wurde damals nicht bekannt gegeben. Da waren also mehrere Schüler die sind dann umgekommen aber zahlmässig waren es verhältnissmässig wenig, dass muss ich schon sagen. Die haben schon ein Bisschen auf uns jungen, junge Burschen so’n bisschen Mitleid gehabt oder so. Auch die Offiziere, das waren alles Familienväter und so. Unser Batterieschef der war von Beruf Mattestudienrat und der sah nun die armen Jungen da und hatte vielleicht selber auch Kinder zuhause und so. Also die haben uns schon so’n bisschen [unclear], das haben wir damals nicht so gemerkt, das haben wir nur dann später so erzählt wenn wir mal zusammen waren, na ja.
HZ: Gut.
HK: Weiss nicht ob ich ihnen viel dienen konnte mit dem, also, eh.
HZ: Des ist, des is ok, da bedanke ich mich. Weil das geht ja um ihre Erinnerungen, das geht ja net da drum.
HK: Ja, sicher, ich meine, Politik wurde damals ja ausgeschlossen, Politik gab’s die ganze Woche Politik, das kannten wir ja net gar net, also wenn da einer was von Politik erzählte wusste da einer gar nix mehr da anzufangen. Was Hitler sagte das war Evangelium. Und ich kann mich erinnern, das war wo wir am Edersee waren, sind, Weihnachten, ja hatten wir keinen Ausgang, mussten wir da bleiben Weihnachten, Weihnachten ‚44, ah da gab’s da ein Festessen, da gab’s net nur Sauerkraut und Pellkartoffeln, das gab’s fünf mal in der Woche, da gab’s dann zu Weihnachten ein Stückchen Fleisch ob das nun vom Hund war oder vom das wusste kein Mensch. Und da sassen wir in der Kantine und da sagte dann der Hautpmann: ‚Na, nun wollen wir mal ein Weihnachtslied singen‘. Da waren wir alle so traurig, wir Jungen, kriegte keiner einen Ton raus und einer nach‘m anderen ging dann raus und ich musste dann auch raus weil Tränen kamen und dann standen im Saal und heulten aber wie, ein Geschluchze und so. Also man merkte dann doch diese innere Ergriffenheit unter uns Schülern, wir waren net alle so, und dann mussten wir dann die Reden von Goebbels glaub ich oder wer das war, mussten wir dann anhören. Also es war schon manchmal schwierig, das kann ich ihnen sagen. Genau wie ich mal als Pimpf, wie war denn das, ich war hier auch, Hitlerjunge net zuerst waren es Pimpfe neh, also Jungvolk hiess das, mit zehn Jahren und so, da kriegtense die Uniform da waren wir ganz stolz drauf. Und dann war, wie war denn das eigentlich, jetzt weiss ich nicht zu welchem Anlass, denn da musste ich in der Stadthalle auf der Bühne an der Fahne stehen und vor uns dann, war das nach dem ersten Angriff auf Kassel glaub ich, das war ‚42, was, so war das, da kam der Joseph Goebbels und hat’ne Rede gehalten, da [unclear] so fünf, sechs Meter hinter’m Joseph gestanden, mit der Fahne neh, da konnte sie ja nix ändern dran, sie wurden einfach bestimmt, konnte sie sich net wehren oder so, das weiss ich immer noch so und da hat unsere Herzen werden starker und was er da alles gebrüllt hat, das ist zu erinnern. Genau wie einmal, das war glaub ich zum Reichskriegertag, ‚39, da war ich grade so‘m Pimpf, da war der Hitler hier in Kassel, zum Reichskriegertag, das mus ‚39, nah sie konn’s ja besser recherchieren, ich weiss nicht mehr wann das war, und da waren wir an der schönen Aussicht und da sollten wir absperren und, aber die Leute haben uns kleinen Jungen ja weggedrängt. Da bin ich hinten auf die Mauer die ja heute noch da ist und hab von oben geguckt und ich sag immer heute noch zu den Jungen, da hat mich der Hitler begrüsst, da guckte er nämlich grade dahin, machte immer so net, und grade da in dem Moment wo er zu mir guckt, da winkte er, da sag ich er hat mir zugeguckt [laughs] [unclear] das wissen meine Enkel sogar [laughs] [unclear]. Ja, Hitler, das ist so, für meinen Begriff, war das schon ein grosser Stratege und ein unheimlich schlauer Mensch, ganz egal was er nun gemacht hat, das Ergebniss war ja schlecht, aber wie er das gemacht hat, es gibt in der ganzen Geschichte, sie kennen die Geschichte besser, so Napoleon oder, ganzen Kriegen so, wie der Cäsar und so, das waren Strategen neh, oder hier, Dschingis Khan und so, wenn man sich vorstellt, in der Zeit, die kommen von der Mongolei mit Pferden und was weiss ich alle hierher, und beherschen ganze Riesenreiche hier. Also das ist schon eine gewaltige Sache und in diese Kategorie gehört meiner Meinung auch der Hitler wenn auch jetzt negativ seine Taten waren, aber er war Stratege, er hat bestimmt was jetzt gemacht wurde und die ganzen Generäle, die Feldmarschälle mussten das machen was er wollte. Das ist gar nicht so einfach sich das vorzustellen. Ich will den net in Schutz nehmen, net dasse denken ich wär ein alter Nazi oder so neh [laughs]. Aber er war wirklich und mein Vater der war jawohl, gut ich wusste nur, er hat jetzt eine Doktorarbeit gemacht über den Alten Fritze da und den Schlesigen Kriege da, und was er verehrt hat, das weiss ich von meiner Mutter her, Napoleon. Das war für ihn ein Riesenstratege wohl. Da hing sogar im Flur ein Riesengemälde von Napoleon, da kann ich mich als Kind da noch erinnern. Also es gab in der Welt mal so bestimmte Typen die übernormal strategisch begabt waren, das wissen sie besser, [unclear] sowas hier dazu erzählen [laughs] aber das ist meine Empfindung hier, meine Empfindung.
HZ: Gut, dann bedanke ich mich jetzt auch [unclear] mal.
HK: Ja, ich hoffe das.
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
Interview with Helmut Köhler
Description
An account of the resource
Helmut Köhler (b. 1928) recalls his wartime experience as Luftwaffenhelfer. He provides a first-hand account of two attacks on Kassel, the first on the 22 October 1943 and the second in March 1944. He describes his time spent inside the air-raid shelter; how he helped extinguish fires; the destruction of schools and the entire old town being razed to the ground. He also discusses everyday life in an anti-aircraft unit, the process of matching skills to roles, training, and anti-aircraft fire. He mentions being posted to a special deployment unit as a punishment for noncompliance, following which he was re-trained on quadruplet anti-aircraft guns at the Eder dam. He briefly talks about the breaching of the Eder dam and the ensuing flood wave. Helmut Köhler recalls Russian and French prisoners of war manning flak batteries. He describes an unexploded bomb in his house on new year’s eve 1944. He stresses that Luftwaffenhelfer freed up soldiers for combat roles and highlights how the replacement ratio was almost 1:1. He mentions his first encounter with American troops in Gudensberg at the end of the war.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harry Ziegler
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
2017-03-03
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Format
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00:59:29 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
deu
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AKohlerH170303
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Eder Dam
Germany--Gudensberg
Germany
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.
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. Luftwaffe
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-22
1944-03
1944-12
1943-05-16
1943-05-17
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
childhood in wartime
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
firefighting
Luftwaffenhelfer
prisoner of war
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/377/6710/LDawsonSR142531v2.2.pdf
49c83001650f4a5f72ee40cfc1a96250
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
Stephen Dawson's pilot's flying log book. Two
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDawsonSR142531v2
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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.
Format
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One booklet
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Stephen Dawson, covering the period from 6 April 1942 to 30 August 1944. Detailing his instructor duties, flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Swanton Morley, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Swinderby, RAF Wigsley, RAF Bourn, RAF Gransden Lodge, RAF Market Harborough, RAF Silverston and RAF Boscombe Down. Aircraft flown in were, Oxford, Wellington, Lancaster, Boston, Mitchell, Buckingham, Marauder, Halifax, Liberator, Harvard, Avenger, Defiant, Barracuda, Hampden, Black Widow, Hurricane and Mosquito. He flew a total of 32 Night operations with 97 Squadron. Targets were, Krefeld, Mulheim, Wuppertal, Cologne, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Essen, Nurnburg, Milan, Leverkusen, Berlin, Mannheim, Munich, Hannover, Frankfurt, Fredrichshaven, Modane, Cannes and Ludwigshaven. The log book included pictures of examples of some of the aircraft flown, also handwritten list of targets and bomb loads.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Northamptonshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
England--Wiltshire
France--Cannes
France--Modane
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Wuppertal
Italy--Milan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1943-06-23
1943-06-24
1943-06-25
1943-06-28
1943-06-29
1943-07-03
1943-07-04
1943-07-08
1943-07-09
1943-07-10
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-26
1943-07-27
1943-07-28
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-08-02
1943-08-03
1943-08-10
1943-08-11
1943-08-12
1943-08-13
1943-08-22
1943-08-23
1943-08-24
1943-09-05
1943-09-06
1943-09-07
1943-09-22
1943-09-23
1943-09-24
1943-09-27
1943-09-28
1943-10-02
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-05
1943-10-07
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
1943-11-03
1943-11-04
1943-11-10
1943-11-11
1943-11-12
1943-11-17
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
14 OTU
1654 HCU
97 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
B-25
B-26
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Boston
Defiant
Halifax
Hampden
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Bourn
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Silverstone
RAF Swanton Morley
RAF Swinderby
RAF Wigsley
training
Wellington
-
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 Herbert R., Kassel, Moltkestraße 8 and makes the following statement:
I am from Essen. We moved to Kassel on 1 August 1942 to escape the terror bombing.
After the alarm came, we, my wife Else and daughter Christel and my sister-in-law Emilie Mühlenbacher and her brother Werner, went to the air raid cellar in our block of flats in 8 Moltkestraße. The powerful explosions shook the houses. Our street too was hit by an explosive bomb and in addition to that, it was raining innumerable incendiaries on our houses. The rear building was already on fire. The fire had been working its way already down from the roof timbering to the third floor. Fumes, smoke and dust where coming into our air raid shelter. The house opposite, Moltkestraße 7, was not on fire yet. The whole row of houses opposite still seemed safe. There was, however, a huge bomb crater between nos. 7 and 11. Our ARP warden said: “We have to get out of here, otherwise we’ll all die!” I collected my family and we agreed that we would quickly run to the house opposite. I wanted to go and save our suitcases. But my wife said: “Please, let it go and only save us, me and the child!” – At this point the man breaks down in tears, overwhelmed by the memory. – Before we ran across, I soaked coats and blankets and so we ran across to the stairwell of no. 7. When we turned around, my sister-in-law and the little boy weren’t there. They were afraid to run through the fire which was burning foot-high on the street. I said to my wife: “Stay here; I go and get the others.” In that moment a sergeant came along who said: “If it gets worse, I’ll take your wife and the eight-month old child with me in the cellar.” So I ran back to get the other two. As we get back to no. 7, there’s no sign of my wife and my child. The sergeant had probably taken them with him in the cellar. Here everything was in chaos. The women were channelled through the breakthrough, so as to get from the Detmolder Hof [a pub] to the Lutherplatz. I ran through two breakthroughs, shouting the names of the missing, but did not get an answer. So I ran back and thought: Maybe they’re still at the back. But I could not find them. I now hoped that they’d been fortunate enough to get to the Lutherplatz and wanted to run there through the street.
