Текст книги "Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg, 1943"

Автор книги: Keith Lowe

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the crews were not only British. The Polish airmen in Bomber Command had a reputation for being particularly bloodthirsty, revelling in any opportunity to avenge the rape of their homeland. Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans, who had never seen an attack on their home soil, were there for reasons that were more vague: a principle to be upheld, or a sense of loyalty to the Empire and ‘home country’. Many had joined up as volunteers simply for the excitement of flying. Their only thought now was to get home safely to their beds, one day closer to their next period of leave, and one operation closer to the magic total of thirty.

Mixed with their satisfaction was relief that the main part of the job was over, as they headed back into the safety of darkness. But their relief was misplaced: this was perhaps the most dangerous time of all. Silhouetted by the fires behind them, their guard down because of the natural complacency that follows such bursts of adrenaline, they were easy targets for night fighters. And now, at last, the night fighters were arriving. Once the attack on Hamburg had begun, many fighter controllers had abandoned their radar sets and told their crews to head straight for the city. Some had seen the fires and flown in on their own initiative. By half past one in the morning, the skies on the way out of Hamburg were becoming far more dangerous than they had been going in.

The more disciplined crews would not drop their vigilance for a moment. The skipper would return to weaving the plane, and warn the gunners not to look into the fires below for fear of losing their night vision. Navigators would set course along the designated route, roughly parallel to the route in, to take advantage of the safety provided by the bomber stream. Flight engineers and bombaimers, their job done, would return to dropping bundles of Window down the flare chute, lest they lose the advantage they had gained over the enemy radar. And the wireless operators would continue broadcasting ‘Tinsel’, the sound of their engines, on the German frequencies to block out any radio communication between their rivals in the air.

However, not all crews were quite so disciplined. Nervous and inexperienced pilots ignored the laid-down route and made a bee-line straight for the coast. It was an understandable temptation, particularly for those new pilots and navigators who had never experienced flak before. Some rear gunners could not help staring, mesmerized, into the inferno on the ground behind them, only to find that when they did tear away their eyes they were effectively blind in the darkness. Some crew members lit cigarettes, which they would puff between breaths on their oxygen masks, while others would open their flying rations with a yawn, exhausted by anxiety.

Almost half of that night’s casualties were shot down by night fighters on the journey home – and of those, most had been off track. Without the benefit of thousands of bundles of Window to mask their movements, they had been located by German radar and summarily dealt with. Some, like the crew of Flying Officer J. S. Cole, were lucky to escape. After being picked up by searchlights over Cuxhaven on the coast, Cole was attacked by a Messerschmitt Me109 – a day fighter – but was able to dive away without being hit. ³³Likewise Sergeant S. Grzeskowiak was on his first operation when his Wellington was attacked by a Junkers Ju88 night fighter. He managed to escape after being hit, but was leaking petrol all the way home, and eventually had to crash land at Trusthorpe in Lincolnshire. Those crews lived to tell the tale, for now at least. ³⁴

Others were not so lucky. Wallace McIntosh, a rear gunner with 207 Squadron, saw a Lancaster ‘blazing like hell’ a thousand yards away as a German fighter came in repeatedly to attack it. As the plane fell out of the sky he saw five parachutes open, but the Lancaster’s rear gunner, obviously trapped inside the plane, carried on firing till the end. ‘I have never seen such bravery,’ McIntosh recalls. ‘The poor bugger was still sitting there firing away and the fighter went back in to have another blast at him, with the gunner still defiant, and the Lancaster blew up.’ ³⁵

For the vast majority of crews, however, the journey home was as uneventful as the journey in. By four o’clock in the morning the first of the Pathfinders had already landed at their bases, and the main bomber stream was crossing the coast into England. This was the last moment of danger for the RAF crewmen. For some of those who had been hit by flak there would be an emergency landing at an unfamiliar airfield. There was always the chance that returning planes could be attacked by German intruders, but the biggest fear was the possibility of ground fog, which could make landing hazardous. Tonight, at the height of summer, the likelihood of that was not great – but even in clear conditions it could be dangerous landing in the dark. Despite the wealth of his experience, the CO of 83 Squadron, John Searby, collided with a Lancaster of 156 Squadron as the two came in to land at Warboys. Fortunately both aircraft landed safely.