Because of the firestorm, I had had to wrap a blanket around my head. I couldn’t see anything and as I was running, something got between my legs. It was the overhead wire of the tram. I was on Königstraße. Because of the heat and the smoke I felt faint. I fell. Then I felt something wet with my hand. It was a clear puddle, in the middle of the street. Water was welling up into the street, probably because of a broken mains. I wetted my mouth and rolled in the water. I had a bath like a canary. That woke me up a bit. But I had burnt my hands and feet. Then a few soldiers came running along, saying I couldn’t keep lying there because the houses would collapse. And already burning debris came falling down. So they ran away. I crawled further down the street and reached a hydrant. I lay under the water jet. More soldiers came, also a Dutchman who has done many good things, and they thought I’d get pneumonia if I stayed there and they carried me in a tunnel which was on the neighbouring plot. There was an almighty throng, many injured. I had a look at my watch. It had stopped at 11.20, probably because water had got in when I was rolling in the puddle. A soldier said it was twenty to one. Now we were waiting for the morning. A nurse bandaged my hands and feet and men from the auxiliary service brought me to the rescue centre at Henschel and Son. In the afternoon, I was taken by a truck to the Möncheberg hospital. On Sunday, I was able to open my eyes again. Then I travelled to Essen. I hoped to hear from my family there. But they were and remain 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
Herbert, R
Description
An account of the resource
Mr Herbert's account of the events at Moltkestraße 7 and 8, Untere Königstraße.
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
1944-02-03
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--Essen
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
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 1
BKasselVdObmv10001
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
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
fear
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 are Mrs Marie Sch., née L., and Miss Elisabeth L. and make the following statement:
We – my mother Elisabeth L., née Gischler, born 8 December 1855, and my brother Heinrich – lived in no. 6. After the alarm, we went immediately to the cellar. Soon, the first incendiaries were falling and also canisters [with white phosphorous]. It didn’t take very long and everything was in flames. The breakthroughs had already been opened. People came from nos. 2 and 4 because the corner house was said to have collapsed. The prefabs were also on fire. It is indescribable how these were bent by the fire. Smoke started to develop in the cellar. We wanted to get through to nos. 8 and 10 now. But our breakthrough to no. 8 was only a manway and fairly high up. You had to crawl through on your belly. Our mother could not come with us. Everything got therefore delayed. My brother ran ahead and gave the butcher Fernau in Georgenstraße a rucksack with valuables. Then he came back.
In the meantime, we had fallen asleep. My brother then tried and fetch me and was calling for help on the Friedrichsplatz and the Schöne Aussicht. Finally he found a soldier he knew and a relative of the soldier, Private Siebert, of Frankfurter Straße 1. They came to the cellar with my brother and helped him to carry my mother and me through the breakthrough. I was brought on a handcart to the garrison headquarters on the Friedrichsplatz where I was put on a stretcher and carried to the Red Cross. That is where I woke on Sunday morning.
My mother had been put on a truck of the auxiliary service. I have been told that Mr Hochhuth of Frankfurter Straße 8 was on the same transport. This gentleman woke up on Saturday at about 11 in the deaconesses’ hospital. He had not even been taken off the stretcher, supposedly, but transported there directly. From there he was taken to the Lutherhaus in Melsungen. Only men were there. My brother made further queries but unfortunately no one showed him a list. They said they’d write later but have not done so.
I am sure that my mother did not remain in the cellar. We were rescued about 1 in the morning.
Today, Mrs. Sch., née L., returns and adds to her statement:
My mother was wearing a black dress with striped trimming, a grey cardigan and over that a black one with short sleeves, a black coat, a black scarf with a white stripe and over that a dressing gown, blue with yellow stripes, a yellow collar and cuffs and a hat.
Today I met Herr Siebert who is now in Rothenburg/Fulda. He had carried my mother and the sister from no. 8 (and also Mr Hochhuth) on a ladder, together with his cousin, a sergeant and another soldier. He had seen that my mother had still opened her eyes on Friedrichsplatz and that she had been put on an ambulance of the make Ford. She was together with five other people. Herr Siebert couldn’t say whether Mr Hochhuth had been put on the same waggon.
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
Marie, S and Elisabeth, L
Description
An account of the resource
Mrs Marie Sch, (née L.), and Miss Elisabeth, L's account of the events at Frankfurter Straße 2, 4, 6, 8.
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
1944-02-04
1944-02-05
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 2
BKasselVdObmv10002
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
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
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 Mrs Maria V., Wilhelmstraße 2 ½, 1st floor and makes the following statement:
By about half eight, we had alarm and then the shooting started. I was always the first in the cellar which amused the other tenants because of my fearfulness. Soon, the rear building was burning, after an hour or so. My husband and my son tried to save the building but came back after ten minutes. My husband had burnt his hands. He sank on a chair and said: “I can’t go on.” Then the men tried to open the breakthrough to Klingebeils’. Their house must have collapsed. From there we just had smoke come through and a voice said to me: Bend down, bend down!” I bent over, always further down, where there was still some good air. Then I passed out. When I woke up again, I guess that I had been lying there for hours, I could see that everything behind me was on fire. I was lying in the breakthrough to Klingebeils. My feet were getting hot. I can’t remember where I got out whether through the Stadtparkgarten or through Wilhelmstraße.
Everywhere on the Friedrichsplatz were dead bodies. I searched for the others everywhere, I thought, maybe somebody will come past here. But no one came. Then I went to the train station because I could no longer bear the sight of all these dead people. There I asked someone where I could find something to drink because my mouth was burning. It was already daylight. I’d guess that it was about ten. The city centre did not burn any more, only in Kölnische Straße a few houses were still in flames. Then I went to the town hall where I was given a coffee. I thought to return to where I came from, Lippstadt, but I was told that it would be better if I looked for the missing first. I therefore went back to Wilhelmstraße. There, I met my brother-in-law, the furrier Hugo Meßling, he had been in the Stadtpark where he had been on duty as an air raid warden. That’s how he was saved. All the others had been killed. My husband too. I did not want to hear anything of the sort, I was the only one saved, as through a miracle. Because that inner voice had been saying ‘bend over, bend over, bend over’ and because I had to vomit twice. But my husband and family have all been killed, except Herr Meßling. I did not want to know and believe 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
Maria, V
Description
An account of the resource
Maria V's account of the events at Wilhelmstraße 2 ½
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
1944-02-18
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 3
BKasselVdObmv10003
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
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
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 Mrs Karoline K., Obere Karlstraße 17, now Harleshausen, Pideritzstraße 7, and makes the following statement:
In the evening of the air raid, there were only a few cinema-goers left in the pub. Mainly soldiers who were having a drink after the screening which had finished by half seven. They, together with other guests, came with us to the cellar but they went to the public one whereas we went to the private one for the people living in the house. We were originally in our business, in the dairy, across from them. The air raid had taken us by surprise, just as we were coming home. My daughter had been washing her feet and therefore ran without stockings to the cellar. My husband didn’t want to go at first. He said: “There won’t be anything.” Because we had had a number of false alarms. When the shooting started, however, he shouted from above: “I’m coming, Mother!” That calmed me down. As he entered, his hat was blown of his head; it was not before time.
So the whole house community was together. And then came the heavy hits. It didn’t take long and Mrs Dötenbier appeared and asked if she could stay with us. She had come through the breakthrough. But we had smoke and phosphorous coming into the cellar and so we had to flee to the public shelter. We held wet cloths to our mouths. My husband did not follow us through the breakthrough at that time as he was still trying to put the fire out. It must have been about 11 when I went with Mr Schwan. We weren’t aware that it had stopped. We thought the raid was still going on. We had to operate the ventilators to get air. The French POWs had already started pumping at eleven. I saw little Ruth Niemann and I gave her a pill as she has trouble with her heart. I comforted her because her mum wasn’t there.
No one let us out of the cellar, about half eleven, Mr Zedler and Mr Schneider let no one leave the cellar. There were also soldiers and policemen. We were told the men had to operate the ventilation pumps below and the women the ones above so that we would get oxygen. I thought I’d burst. It was too hard. My daughter also could no longer operate the pump. Mrs Vogt died of a heart attack through the work. They would not let her or her children leave. These weren’t oxygen pumps but fresh air pumps and we only pumped smoke in. The women were exhausted. In my view, we should have lain down and kept still. My husband had a heart condition but our daughter was healthy. About a quarter to one, my husband asked what the time was. My daughter had sat down, my husband was lying on the floor. They were so quiet. I thought: Is that death? Then I became tired and thought I don’t know how much longer I can bear this.
After that I must have gone to sleep. But it was a peaceful going to sleep, just as when you get home from a walk, and it was cold outside and then you get into your flat, where it’s comfortably warm and you go to sleep. My husband said at the end: “I don’t understand why no one comes to rescue us.” We were told that the gate had not been on fire so that we would have been able to get out. From the Friedrichs-platz, Mr and Mrs Schwan too had been driven by soldiers to the Bürgersäle. They also died with the exception of Mrs Schwan. A Mr Steinmetz from Karlstraße managed to get his children out and also wanted his wife to come but she did not have the courage to leave and stayed there. That was roundabout 11. One woman said: “I take responsibility for my own life!” So they let her go. The two air raid wardens who prevented us from leaving had good intentions but they too suffocated with the others. I don’t remember much after that. By one o'clock I was unconscious.
Herr Siebert – he works for Auto-Cöster – told me that the old Mr Cöster had stripped off and had a screaming fit after he’d told him the course of his life.
I woke up two days later in the Jäger barracks, Frankfurter Straße. I don’t know how I got there.
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
Karoline, K
Description
An account of the resource
Karoline K's account of the events at Obere Karlstraße 17 (Bürgersäle).
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
1944-02-23
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 4
BKasselVdObmv10004
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
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
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
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Translated from the original in German: The Landgraf-Karl-Straße had also suffered a shower of incendiaries albeit a thinner one. According to the town official the following happened here:
An incendiary dropped through the roof of a house into a bath tub which had been filled with water which was intended to be used to extinguish fire. The bomb broke through the bottom of the tub and was extinguished by the water which was pouring down. Then the water ran down the stairs where a canister with phosphorous was starting a blaze. The water extinguished that too all by itself.
A similar story is being told about a larder. An incendiary had dropped in it. Through the heat, a lead pipe started to melt and the water which poured from the pipe extinguished the fire and the bomb.
A third piece is told by the occupational health nurse Miss Emmy Zoberbier who works for the public health office. Where she lives, Königstor 53, an incendiary dropped through the roof during an air raid two years ago. It did not do any damage. A few days after the raid, Mrs Schlunk goes up to the attic to tidy up her stall there. As she enters, she thinks: Who put the stove on? I haven’t had the heating on up here for years. The stove had burst. As she examines the stove, she finds a burnt-out incendiary bomb and its ashes where they should be: in the ash box.
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
Emmy Zoberbier and anonymous respondents
Description
An account of the resource
Three accounts of the events at Landgraf-Karl-Straße.
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
1944-02-24
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 5
BKasselVdObmv10005
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
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 Anton J., Kassel-Kirchditmold, Opferhof 3 and makes the following statement:
On the evening in question I was visiting Mr Iffert in his flat. Present were also his wife, his father, his son, his sister-in-law, Mrs Hausmann, and the apprentice Mohr. The two assistants had left the house a little earlier. We were having tea. When the alarm came, I was standing outside, on Freiheiter Durchbruch. I made tracks. As Mr Iffert confirmed later, his family went down to the air raid cellar whereas he had to join his volunteer unit. This was a bit further up on the same street. When the incendiaries created the first fires, Mr Iffert helped with rescue and fire-fighting. When the bombs stopped dropping, he found time to attend to his family. The relevant block leader informed him that his relatives were no longer in the house but had to flee through a breakthrough into the neighbouring Scheldtsche house. The whole street had been on fire. Explosives had been dropped everywhere too. Mr Iffert then started to search but he was in the dark because there was no electricity and he did not have a torch either. His search was unsuccessful. He made his way through all the cellar breakthroughs but did not find anything. He now believed that his relatives had saved themselves and returned to the rescue and fire-fighting operation in the Wildemanns-gasse and the Platz der SA.
He only discovered a trace of his relatives a few days later, in the staircase of the public air raid shelter Hinter der Waage 1. Here, he found his father whom he could identify without any problems. He had two gold pieces with him and a fob chain which he knew well. From this, he drew the conclusion that his other relatives had to be also in the air raid shelter. This assumption proved to be correct. When we sifted the ashes and remnants of bones which had been found in the cellar, a process in which I was involved – we put up a big sieve and poured everything through it – he found his wife’s key ring, his father’ and his sister-in-law’s wedding bands and his wife’s half-charred wedding band. They came to this air raid shelter through the breakthroughs. In that cellar we found 21 wedding bands, 2 dog-tags of soldiers, the baldric of a work command leader, several bags, wrist watches, signet rings, medals, brooches and other things. We passed them on to the detective force.
Iffert’s air raid cellar was so well preserved that nothing would have happened to them there. It had not overheated. People had lost their heads, however, and ran through all the breakthroughs. It was the result of poor leadership.
I was on duty outside during the raid. I was in a cellar in Wolfsangerstraße. The house had already been wrecked on 3 October. The rest was destroyed during that night. I think it was no 61.
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
Anton, J
Description
An account of the resource
Anton J's account of the events at Kassel-Kirchditmold, Opferhof 3.
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
1944-02-26
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.
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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Record 6
BKasselVdObmv10006
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
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
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 Peter Sch., formerly of Hohenzollern-straße 56, and makes the following statement:
I came at about 8 from the Wilhelmshöhe train station and managed to get with the tram as far as the Red Cross [hospital]. Then the alarm went and we had to continue on foot. I walked through Kaiserstraße at a leisurely pace and got home by about half past eight. Part of the people living in the house were in the cellar, the other part in the offices of my business. I was debating with my housekeeper whether I should go and get my two dogs from the flat and wanted to put on my firefighter’s uniform to go to my deployment site when the anti-aircraft guns started to fire. So I went quickly to get my two dachshunds and helped to carry down the air raid luggage which was on the ground floor and then we waited for what was going to happen. It took a few minutes and then we had incendiaries close to the house and on the pavement. I put a bucket over them and extinguished them this way. I also ran several times up to the attic as I had to assume that the houses would be hit by incendiaries too but so far, everything was fine. I was once briefly in the cellar when we had a hit close by. I can’t even say where. I only went to the cellar to calm down the women – most of the people in the house were women. I managed to do that.
Then I saw from the courtyard, that light green smoke was coming from my cousin’s bedroom window on the third floor. I shouted down to the cellar that my cousin should come up and I showed him that and then we both ran to fight the fire. The bedroom was full of smoke, the incendiary bomb was lying on top of a wardrobe. We tore down the curtains and it was relatively easy to extinguish the bomb. My cousin was too particular and wanted to clear the dirt but I said we had better look in the attic as that bomb had probably not been the only one. I found another three, two of which I extinguished with sand and water. The last one I grabbed and threw through the window down on the street as I had run out of sand and water. By doing so I could see Hohenzollern-straße and had a shock. The whole street, as far as I could see it, up to Annastraße and Ständeplatz, was covered with incendiary bombs. I was reminded of the torch parades of the SA, only that these things burnt green rather than red. I assumed that things would look the same on the court-side of the house. I had the right vantage point on the third floor. But to my delight, the print shop had not yet been hit. So I ran back to my cousin who was still working there and told him: “So far, it’s gone well. I hope our luck holds. Get a move on to get finished; I’m going to extinguish a few bombs in front of the house.” I put out some more bombs with a bucket downstairs and had a little inward fit of rage. The whole street was deserted and I thought if only one person from every house helped cover that big source of light – because for that mob up there our brightly lit street was a wonderful target and I expected that further incendiaries would follow.
And that’s why I was worried about my cousin who was still up there in the house. I thought if they now hit the house, he’ll be blown to all four winds. When he still did not appear, I ran up the stairs, shouting his name more and more loudly but I could not make myself heard over the infernal noise. I found him finally on the third floor and upbraided him for not coming down instead of using his fire swatter. So we both ran down the stairs. And now comes the tragic bit: as we are about the level of the second floor, there was a scary blow, I squeezed myself into the wall and we both lurched and fell down the stairs without understanding what had happened. The smoke, dirt and grime we had in our respiratory passages were excruciating, in our mouths, noses and lungs. I only recovered my sense as I reached the entrance to the cellar. I called: “Henner, are you here?” You couldn’t see anything of course. Everything was dark. It seemed that we were unscathed. I immediately ran down to the cellar stairs to go and see how the women were doing in the air raid cellar. I tripped over a chunk of masonry, it was dark everywhere, when I remembered my torch. And as I want to get into the room, I had a terrible shock. The light of the torch reached maybe half a foot. Everything was full of dust. And to my horror, I see that the room is full of the fragments of the cellar vaults. The ceiling had been penetrated. I said to my cousin: “They’re all dead.” Then I shouted individual names in order to find out whether anyone was still alive under the rubble. And I could hear, when the outside noise wasn’t too strong, a low whimpering noise. My cousin said immediately that we had to fetch help from the neighbouring houses and I said to myself, the stairwell we also be impassable because it is above the cellar. We also could not get to the breakthroughs; that way was blocked. The only remaining escape was across the courtyard and over the garden walls.
When I had climbed up the wall to the next courtyard far enough so that I could look over it, I saw that number 54 was ablaze from the ground floor up and that the entrances to the cellar were blocked by burning beams. It was unlikely that we would find help there. Then I thought: maybe we can do it on our own. Maybe a hollow space had been formed when the vault collapsed and I can get to the people underneath. Therefore we quickly made our way back to the cellar. At the entrance to the cellar I shouted again the names and listened very closely. I also shouted the names of my dogs but all I could here was whimpering, fainter than the first time. We urgently needed help. My cousin came and shouted: “Go and get help!” So back on the wall to number 54. After I jumped off in the courtyard next door, I must have stayed on the ground dazed for a bit but I woke up again, through the roar and crackle of the fire. I felt a leaden tiredness and exhaustion and it took me a few moments to get up again. I had probably inhaled smoke and gas. As I was upright, I lurched and staggered like a drunk. Now the paling to Westendstraße 5 blocked my way. I threw myself against it a couple of times with my full weight and it finally gave way. On the short way to Westendstraße, I had to lie down a few times because of exhaustion. The courtyards were full of smoke. But luckily I kept my wits about me and every time I fell I told myself: “Keep your mouth close to the ground, breathe deeply.” That helped. At the entrance to the cellar, I finally saw another human being, a young air force helper! A marvellous chap! He dragged me into the cellar where someone washed my face and gave me something to drink. I vomited much grime and dirt and I felt better. In exemplary readiness to help, Benno Mainzer and two neighbours volunteered to follow me. We could no longer travel via the courtyards. Through the cellars, then! We got as far as a few metres to the breakthrough to our house - but there we came to a stop. White, acrid wood smoke came in through the windows into the cellars and filled them and made it impossible to breathe. We had to turn back. So we went back to Westendstraße 5. That cellar was also filling with smoke and fumes, it had to be evacuated. I quickly helped to guide people into the open and then I tried to get through Westendstraße to Hohenzollernstraße. At the junction, I saw what had happened. Our house (number 58) and the one next to it (number 60) had disappeared and the same went for the house opposite. Heaps of bricks from both sides had trapped a van in the middle of the street and it was burning out. Behind me, a man came out of the cellar of the Martini-Eck. I shouted at him: “How many people are left in your cellar?” Answer: “I’m the last one!” I shouted: “I need help! In our house people are trapped under the rubble!” He advised me to get help from the railway bunker in Bismarck-straße.
This was a terrible journey. Luckily, the firestorm made its way up Westendstraße, I therefore had it in my back. Park-straße was impassable. Therefore: Kölnische Straße. Down Bismarckstraße, against the firestorm to the entrance of the bunker – that finished me off. I had to go to the emergency room first because of my eyes, a mate from my fire brigade unit led me there. After I had been patched up, I searched for the guardroom. And there, I had a terrible disappointment! I was told that it was no longer possible to get onto the street, to help people. I tried several times that night on my own, occasionally with the help of neighbours who had also found their way to the bunker, and at two or three in the morning, we managed to get as far as the junction of Hohenzollern- and Westendstraße but it was impossible to get closer.
Concerning the time, I think that we were hit about a quarter past nine and that the raid lasted until about a quarter to ten. Round about that time, i.e. the end of the air raid proper, I must have reached the bunker.
The morning after the disaster, towards eight, a rescue unit of the SHD arrived. We could first recover my cousin’s body, sitting at the bottom of the stairs. People then also found his wife’s body. When I asked what would happen with the dead bodies, I was told that they were seized by the police who would see to everything. “You have no authority to make any arrangements!”
In the afternoon, I took my car, which luckily had been spared, and drove to friends in the countryside in Reichenau near Hess. Lichtenau as I was literally on the street. I drove every day to Kassel to help retrieve bodies and to discharge all my other duties. That was particularly difficult as all documents had been destroyed.
A few days after the disaster I realised that I had an increasing pain in my anus. First, I thought it was piles. When I was in Fulda at Christmas time, visiting my sister, it became unbearable. Prof Dr Hertel diagnosed a tear in my gut. I was operated upon on 11 January.
On the first floor of our house lived the families Schade and Noll. Luckily, none of them were there that night of terror. I lived on the second floor with my housekeeper, Miss Katharina Wölk, and also a Miss Margarethe Walter who were both among the victims. On the third floor [lived] my cousin, who died as did his wife and their domestic Miss Bachmann (Anneliese). Their child, Michael, was in a kindergarten in Sooden-Allendorf.
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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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Heinrich Peter, Sch
Description
An account of the resource
Mr Heinrich's account of the events at Hohenzollern-straße 56.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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1944-02-28
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 7
BKasselVdObmv10007
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
Contributor
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Harry Ziegler
Creator
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Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
animal
anti-aircraft fire
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
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Transcription
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Translated from the original in German: Present is the teacher Mr Karl L., Wickenrode, and makes the following statement:
I arrived at Kassel train station around half four with the express train from Lorraine. I had all my luggage with me, particularly all my research notes on the ethnology of Lorraine. I went directly to my niece, in the Chamber of Crafts, and left several suitcases there. I could not take them all with me to Wickenrode. On the other hand, I did not feel that they’d be safe with left luggage. In my rucksack, I had sixty cartridges and my three-barrelled shotgun with telescopic sight which I intended to take with me on the bus. The rest, including the bottles of Cognac and my research notes, I wanted to leave in Kassel for the time being. I was ill that day and arrived in Kassel with a temperature. I went down to the theatre. There, I had a glass of beer. The landlord came to my table and said, gesturing with his head towards the theatre: “As long as that thing’s there, they won’t leave us alone.” I told him that I had all my luggage at the station and in town to which the landlord remarked: “Better to take with you what you can carry.” I therefore went back and retrieved two more pieces of luggage. When I arrived at the bus, which always leaves from Friedrichsplatz, it was already jam-packed. The next one would take us. It was about a quarter past seven. As the bus leaves, I said in jest: “Look out! We’ll have lots of excitement!” They people on the bus shouted back: “Don’t make jokes like that!” Just as the bus had left, the sirens started to wail. The Friedrichsplatz was empty in no time. And then the bombs started to drop. The new office prefabs burned immediately. They caught fire first. I ran into a house in Frankfurter Straße. I did not go into the cellar but stayed under the stairs. Soon the house was on fire above me. Someone shouted: “Don’t go out! Don’t go out!” I went anyway, however, and that was what saved me. I think all the people in the cellar burned to death.
People were running past me to the Weinberg. The whole street was ablaze. So I turned right. I wanted to flee to the Aue. I asked those who were running past me: “Where are you going?” “To the shelter in the Weinberg!” Incendiaries were pelting down. I came to the first entrance: jam-packed. We were told: “Only women are allowed in.” To the next entrance then. The second shelter was also full. To the third entrance. I had just entered the tunnel when the second wave of bombers arrived. It was terrible.
Later, we ran out. Everything around us was on fire. Then the refugees came from all parts of the city, more and more of them. They came from the old town, from Wilhelmstraße, Hohenzollernstraße, even from Holländische Platz. From all corners people came. They talked about heavy bombs, innumerable incendiaries and showers of white phosphorous. Then the Rondellchen, the little round temple next to the art gallery, started to burn. Now the order came: “All men out for emergency service!” We ran to the houses on Frankfurter Straße to firefight and rescue. We managed to salvage quite a lot. A Mr Hausmann saved a lot of typewriters. And then the fire brigade came. The last waves of raiders gave the upper new town the rest. Kassel was a single sea of flames, from the upper to the lower parts. On the pavement, from the Weinberg to the Friedrichsplatz, we found fifty or sixty incendiaries.
The following morning revealed a terrible picture. The whole city was trampled, torn and shattered. Then the big bomb in the Aue exploded. A woman was killed by a splinter through her heart. People screamed. I ran down to Brüder-straße in order to get across the Fulda Bridge. I was stopped. At the same moment, a dud exploded at Marstaller Platz where the Restaurant Wilhelm is. When I walked through Kaufunger Straße, people were still or already trying to put out fires. Massive houses were still collapsing. Then came trucks bringing food stuffs into the city. People behaved splendidly.
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
Wickenrode, Karl L
Description
An account of the resource
Mr Karl L Wickenrode's account of the events at Frankfurter Straße, Weinbergbunker, Marstall and Kaufunger Straße.
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
1944-03-01
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 8
BKasselVdObmv10008
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
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
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 Mr Christian R. and gives the following statement:
I came home from my business at about half seven, sat down for dinner and then came the alarm. We made our way to the cellar. The suitcases with clothes and underwear were already there. My wife took our child, we put coats on, took our gas masks and then we went down. After I had brought my wife and child down, I went back to the courtyard: everything was illuminated, the searchlights were on, I made my way back down, not before time. Now the raid started. We did not feel much of it in the cellar except for the air pressure and impacts on the street of what I presumed to be canisters. As the raid was more or less finished, I made my way back up together with some other men where I saw a sea of flames. Houses had started to burn from the top and from the bottom, from both sides. In my view it was impossible to brave the streets with wife and child. We therefore decided to send the women and children through the breakthroughs towards the Lutherplatz. As some had been guided through, others came back because the breakthrough to number nine had been blocked because the house had taken a direct hit. We therefore returned to our cellar which was well equipped: the door was sealed against gas and the windows had protective panels so that it seemed safe. And everyone hoped that they could leave the cellar safely in the morning. Unfortunately, the fire came through the cellars and gas started to develop and we suffered from a lack of oxygen. In this way, 80 to 90 people first suffocated in the connected cellars and then burned to death. Only the bare skulls and some bones could be found by the rescue units.
I sat with my wife and child in a fourth cellar which was not connected to the others. There were another 20 people who died from suffocation but they did not burn. I only know that during the night, about half one, my wife started to complain about chest pains and that I gave her some valerian drops. The little seven-year old girl was sleeping. I can’t say what happened after that because I fell asleep. When I woke up again, I was in hospital in Göttingen (reserve military hospital Maria Hilf, Kirchweg?). I was there together with a neighbour from number nine by the name of Baum and a Mrs Hessler who had been visiting her parents that day in number 14 and who had also been in the cellar with us. After a few days, five or six, when I could walk again, I travelled to Kassel to find out what had happened to my family. In Kassel, I found out that my wife and child were dead. On the train to Münden, I got talking to a sergeant who explained to me that he’d come home from the front and experienced that night in Kassel. He lived in the Graben and had also lost his wife. When I explained to him my misfortune, he explained to me that on Sunday afternoon, about one, he had been looking for his sister-in-law in Moltkestraße 5. He couldn’t find her but he’d heard faint knocking from number seven. He had therefore fetched a few people so as to break open the cellar from the gateway. That’s when they got us out. Mrs Hasler who now lives Wilhelmshöher Allee 145 – 147, had been knocking. This was sergeant Heik.
My boss, the merchant August Döhne, who owns number seven, came to Moltkestraße on Saturday morning at about seven. He’d looked into the cellar where there was a great heat. He had shouted into the cellar but there was no sign of life. He consulted someone from the rescue team who said that the cellar smelled of sulphur and that therefore no one would be alive. It is possible, however, that many of our neighbours could still have been saved that Saturday morning.
Post script:
From our house the following people escaped after the raid by running through the flames to Untere Königstraße: Mr and Mrs Sieberecht, Mr Riedel with his daughter Hannelore (13), Superintendent Altekrüger and his wife and child. Mrs Altekrüger and Hannelore Riedel are dead. Mr Altekrüger is missing. The following were killed from our house: the Heinze family, Müller [?], Mr Vorsatz [?], families Scheidemann, Ries, Göpel, Mrs Osten and her daughter-in-law, Mrs Ellenberg, Mrs Wagner, Mrs Hut and her two children, the two Miss Konzes, Mrs Herbold and her two children, Olga Wächter, Rudi Theis, Mrs Koch and her child, the Hasselbach family and the Zimmer family, Mrs Hilgenberg and her two children, the widow Krümmel and widow Lorchheim, Mrs Hammacher and the boy evacuated from Cologne, Mrs Riedel and her mother.
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
Christian, R
Description
An account of the resource
Mr Christian's account of the events at Moltkestraße 7.
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
1944-03-01
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 9
BKasselVdObmv10009
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
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
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 Mrs Elfriede N., née M., born 11 April 1901 and gives the following statement:
How I lost my child:
You see, Herr Doktor, she was my only child, little Ruth, and we did everything for our child. She had always been delicate and a bit sickly but luckily I have brought her so far. People used to say: “Mrs N., what have you done with the child?” In school, she was top of her class. Her teacher said: “She’s peerless in every subject.” When I was her age, I preferred milking cows to learning. But my mother had been educated in the convent in Fritzlar and was very good with languages. The little girl was as wild as ten boys, very spoilt as she was an only child. The teacher also said she was a good companion. A little cheeky but that’s like all bright children. Ruth often said: “You’re too good to be my mother.”
But then came that night. When the alarm went, we ran into the cellar. We were about twenty people in our coal cellar, including my 77-year old mother. I had the child on my lap. Imagine the noise when the house collapsed and then everything was on fire. Then smoke entered the cellar. We had to get out of the cellar for fear of suffocating. We wanted to save ourselves by making our way through the breakthroughs in the direction of Obere Karlstraße. The children were sent first because it was said: First you have to save the children. First, this Polish girl went through the breakthrough. Then she lifted the two children Erika Böttger (11 years old) and my Ruth (9 years old) through the breakthrough. Then followed Mrs Jung (from the confectionary shop) and then my mother. As my mother had passed through, air raid warden Kuhlemann shouted: “Nobody can get through here anymore; everything’s blocked.” I shouted after my Ruth but did not get a reply.
I absolutely wanted to follow her. I was told I should stop making people panic, I was just winding everyone up with my whining. I should follow them; the others would bring the children with them. We made our way back, in direction of Königstraße through the other breakthroughs and from the house of hairdresser Metzger’s, we ran to the Friedrichsplatz. I fell on the stairs. The house was on fire, everything was ablaze, I’m still surprised, even now, that I got up and out. Then I ran across to the regional military command. There was a firestorm, gale force strength 11 was reported, my handbag with valuables and papers and money was torn off my arm. It’s all gone. I also lost my mother from sight. She had been pulled back. If the little girl had not gone with Mrs Jung, she would be with me now. So I went to the command centre to General Schäfer, and implored him again and again to give me some people who would help me to fetch the girl from the Bürgersäle, as I guessed right away that the children had gone to the Bürgersäle. No one listened to me. No one wanted to help.
I stayed there until onein the morning and begged. From time to time I went out and called for my child, on Spohrplatz and on Friedrichsplatz. But I always had to return. Before, when we were still sitting in Metzger’s cellar, the boiler of the central heating was above us, glowing with heat, it was a very small room, we had splashed water over us. The regional leader of the Nazi women’s organisation was with us, she explored where we could get out. The men were completely useless. She said: “We have to try and get out through the entrance hall.” We risked it and succeeded. But we weren’t really in control of our mental faculties. At that moment, the overhead lines of the tram came down. It was horrific. We lurched against the storm; you couldn’t call it walking. My coat caught fire; I tore it out with my hand.
Then I searched the whole night, for my mother, for my child. But I always had to return to the regional command as this was where the injured and burnt were brought. I thought: maybe my child is among them. The regional command was on fire. But the soldiers only helped there; they did not want to think about my child and the people. Then an officer was brought in who had distinguished himself in the rescue effort and who was now half suffocated and he told me: I found an old women in Wolfsschlucht and helped her into a house which was not on fire. She said; “I’m Mrs M., I want to die here, let me go.” It was tank lieutenant Rode from Holländische Straße. I met him again later. A few weeks ago, he came from Russia with a brain injury.
This Mr Kulemann, our air raid warden, had the children standing by him in the Bürgersäle. When he started feeling uneasy, he ran out alone and abandoned the children. He does not have any himself.
The following morning I saw a waggon with people on it. I thought maybe it is my mother and Ruth. But when they turned round, it wasn’t them, and the shock made me fall over. Then I made my way to the theatre where the people were who suffered from smoke poisoning and who had white foam coming from their mouths. They were treated by doctors but my two were not among them. Then on Friedrichsplatz the first dead bodies, then in Karlstraße many more dead bodies, but my two were not there. I found Ruth’s jacket lying in the street, the rubber cape, the jumper, her pillow even which she had dragged through all the cellars, it was lying there on the street, the things were taken out of the Bürgersäle and put there on the street.
By accident, I met Mrs Melato today who had also been rescued from the Bürgersäle. She found her child again after six weeks. She said it had been horrific. When she tried to get out, she fell on the stair. That saved her. Because the soldiers had to get the woman out first. Her child had been rescued by the same SS-man Mendlikowski (from Wöhlerstraße 8) who also rescued mine. He had been searching for his wife and because he did not find her at first, had helped to carry out the people there. I only met him on Christmas Eve, it took me that long to find him. I asked the whole of Kassel after him. He told me the following story: “I went down the cellar to look for my wife. A Frenchman was with me. I saw the child lying there and brought her out immediately and made resuscitation attempts which were successful inasmuch as the child resisted them energetically with her arms and when I splashed water in her face, she lifted her head and the paramedic said: “She’ll be alright, just put her on the waggon –“ that’s what he told me.
For four weeks I travelled round the region, from Witzen-hausen to Eschwege, Göttingen, Eisenach, Hersfeld, Bebra, and then I telephoned from Eisenach to Erfurt, Weimar, Gotha, Waltershausen and then I travelled to Meininingen, to see a sergeant who also took part in the rescue action. This sergeant, a pharmacist from Frankfurt/Main, had rescued a child from the Bürgersäle but she died in his arms. I showed him a picture of my girl and he said: “No, it wasn’t her. It was a blond girl with a pointed nose and yours is dark and chubby.” The child died after having been given an injection into the heart. He had cried, he had put the child on the boards in front of the theatre at the Friedrichsplatz. I also visited the rescue units in Hofgeismar and Wetzlar, the police station in Oberzwehren which had all been involved in the operation.
This was my Christmas Eve:
On Christmas Eve, I felt as if my girl had been calling me. I went to borrow a torch from the office where I worked to search the Bürgersäle. On my way there a man said to me: “I know someone who rescued two children from the Bürgersäle.” I wrote down the address (Krassert, Sülheim, Harz). When I left the man, I went to our photographic section where I had the pictures of my child made for the detective force. One of the employees said: “I can tell you already who the two children were, I know them. The little Herzing girl and Brunhilde Melato.” I asked her for the address of Brunhilde Melato but could not get it. Then I went with Mrs Kleber and Mr Dötenbier to the Bürgersäle. There, Mrs Kleber showed me where my girl had sat. Her needlework was still lying there. Then I went to Friedrichs-platz to read on the ruin of number 8 the new address of the bombed-out Melantos. Someone had written with chalk: Landaustraße 11. I made my way down to Landaustraße to be told that they had moved to Fritzlar. I should come back in the afternoon when I would be able to talk to Mrs Melanto’s sister-in-law. That afternoon the woman told me that her sister, who lived on Fiedlerstraße, knew the address of a man who had carried the children out of the cellar. I therefore went to Fiedlerstraße where I found out that the sister now lived in Silesia. From her landlord whom I asked whether he didn’t at least know the man’s name, I learnt the street where he lived but not the house number. I went to Wöhlerstraße where I found the man in the first house. Only the Frenchman was there and the wife. He came later. I showed him Ruth’s picture and he said he’d write to me, he first had to reflect on the events of the night. He then wrote that he hadn’t been able to sleep all night but he’d remembered all the details of that night. He was sure that he’d rescued my child. The Frenchman had also recognised my child. I went back to them to get a description of my child and it was correct. He then told what had happened, as described above. He later repeated his statement to the police.
How fate fooled me thrice:
Four weeks after the air raid, I was just about to leave for Melsungen, a miss from the missing persons department brought news that my girl had been registered in Bad Sooden-Allendorf. I travelled there with the next train and phoned all the villages from the town hall. And then fate duped me cruelly. I was shown a list and told: “See, here it says Ruth N.” I replied: “Yes, she was in the home Auguste and I came on 26 September to fetch her.” The whole misunderstanding had happened because the registration with the police had not been changed. I returned to Kassel.
Beginning of January. In order to find another trace, I placed a notice in the paper: “Which trucks have transported injured people from Friedrichsplatz/Obere Karlstraße?” – Elfriede N., Kurhausstraße 4. Two soldiers replied to this. I was not at home. They spoke to the landlady and promised to come back but they did not despite several notices I put in the paper. They said they had come in response to the notice I had placed and wanted to talk to me. They would come back.
1 March. Mrs Lindae from the missing persons department found a reply from the police. It had a girl’s name and the family name Niemeier on it. I thought N. and Niemeier is confused so often. I therefore travelled to Neumorschen near Melsungen and am told: They could not remember what Niemeier meant. But an Ute N. had been collected by her mother Olga, née Leopold, of Oberzwehren. The girl had been born on 16 November 33. That was the birth date of my Ruth. And I’d always called her Ut or Uti. Should that be my child? A new hope and a new disappointment. When I went to local residents’ registration office to find out whether Mrs N. exists and whether she has a little girl at all, I’m informed that this Ute N. was born on the same day as my missing child. Three times fate has duped me and I’m despairing.
During that storm night, as I was standing outside of the regional military command, a soldier ran by and threw a heavy fur coat at me. It was my mother’s coat. I recognised it immediately. And my mother – who’s now died with grief over everything that’s happened – had really lost it on the way through Wolfsschlucht. And so I’m wearing the nice old fur coat which my mother lost in that night of terror and which the firestorm and the soldier threw at me. My mother I found after six days. The anguish over the lost child broke her completely. She lost the will to live. The grief killed her.
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
Elfriede, N
Description
An account of the resource
Mrs Elfriede N's account of the events at Friedrichsplatz 3, Obere Karlstraße 17/19 (Bürgersäle).
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
1944-03-02
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 10
BKasselVdObmv10010
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vermisstensuchstelle des Oberbürgermeisters der Stadt Kassel
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
childhood in wartime
civil defence
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 police sergeant Franz Aschemann, born 12 September 1885, of Königstraße 74 and makes the following statement:
When the alarm was raised, we had not heard it. Our air raid warden made us aware that we had to go to the cellar. We went – listen to me – we went together in the cellar and, on the advice of my son (who was on furlough from the front) and another staff sergeant from the front, I was going to be more passive than usual, because usually I stayed in the house to be on the spot. You see, after a while, when the noise started, there were heavy hits, as if heavy things were falling. People were low-spirited but very calm. You see, we, my son and the staff sergeant had opened the breakthrough to 76, a cloud came in; we would have better left it bricked up. It was impossible to get through there. People from 70 and 72 came into our cellar. So we ran across to Jägerstraße 1 because it was still okay there. You know, across the street, with all the luggage, counting off, who is missing, there is a man missing. I’m standing at the stairs to the cellar and say to my wife: “I’m going to see where the old gentleman is.” (The pensioner Wolf.) It was my duty, he was a slow old man. I went back to rescue him but could not get into the burning entrance hall because already on the way over, a number of women did not want to follow us through the fire, because of the heat and the draft the fire created, it was a terrible heat. You see, as I ran back to Jägerstraße 1, everything was ablaze around us, I’m thinking where I could fetch help, and I ran to the Jewish temple in order to see where I could still find a space free of fire. But as I stood at the corner to Bremer Straße, I could not turn back.
I had run with the firestorm but was unable to go against it. I couldn’t go back but had the reassuring feeling that my son and the staff sergeant were there, they have experience of war, they’ll know what to do. You see, I’m standing at Holländische Platz. And now came the refugees, holding fast onto me: “Sergeant, please help us!” It calmed people to see a policeman. And in a jiffy, I had 25 women and children around me but no men. And I channelled these people through, a stretch along Holländische Straße, through a property to Henschelstraße and then on to the abattoir, Mombachstraße, and then to the cemetery. There I said to them: “Now you have to help yourselves.” You see, I crossed the cemetery, went over the Rothenberg (Stahlhäuser) past Mittelfeld, across the depot, through Wegmann’s Park to the police station in Harleshausen where I reported for duty. I could not get to my own station. It must have been half past midnight. I always thought that my family had found the right way. According to the evidence, they took the wrong way, up Jägerstraße, remnants of them were found in houses nos. 3 and 5. It was too late to run up that street.
The people I had taken with me behaved well and calmly. On the cemetery was a bomb crater in which a whole group of children from the Fröbel School were sitting. The children were very calm. In our cellar there were also children. My three-year old grandson had asked: “Grandpa, will the wicked Englishmen make us dead?” No, boy,” I said, “they won’t make you dead.”
Our house community consisted of 16 people; they were all in the cellar: families Franz and Alfred Aschemann (my son and I), Minna and Luise Aschemann, grandson Herbert, the Uderstadt family (two sons at the front), the Herrmann family (no children), the Himmelmann family, a five-year old girl, the Zietz family, their son (warrant officer) and a 11-year old daughter, the pensioner Wolf (bachelor).
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
Franz Aschemann
Description
An account of the resource
Police Sergeant Franz Aschemann's account of the events at Königstraße 74.
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
1944-03-02
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 11
BKasselVdObmv10011
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
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
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 Mrs Hannah K., née Sch., born 19 December 1913, from Sanderhausen and makes the following statement:
We were burnt down in the terror attack of 23 October. We moved in with my mother-in-law in the Pinne [a pub]. When the alarm came, we immediately went down. This time, they were all down early. We were not in the big public shelter but the little one for people living in the house. Then the raid started and my mother-in-law and my husband were standing together in another part of the cellar opposite. I was frightened and ran into the big shelter with my child (Manfred, born 3 February 1940). And it was like that: When the smoke started to come in, I saw that people held cloths in front of their mouths. I took the boy’s underpants off so that he could hold them damp against his mouth. Then we ran back into the cellar where we had been first. My husband had been looking for me and calling me and he was supposed to help open the breakthroughs. And I was fairly lively and suddenly we were out of water. The boy became sleepy. I thought we’ll suffocate. A woman from the big shelter whom I didn’t know, gave me something sweet and I said: “Give the boy something too,” and I think the boy flinched and fell back. I was not with it anymore and thought my boy was with me and then ran somewhere else. For days I thought I had the boy with me. And then people shouted we should kneel and I did and then the light went out and I fell over. I did not feel any pain, I was only sleepy. My husband fell over a heap of sand in the corridor. The only carried him out at half ten because dead bodies were lying on him. It had been thought that he too was dead.
I woke up about eight in the morning. I fell asleep a long time after the raid. Possibly about one. The others were already all lying there and were all asleep. When I woke up I noticed the fresh air. A woman was lying on top of me and had a leg over me or it was even two women, and I said to the people to give me a hand but the women were themselves unconscious. I shouted for help but no one came. But then rescue units came. I picked myself up. I kept shouting “Manfred!” and then a child shouted “Mummy!” and I’m certain it was him. Around me were lots of dead children. Mine was not among them. Then it went dark. The rescuers came and carried me out. I shouted: my child is still in there. It’s possible that he was lying there and I didn’t see him. I was brought to the Renthof. I thought they would bring my boy too, they also brought many people but not my child. I was so dazed and weak, I could not look after my child. I think it is possible that the unknown woman who gave me something against fainting, took the child because she thought I didn’t want him anymore. More children were saved than adults, probably because they had less smoke down there. I should have stayed with my husband, then this would not have happened. The following morning (Saturday) I found my husband. He was at the Renthof. There were so many dead people and he looked at them all. Then we ran to the Pinne where they carried out the dead. There were so many, they could not bring them all out at the same time. We then travelled to Rengershausen and the next day back to Kassel although we should have gone to Fulda but we did not have the peace to do so. And then we looked at more dead people from the Pinne, only at the Pinne. But we did not find our boy. The rescue units told us that they had brought out dead and living children. They did not know anything about our boy. It was said that that they had all been laid out at the cemetery, all the dead, but I did not know that they were there.
Description of my boy: dark blond hair, eyes grey-blue, of average size, round face, jabbered the whole day, couldn’t say his name. When he could not remember his name, he always said: “I am a boy!” He was dressed in a light blue jumper, I draped my brown cardigan around him, blue shoes and knee-socks.
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
Hannah, K
Description
An account of the resource
Mrs Hannah, K's account of the events at Wildemannsgasse 19 (“Pinne”).
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
1944-03-03
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 12
BKasselVdObmv10012
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Harry Ziegler
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
fear
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 sculptor Heinz Wiegel (Lance Corporal) and makes the following statement:
I must start by explaining that our house had already been hit by incendiaries during the air raid of the night of 27 August 1941. The neighbouring house towards Murhard-straße and the corner house opposite towards Murhard-straße were burnt out. Our upper floor had to be rebuilt. The construction waste from the renovation stayed there. It made it easier to put out two incendiaries later. We also had iron doors up there. Our house was hit by five incendiaries and two smaller canisters with phosphorous. One burnt down to the second floor, it had probably entered through a window on the third floor. A ceramic bowl stood on our table, it had sand in it and because of that I could throw the filth out.
On the evening in question were sitting in the living room. My father was also there. The wireless stopped. I said to my wife: there will be an alarm. She took the suitcases and my father went on his way home to Große Rosenstraße 21. That’s where he died. We, my wife and daughter, ran to the cellar. Women and children were already there and a paymaster. Then incendiaries fell in quick succession and then a blockbuster at Luisenplatz. Then the lights went out and an explosive dropped on Murhardstraße and the tooth gap [an empty plot]. I could hear and smell that something wasn’t right. I ran through all the flats and tore the nets from the windows because the shower of sparks had already started. It came in from the burning houses around us. I went up to the attic. On the fourth floor, where Mrs Nitsche lived, I put the fire out together with Mrs N. Her toilet was on fire. I put the incendiary out. The air raid warden Schlotzhauer fought the fire on the third floor. A Mr Möller, and my wife too, brought water and then I went up to the attic. A couple of light canisters had fallen into a corner of the roof. I put them out with water. Then a fire was burning through from the ceiling of the third floor. An old chest was standing there and I got up on that chest and chucked water from half-filled buckets on the fire. I also went into the little room next to it. I brought the ceiling down with a broom handle because in the corner the fire from the house next door was coming through. I don’t know how long that took. I remember though that I was wishing for number 7 to burn down.
The church burned like a flaming torch. The old barracks too. The shower of sparks was intense. We saved the house in the fight against the fire. I had smoke poisoning. The Hitler Youth put a fire guard into our house. My wife took me to the Red Cross as I had lost my sight but it was restored there. The following day we travelled to the Blue Lake because I couldn’t bear the air [in Kassel]. Our house started burning again but soldiers put the fires out.
On reverse of the page:
My father died that night. I have been told the following by eyewitnesses: My father must have arrived in Große Rosenstraße at the start of the raid. The incendiaries in the house were put out with my brother-in-law’s help. One canister [dropped] in the shop, another at the front door, everything was on fire. At that point several people from the house threw their buckets away and took off. In the house next door [Text becomes incoherent and then stops.]
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
Wiegel, Heinz
Heinz Wiegel
Description
An account of the resource
Heinz Wiegel's account of the events at Luisenstraße 9 and Große Rosenstraße 21.
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
1944-03-05
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 13
BKasselVdObmv10013
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
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 Jakob Gockel, born 2 February 1866, formerly of Oberste Gasse 43, now of Grüsen near Gemünden and der Wohra, and makes the following statement:
When the alarm came, my wife and I were in the kitchen. So we dressed as fast as possible, my wife grabbed her bag and I took the carrier bags which we had already prepared and which contained what we needed most, rucksack and papers and all that. I said to my wife: “See that you get down there; I’ll follow you in a minute.” At that point the rear buildings in Oberste Gasse 47 and 45 were hit. So I followed my wife sharpish and we came to the air raid cellar where most of the other tenants were already. My wife was disabled – she had broken her leg the year before – and that slowed us down. Well, everyone knows what happened next, you can’t describe the impact of the bombs. So we sat there for an hour or an hour and a half, I can’t remember. Every now and again, I went up the stairs and had a look in the house and the courtyard to see whether everything was okay. Suddenly a woman said: “The cellars in the wings of the house are on fire.” Phosphorous had entered the cellars through the cellar hatches. I went up again a little later and as I get into the entrance hall, the front door and its frame had been blown off by a blockbuster and was lying in the hall. The bannister had gone. The rooms on the upper floors were already on fire. I went up to the third floor where we lived because I had a big wooden suitcase there where I’d packed everything and so I grabbed the suitcase at the last minute and dragged it down after me to the ground floor so as to salvage at least something. As I came past the second floor the caretaker stopped me. He wanted me to bring water up to the second floor but there was no water anymore and so we went back to the cellar.
We stayed a while longer in the cellar and then came terrible impacts. The two air raid wardens – Merle and Gunkel – said it couldn’t be helped, we have to give up the house. Now we had to knock through the breakthroughs. First, we wanted to see whether we could get to the Druselturm. But as we reached the last house, Schröder’s, we were told the entrance hall was on fire. We had to get back. So we made our way back where I met my wife who was sitting in a corner. We were told: “Get out! Get out! We’ll burn to death!” So we had to crawl on all fours through a very low opening. My wife said: “See that you can save yourself, I’ll follow; someone will help me.” Two soldiers dragged her through the narrow passage and I was in the cellar of the gardener Pirschel, I was reeling, I was exhausted, when Mrs Schmidt said: “Where do you think you’re going?” I staggered from one corner to the next where a young man grabbed me under my arms and said: “Come on, granddad, we have to get out!” He helped me out, otherwise I would have died. I can’t say whether we got out at Schönthier’s or at Vogt’s chocolate shop. We walked across the coal bunker of the garrison church. You could barely get through the fire. We went to the church. And as we had been inside for a minute, someone with an armband said: “You have to get out, you can’t stay here, the church is also on fire; you’ll be buried alive here.” So we thought we’d go to Wiedersich but the young man said: “We won’t go in there.” And I had a feeling as if we shouldn’t go in there. The young man said: “Come on, granddad, we go to the tram cars on Königsplatz.” So we saved ourselves into one of those. There we stood, and sat, for about ten minutes, then the windows blew out through the terrible storm. A patrol came: “You have to get out of here; the cars are also catching fire.” So I grabbed my hand luggage and we saved ourselves to Friedrichsplatz. We stayed there for a while and caught our breath but then we were sent away from there too. A patrol came. The wooden stalls had started to burn. To the right of the theatre, a girl of about 11 years of age was lying on a table, she was ranting and raving. A woman tended to her. Several kids were running around, people did not pay much attention to them.
Then we tried to get through the rubble to Aue gate. I tried to look for my wife but the guard wouldn’t let us through. It was too dangerous; the beams were falling on the street. At about seven a car picked us up and took us to Oberzwehren and from there I went to Sand and now my son-in-law has taken me in where he lives, in Grüsen, district Frankenberg. My wife is missing, nothing has been found of her.
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
Gockel, Jakob
Jakob Gockel
Description
An account of the resource
Mr Jakob Gockel's account of the events at Oberste Gasse 43.
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
1944-03-05
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 14
BKasselVdObmv10014
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
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 Mrs Käthe Sch., née Sch., born 5 January 1906, and makes the following statement:
Before eight in the evening, the wireless stopped. That’s when we put our coats on. We had tickets for the bunker of the railway. With me were my daughter (19 years old) and my grandchild, my parents and my 15-year old son. My siblings (the Gutheil family) had already gone ahead. The alarm started towards eight o’clock. Then my parents and I ran to the bunker. My son, as dispatch runner, had to stay there. By about half nine we were told that our house and the whole street were on fire. At about ten my son turned up completely black in the face. He had been helping with putting out fires in our house and then had been buried. (Cf. the report of the son which makes no mention of this.) But the men managed to get out. Some women had stayed back. Towards eleven, we noticed smoke coming into the bunker. The children started to cry and our eyes started to water. But there was no water for us because it became so scarce that we were not allowed to take any. Then we sat there. The bunker takes 800 people and 1200 were there. It was a terrible ordeal and our tongues burnt with thirst.
At six, I got out to have a look around and got as far as Westendstraße. Where Hohenzollernstraße is, I turned back. You couldn’t get through. Everything was on fire. Sparks were flying. It was terribly windy. So I went back. We sat there until half seven. It was morning. We were told we had to get out. The air was all used up and we would suffocate. And so we left, ran through the flames up Bismarckstraße and through Kölnische Straße to the town hall. On the way, we saw many bombed-out people, sitting on chairs along the street or on the curb. And they had their bundles. I did not hear much wailing and moaning. Here, less was on fire. In the town hall were given milk to drink and were taken to the Wittich barracks. From there we moved to Gemünden and der Wohra where we are living in a flat of our own.
The son, Harry T., born 17 November 1928, makes the following statement:
When the others had left the house, I stayed in the flat at first. Then I stood by the front door of the house. Then the ack ack started firing. Then fire broke out on Hohenzollern-straße. The air raid warden, Mrs Almeroth, got us out for firefighting because our attic started burning. While we were putting out fires, an explosive bomb dropped in a corner of the yard. The hose caught fire while we were firefighting. When we couldn’t go on anymore as the fire was too fierce and we had run out of water, we went down to the entrance hall. On the ground floor, the flat of the Hungerland family was on fire. They carried their furniture into the entrance hall. But it was destroyed by fire anyway. That flat was directly above the air raid cellar and because there was danger that the house would collapse, the air raid warden said people should go to the shelter in Bismarckstraße. It was sometime between 10 and half past. And as there was nothing left to salvage – our flat had also been destroyed already – I went up Westendstraße, through Parkstraße to the shelter on Bismarckstraße. In Westendstraße some people were still on the street. I had to pay attention that I did not get hit by something, stones or masonry or wooden beams. All the people from our wing of the house went to the Bismarckbunker. Herr Ferdinand Theune was killed. He tried to get back into the house to fetch his dog because it was barking so. Then the house collapsed. I don’t know what happened to his wife and his many children. I went back there in the morning, at about six, but by that time the house was just a pile of rubble.
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
Käthe Sch
Description
An account of the resource
Mrs Käthe Sch's account of the events at Luisenstraße 2, Old Barracks (north wing), Railway Bunker, Bismarckstraße. Included is a statement by her son, Harry.
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
1944-03-07
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 15
BKasselVdObmv10015
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
anti-aircraft fire
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 Mr Johannes Leimbach [born 24 October 1885], formerly of Zeughausstraße, and makes the following statement:
When the alarm came, my daughter with her child and another woman from the house, Mrs Dora Jacobs, went to the Pinne [a pub]. I stayed alone in the cellar. I waited and put out two incendiaries in the attic and I went up and down back to the cellar and I shouted to those in the cellar next door: “Your house is on fire, you have to put out the fire. But they claimed that they had no water. They preferred to save themselves. I carried down other things: children’s clothes, pram and other things. When the fires had spread so far that you couldn’t get through anymore, I thought: “Now you have to save your life.” I ran with the pram and the bedding across the Weiße Hof and we were instructed to make our way to the embankment at the school. I parked the pram there. Before, however, the enormous storm had torn away one of the bundles. During the night, I tried to get to the Pinne. Impossible. When it got a little lighter, I made my way through Königstraße, Bremerstraße, Artilleriestraße down to the Pinne.
A man shouted: “Come, we want to get into the Pinne, one entrance is accessible.” Another five men joined us and then we lifted a shaft cover. The house had collapsed completely with the exception of half the front and a wall on the left. A man came running from the rubble at the back. “Come over here, we can reach an entrance here.” We went there and went twenty steps down. We shone a torch and that’s when we saw it. The dead bodies were lying there. Then we called for people we knew: “Mrs Simmen” and I shook her and she said: “Yes?” And I said: “Don’t you recognize me?” “Oh,” she says, “Mr Leimbach, where is my daughter Ilse?” and she gestures with her hand. We carried Mrs Simmen out. She said: “My legs! My Legs!” We carried her. The emergency service and a car took her away. Then we brought out another four or five people. Then soldiers and the emergency services arrived. I was looking for my daughter. I couldn’t find her. The soldiers said; “They’re all dead. You can just drag them out like that. We have to start from the front.” I then went to Sandershausen where my daughter’s renting two rooms. Then I went back to the Pinne but my daughter had not yet been found.
On Sunday, she was lying there, dead. With her was an unknown child. They’d thought it was hers. She had black hair and was about two years old. She was not buried with my daughter. According to the picture, it can’t have been Mrs K.’s daughter (see record 12). She had long black hair. Then we looked for the boy; he was about nine months old. He was lying there, he looked so natural; we buried him with his mother. The police registered the personal details and labelled the dead. I returned there on several occasions but did not find any further relatives. We brought my daughter in her coffin to Sandershausen where her flat was. Miss Anne-liese Ortlepp who boarded with us, has also been saved. She is now in the psychiatric hospital in Gießen. She can still not walk. This is everything I can say what I saw and went through.
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
Leimbach, Johannes
Johannes Leimbach
Description
An account of the resource
Johannes Leimbach's account of the events at Zeughausstraße 10, Wildemannsgasse 19 'Pinne'.
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
1944-03-10
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 16
BKasselVdObmv10016
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 is Mrs Luise M., [formerly] of Packhofstraße 18, [now] of Hindenburgstraße 25, Waldkappel and makes the following statement:
Well, we went into the shelter, didn’t we? And then they closed the portholes, Mr Trinter did that, and he even said we shouldn’t be frightened, nothing was going to happen. The English came and dropped, immediately the lamps were gone, the lights went out. We heard the air raid wardens shout that we should stay calm and it was reasonably quiet except for the little children who screamed every time a bomb dropped. Then the air raid wardens said we should not talk so much as this used too much oxygen. After about two hours (the raid was over) a warden came and said: “People, it is as it is, you have to get out because downstairs on the ground floor people are already losing consciousness.” We should take courage, the fire looked worse than it was in reality. We were advised to make our head scarfs and blankets wet before we went out. According to regulations the ground floor was emptied first, then the first floor and so on. It was all done properly. When we saw the terrible fire as we came out, some people started to waver but more courageous men shouted: “Over here, towards the Fulda [River]!” In the river, we got stuck in the mud because the roller weir had also been hit. We were on the lower side of the Fulda Bridge, where the ships were moored, at the Schlagd. Then the police came and drove us away from there because the houses were falling down and we made our way along the Fulda and the outer wall of the old fortifications to the Aue [park]. That’s where we stayed until morning. When it dawned, I started to look for my family and found the two children Franz and Elisabeth N. on the lawn (see record 18). I went off to look for my sister-in-law but did not find her. I then went to the Pinne. I saw several people I knew lying there but of my sister-in-law no trace can be found. I then searched for my sister and her daughter, they had been in the cellar of Wiedersich & Co (Minna Kurz and Luise Christ, her illegitimate child).
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
Luise M
Description
An account of the resource
Luise M's account of the events at Packhofstraße 18.
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
1944-03-10
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 17
BKasselVdObmv10017
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
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 children, Franz N., born 10 February 1930, and Elisabeth N., born 5 February 1932, and make the following statement:
We lived in Schäfergasse 30. When the alarm came, we went directly to the Pinne [a pub]. We weren’t allowed to use the shelter in Fliegengasse where we usually went because we didn’t have tickets. My sister can’t remember anything but I can recall quite a lot. At first, I had a book and read. The air raid warden Mohr said to me: “That’s good, my boy, it would be useful if they were all like you.” Then a bomb dropped on the house and there was an enormous amount of smoke and dust. The back entrance was buried. Then some men came in and asked whether we had gas masks. They wanted the masks to put out the fire at the back, not for people. Fires had started at the emergency exits. In the space where the men were fighting the fire, there was a crash as if something had collapsed. And because the lights were out, the men asked whether we had a spare torch. They were given one.
Before that many people had come in from Wildemanns-gasse through the emergency exits. People started shouting: “Mr Mohr, please help me, I don’t have any water for my child! My child will suffocate.” And so on. Then I fell asleep. And when I woke up again, I was lying underneath the bench and had bumped my head against something. A woman was still shouting: “Mr Mohr, I cannot take it anymore, please help me!” Someone replied: “I’ll be there in a minute; I don’t have time right now!” Already before that some people wanted to leave and he supposedly said: “I am not allowed to let anyone out, I have to do my duty.” (Pub landlord Karl Mohr of Töpfenmarkt 13) Allegedly, he did however save himself and his family. For himself, he had the courage to run through the fire. After a long time soldiers came in. They put the dead at the front to one side and rescued first those who had lost consciousness. Then they brought me and my sister to the Hessenkampfbahn [a stadium]. As I was carried out I could see how a soldier lifted my mum. I felt her heart beating at that time. Since then, we have no knowledge of our mother. My father is stationed in the north of Norway. From the Hessenkampfbahn a car took us to the town hall where we should have been deposited but we weren’t. The town hall was completely overcrowded. We were taken to the Wittich barracks where they bandaged my legs as I had bruises. After three days I could walk again. We went through the city to look for our mum but we did not find her. We met an uncle who took us with him to Minden in Westphalia. We never heard from our mum again.
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
Franz N and Elisabeth N
Description
An account of the resource
Franz N and Elisabeth N's account of the events at Wildemannsgasse 19, Pinne.
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
1944-03-10
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 18
BKasselVdObmv10018
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
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)
childhood in wartime
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 Miss Emmy O., formerly of Ziegengasse 13, and reports:
About half seven we had shift change at the air raid warning service at the post office. At that point we already had hostile activity. From the direction, we realised that Kassel was the target. And as the first bombs dropped, the building next door was hit. Our staffroom was in that building. It was connected to us through a door on the ground floor (Königsstraße [63], the building where the shoe shop Tack was). Then dreadful smoke and fumes; the lights went out. We had to work by lamplight. The smoke became so unbearable, however, we could not see anything, but we had to continue our work and the phone worked until the end. The post office above us was also on fire which we realised because we could hear the beams falling onto the ceiling above us. And through the explosions, the whole floor vibrated. It was like being on a train. We worked until about ten. Then the order was given to evacuate the office. We were led to the canteen. Because all exits were blocked, the canteen operator led us through burning corridors and finally I realised that I had cobbles underneath my feet.
That’s how I knew that we were on Königsplatz. Everything was on fire there, the sparks flew around our hair. We stood there for half an hour. The officers thought we’d be lost if we stayed here and we wanted to make our way up Königstraße but then the houses collapsed and we had to turn back. On the second attempt, when we were wearing gas masks, we got as far as Friedrichsplatz. I spent the night on the Schöne Aussicht because we could not get back to our digs in Park Schönfeld and also not to Wilhelmshöher Allee. We therefore had to stay on Friedrichsplatz. Some of the girls went to the state museum and spent the night there in the warning centre. I stayed on Schöne Aussicht and looked for my relatives. Then a car came from the Lüttich barracks which took us to the barracks. But I came back and searched for my parents every day but have not found anything about my parents.
A Mrs Schär got out of our house. She wrote to me: After the raid my father and brother went to the attic to check. At that point the house was not yet on fire. Then they went up again when the fire started. They could not get it under control. Mrs Schär tried to escape through the breakthroughs but after the first two, the third cellar had collapsed. They could not continue that way. So she ran with her daughter and her brother-in-law out of the house and the others should have followed them but did not come. Maybe they tried later and it was too late. My mother had been in the hall. Nothing could be found of her. They found my father. I carried the stones away; soldiers brought him out. It was terribly hot and the following day they only retrieved charred bodies. Nothing has been found of my brother and my mother.
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
Emmy O
Description
An account of the resource
Emmy O's account of the events at Königsplatz (post office), Ziegengasse 13.
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
1944-03-10
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 19
BKasselVdObmv10019
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 is the Dutchman Frank Jan B. from Rotterdam, working as grinder at Henschel & Son, of Moltkestraße 14, and makes the following statement:
When the alarm came, I was on Wolfhager Straße, near Rothenditmold. I immediately made my way home. As I was on my way, the bombing started. I therefore went into a cellar on lower Königstraße, opposite Bremer Straße. There were many soldiers and civilians, altogether twenty people. That’s when it really started. I met another Dutchman and we chatted a bit and shortly after, a whole chunk of the house was blown away. A fire started immediately and we could no longer leave where we’d entered. We heard the bombs fall, it was terrible, one after the other. And because there was a fire, lots of smoke came into the cellar. There was some machine in the cellar which you had to turn to suck in fresh air but it brought in as much smoke as was already there. And when the whistling [of the bombs] stopped, we tried to get out. Two women stayed with us and one of them said: “Make my coat wet and then we’ll make our way through the fire.” And everyone looked for a way out. It was dark in the cellar, the light had gone out. I climbed out of the cellar together with the Dutchman and we arrived among the coal, we carried the suitcase for the two women, and thus we arrived on Königstraße.
There was fire everywhere, everything, everything burned, left and right, above, and there was a storm; it’s terrible such a storm. It sucked in the oxygen and all the sparks, it was raining sparks. I said to my colleague: I’ll try and get to my street, it was just around the corner, but as we turned the corner, everything had collapsed because they’d taken a direct hit. And because we couldn’t get through there, we turned back and tried to get through at Jägerstraße. But it was the same there; they’d also been directly hit. So we turned back. Then I went into the next cellar next to the first building because it was unbearable in the street. After an hour, lots of smoke came in and we had to get out again. Then we went into Bremer Straße; that was the only option. As we were walking, I heard something whistling and thought it’ll start again. I through myself on the street. But that wasn’t it. Farther away unexploded bombs were going off. Then we went to the pub Stadt Prag. It was undamaged. Here were many people. I had a beer and smoked a cigarette, for the nerves, but after an hour we had to leave again because the roof started burning. We arrived on the street near the school and from the old town came three or four old people and six or seven very small children one of whom I took on my arm. The child was crying because the sparks burnt their legs. We brought the people into the cellar of a house which wasn’t on fire yet. And there was a woman, who stood in the corridor, and she said: “There at the back is my pram.” But as we got there, it was gone. She shouted: “Where is my pram?” We searched, where had it gone? Maybe someone had taken it with them. We two Dutchmen continued on the street; we tried to find somewhere where it was bearable but there was nowhere to go. We sat in a corner of the Holländische Platz, turned our collars up and waited for daybreak.
Then I went to Moltkestraße, where I lived, and many people were in the street. Everything was smoking, most of it was burnt out. I climbed over the pile of rubble at the entrance to the street, in the middle of the street was a dead body, completely burnt, and there were another two burnt bodies lying on the street. In the street I met Herr Stein from my house. He had also not been at home that night. Our house had collapsed, only a piece of wall was still standing. I climbed in over the rubble. The cellar door was still open. I went in with Herr Stein but no-one was left in the cellar. Everything was full of smoke. We wanted to take his stuff out but we had no keys for the cellar. I then found my suitcases; a friend of mine had brought them down. The other two Dutch people who had lived with us, were both dead. I only realised this three weeks later. I always thought that they’d managed to get out somewhere. I then went to the Lutherplatz where I had something to eat and then I walked to Obervellmar. There, I was welcomed by the NSV [Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt], we were given soup and food, and I slept on the straw. I stayed and slept there for four days, at the collection camp. In the meantime, my friend from work arrived and we slept in a barn on the straw. Then the farmer gave us a room. This is why we are still in Obervellmar.
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
Frank Jan B
Description
An account of the resource
Frank Jan B's account of the events at Moltkestraße 14
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
1944-03-10
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 20
BKasselVdObmv10020
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
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 Alfred P., formerly of Gartenstraße 26, and makes the following statement:
The alarm went and there was hardly enough time to eat a bowl of soup. Because I’d just come home from work. So I grabbed together what I had on me. My mother brought everything down to the cellar. Because I was in Gartenstraße at my sister’s as I always had to eat there. My mother was also there; she lived in Zentgrafenstraße. (Mother Hedwig P., sisters Anna P. and Helene H.) During the raid I wanted to see a couple of times what was going on but was always thrown back by air pressure. When the flames started and everything was on fire, I went back up and brought the bedding and anything else I could grab into the cellar. Houses no 7 and 9 were already on fire and also many houses on Schäfergasse downwards. The horse butcher Herrmann from our house also brought a lot of things into the cellar. And then he said: “This one doesn’t even live in this house and helps to salvage things but you are afraid to go up. You have to take your hat off to him.” Then I went to have another look in the street, my mother and sister too. I said to my mother: “Just wait here a moment, I want to go back down and tell people there that they should get out.” And when I got into the cellar and told them, most of them said I’d gone mad, the cellar was safe and nothing could happen to them there. I said: “No, that’s a living grave. If we get to keep our things in here, we’ll be lucky,” I said.
And when I came back up, my mother had disappeared and my sister too. I shouted after them and heard my sister shout “Alfred” back once but I could not see them through the fire and the smoke. I thought, they’d already run across. But they had not stayed where I told them, I wanted to take them with me the way I wanted to go. I made my way towards the horse market, where Koch, the glazier, is. I jumped through a small column of fire because the Huth’s house opposite had already mostly collapsed. Still sounds of crashing and fire raining down, I don’t know what time it was. Then I went round the corner of the Tabella house which was already gone, here I was protected. A bunch of little children screamed, they were lying on a pile of sand. So I said to the children: “Come on, get up, I can’t carry you all, you’ll have to come after me.” But none of them came, no one of them reacted to what I’d said. So I went up Pferdemarkt and had to get across burning beams. It was the house of the clothes shop, next to Tabella, opposite the Hellmuth bakery. That’s where I realised that I had burnt my legs. I was still carrying my bike on my back because I thought I could drive down Königstraße. But you couldn’t do that. As I came to the corner where the department store was, I chucked it away, the frame had become so hot that I could not hold on to it. Then I went down Königstraße further because I could not get through Moltkestraße. I always looked for open spaces but could not get to Lutherplatz. So I ran to Jägerstraße. A burnt-out car was standing in the middle of the street; that was lucky for me. I crouched behind it for a moment. At that moment a column of fire shot out from Jägerstraße and I would not have managed to get through it if the car had not been there. (If we’d had water, we could have saved many a house.) Then the firestorm abated for a moment and I thought it’s time to get up and get on, further down. Just as I’d started, it started raining fire again. I’d only run a few paces, and I thought you can’t go back, you’ll have to run the short distance through it. I had everything burnt, my head, the hair had all gone, my hands, I could feel it on my legs and what I’d been wearing had turned into rags. Then I ran to Bremer Straße (Synagogue). There, I stood at a wall and tried to catch my breath. At that moment I also lost my sight. Someone came with a tin hat on their head and shouted: “Off the street, clear the street.” I could just about see him. I shouted back: “Come here if you want something!” So he came over to me, took me and I was carried down to the fire trenches in the Jew garden. That’s when the pain started and I started to whimper a bit. Someone gave me water from an old tin can; I had a burning thirst. They said to me: “Be careful that you don’t cut your lips on the tin!” Another woman put ointment on my hands. From there I was taken to the cellar of the Henschel admin building. A doctor dressed my burns provisionally. He also cut off the burnt skin. Then I was taken to another room where I was to sit on a bench but I immediately fell over. I heard only moaning and groaning. Then a truck came and took us to the district hospital. It must have been daylight as the sun hurt my eyes but I could not see it. In the bunker I had to walk as there were no stretchers. I was guided and put on a bed and then they took the rags off me. I stayed there until 6 October. [Would have to have been November.] Then I was on a transport bus to Eschwege. I don’t know much about that time because I started raving. I jumped out of the bed and did not want to lie down. But I don’t remember any of this. On 14 February I was discharged from Eschwege.
There was also someone called Gräser from Kasernen-straße 4 in that hospital. He ran the same way as I. His burns were much worse. He had three fingers amputated. There was no adult with the children at Pferdemarkt. They must have been about twenty children. At Pferdemarkt another child (from the Behrens’ house with the flowershop) must have run through the flames, to his grandad at Lindenberg, to Konrad Knipschild (with the nickname Sweet William) in Ochshäuser Straße. The parents of the boy died in the fire. The boy is about 10 years old and unharmed.
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
Alfred P
Description
An account of the resource
Mr Alfred P's account of the events at Schäfergasse 5 and Gartenstraße 26.
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
1944-03-10
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 21
BKasselVdObmv10021
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 is Mr Karl P., born 9 December 1901, formerly of Hartwigstraße, now Hundelshausen, District Witzenhausen, and makes the following statement:
When the alarm came, I was with my NSDAP operations unit at Wesertor. Ten minutes quiet, searchlights, aircraft and ack ack fire. Then four flare bombs were dropped in the area Wolfsanger, Möncheberg, Wesertor. Then a Christmas tree was dropped in between and shortly after, the bombs rained down. All house communities were in their air raid cellars. Within five minutes, three attics were on fire in Hartwigstraße: no 14, the rear building of no 16 and no 27. Shortly after the following houses were on fire: nos. 2, 4, 6, 10, 20, 22, 24 and then nos. 31, 25, 23, 21 1/2. It was impossible to put out these fires. Then I ran out again. I was constantly outside. Three corners of my flat were on fire, bedroom, children’s room, kitchen. At least on the lower floors they salvaged what they could. Then I went on to Gartenstraße, all houses were on fire, every single one, even the rear buildings.
Then the raid was finished. I started to chase people out of the cellars which was difficult because they did not want to leave. Then I returned to my buidling. In the cellars there, people were backed up against the breakthroughs. The air raid wardens refused people’s comrades passage through the breakthroughs. The smoke development was immense in the cellars. In house no 14, I used force, took my wife and two children with me and went with them through the breakthroughs to no 24. All the other people in the cellars followed us and that’s how we were saved. This was our last chance because both sides of the street were on fire. We could get out of no 24 without danger because it bordered on a junction. From here people could get to Josefsplatz through Sodensternstraße and Gartenstraße – this was also a sea of fire but not as dangerous – or they could get to the army veterinary hospital on Ihringshäuser Straße. Both places had been equipped as collection points. Through that approach, our cells, Hartwigstraße and Gartenstraße, had no fatalities and no missing persons but some people had been injured.
I ran with my family to Josefsplatz, left them in a pub there, and returned to the house to salvage our air raid luggage. I managed to salvage some papers and a couple of suitcases. I put the gas mask on and went to the cellar. From there I went back to my family and started searching for other relatives. My brother-in-law’s house in Hafenstraße burnt down but they’re all alive. Then I went to Marktgasse where my other brother-in-law lives in no 19 (Schützenhalle); his name is Mainzer. But the police would not let anyone through the sea of fire. In Wildemannsgasse no 30 lived my niece, Mrs Nikolaus, with her daughter. They are still missing; Mainzer and his wife were buried on the main cemetery. There is no trace of Mrs Neubert (Mainzer’s daughter) and her child. The girl was ten years old. The cellar was opened but nothing was found. We also did not find any objects apart from an empty shopping bag which belonged to Mrs Mainzer. The Mainzers’ son died at sea, his last letter contained the poem “No roses grow on a sailor’s grave”. Their son-in-law fell at Stalingrad. His last letter and that from the sailor and photographs were in a handbag which we gave to the relatives as a memento.
The other day a woman came to me and said: “Mr P., I’m so glad about the slap in the face you gave me, you saved hundreds of lives with that. I had a sewing machine I wanted to salvage and you pushed me aside.”
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
Karl P
Description
An account of the resource
Mr Karl P's account of the events at Hartwigstraße.
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
1944-03-11
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 22
BKasselVdObmv10022
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
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
final resting place
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 is Mrs Margarete F., born 3 March 1895, formerly of Schäfergasse 39, now of Menzelstraße 4, c/o Möller and makes the following statement:
When the alarm came, we went to the cellar – right? – and it came blow upon blow, there were no breaks, and so everything around us was hit, everywhere. Ours was not hit directly but it caught fire. Only one incendiary dropped into the small rear building but we put it out. The people in the cellar were very orderly and quiet. The youngest was nine years old and we all got out. The street looked really nice (sarcasm); we’d gone up a few times, everything was on fire. All around us, all houses. Our house also caught fire but only later, through the flying sparks. We stayed in our cellar during the whole raid. The people from the neighbouring houses also came to our cellar, they were standing up to the second floor; the whole house was full. When our house also started to burn, the block leader, Mr Euler, said: “We have to get out, all of us!” And because people did not have anything with them, we used the hose to soak them so that they could get through the fire. They did not even have blankets with them. And then, all the people got out, towards the embankment and they all got through, some even to the shelter at Henschel’s. We then worked to get the women out on the street who had fled to us with little children. And my landlord, Köhler, the baker, and his wife and niece and a nurse and I, us five, we left last.
We left the house as it was, it just started burning. And as we got out, we had a difficult job because the tarmac was on fire, we got stuck, phosphorous splashes everywhere, but we kept our wits about us; we fought through. We had taken wet blankets. The suitcases we couldn’t take because the cellar too was on fire. Then we had to climb over burning beams and also over many people who had burnt to death who were lying there. One woman had had a heart attack. Is was about half eleven.
Then we went across the embankment to the school. It looked terrible. There were lots of people there. They were however fairly sensible and quiet. That’s where we stayed until half six the following morning. Then we went out but fled back in because a dud exploded. And from there, when it eased up a bit with the duds, we walked through the rubble to Obervellmar. We couldn’t see anything and had lost all our belongings. In the school, we received emergency treatment. We were given eye drops, rations and received our papers as bomb victims. My husband died five years ago. Our only son died in a military hospital in Vienna. And now I’m on my own. Of course, all this happened with great commotion, what I’m telling here calmly. It was hell down there where we were. There were also two children in the cellar, we took them with us, three and five years old, two boys, probably Mrs Peter’s from Schäfergasse 18? We took them with us, the other people in front of us, and I don’t know where they went. I don’t know where their mother was, she wasn’t with us. She had six children. I’ve heard that she’s been saved. A girl was at the hospital at that time. She was only a few weeks old.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Margarete F
Description
An account of the resource
Margarete F's account of the events at Schäfergasse 39.
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
1944-03-11
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
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 23
BKasselVdObmv10023
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)
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
shelter