After taxiing back to their original positions on the airfield, the crews would emerge from their planes, grinning with relief. Transports would take them to the station buildings where they would be ushered in for debriefing. Blinking in the light, and glad of the chance for a cup of tea and a smoke, the men would sit down at a table with the intelligence officer to tell their stories. Every aspect of their trip was noted: the effects of Window, the weather conditions over the target, how easy it had been to spot the target indicators, how extensive the fires in the city and so on. If they had been attacked by enemy fighters, or seen anything unusual, special care was taken to record the details. Only when this process was over were the men allowed to have breakfast and go to bed, exhausted by their long night in the air. For many the whole process would be repeated the following night: in the war over northern Europe the summer months were all too short, and Bomber Command had to make use of every crew it could while conditions allowed.

* * *

That, then, was the pattern of a single night in the life of the Bomber Command crews – a typical operation made extraordinary by the introduction of a new weapon. Window had been a phenomenal success, and would continue to save the lives of RAF airmen for the next six weeks, before the Germans were able to counter its effects. Many crews have since thanked their luck that they were flying in the summer of 1943, because they were able, during that brief period of relative safety, to clock up enough operations to finish their tour. This simple, radar-jamming device had secured their future.

As they made their way to breakfast, however, few were thinking of the future. Six hours of heightened senses and intense emotions had left them worn out, and every one was now ready for bed. Their reward for the night’s efforts was a huge meal of bacon and eggs – as much as they could eat – but as soon as it was finished they returned to their quarters. Some were so exhausted they were unable even to undress before they fell into bed.

While they slept, the day was only just beginning for everyone else at the station. Out on the airfield the erks were already hard at work to repair any damage to the squadrons’ precious aeroplanes. Intelligence staff were developing and analysing the bomb photographs taken by each, and collating the information in a report for Group Headquarters. Their reports today would be upbeat. Despite a fair amount of ‘creepback’ over the countryside to the north-west of the city – a phenomenon caused by successive crews dropping their bombs marginally early – it was plain that the bombing had been very concentrated in certain areas, and a great deal of damage had been caused.

Over the next few days reconnaissance planes would fly high over Hamburg taking daytime photographs of the damage to enhance the intelligence reports, but even now, with what they knew already, the atmosphere at airfields across the country was optimistic. Casualties had been low (only twelve planes missing out of 792), and it seemed to many that a new era in the bombing war had begun.

Few could have guessed where this new era would lead.

10. The Devastation Begins

The fronts draw nearer, the nights grow longer … the Luftwaffe is

helpless, German cities are defenceless … Each night brings the threat of

devastation closer. It is only a question of time.

British propaganda leaflet, 1943 ¹

To claim that the people of Hamburg had no inkling of what was about to befall them on the first night of Operation Gomorrah would not be quite true. Most had heard of what had happened to the cities of the Ruhr over the preceding months, and while German radio and newspaper reports were deliberately vague on the details, the city’s anxious housewives allowed their imaginations to fill in the gaps. Rumours abounded. People told each other furtive stories about factories and houses being blown sky-high, men and women rushing frantically for the rivers, their clothes on fire. Some claimed that the British had deliberately targeted the cathedrals at Cologne and Aachen in an attempt to destroy German heritage. Others swore that when the Americans bombed Kiel and Flensburg they had dropped fountain pens and other everyday articles filled with explosives. ²

The Allies did whatever they could to fuel such fears. BBC broadcasts to the continent became progressively more triumphant in tone. ³British and American planes dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets on northern Germany, many of which fell on Hamburg. These gave a variety of lurid statistics about what had happened to other German cities, and went on to imply that the people of Hamburg would be next to feel the devastating bite of the bombs. ⁴

Despite all this, however, many people refused to believe that the bombers were heading their way, for the simple reason that they did not wantto believe it. After four long years of fighting they were sick of war, and some even hoped that the Allies would hurry up and invade so that the whole thing could be over quickly. ⁵More rumours claimed that the Allies were being deliberately lenient on Hamburg because they would need the city when they invaded. ⁶Regardless of everything that had happened since 1939, Hamburg was still largely an anglophile city: many people could not bring themselves to believe that their friends and allies of the past 150 years would ever have the will to inflict such suffering on them. ⁷

Besides, the city had not been targeted properly for four and a half months. What few alarms there had been recently had all proved false. Despite constant warnings from the authorities to remain alert, while the skies were clear and the sun shone, it was easy to pretend that they were safe from attack.

* * *

Were it not for the war, the day before the bombers arrived would have been idyllic. It was a hot Saturday in July, and the whole city seemed to have come outdoors to enjoy the sunshine. Hamburg had been experiencing an unusually lengthy spell of glorious weather, and the long, warm days reminded people of peacetime. Now that the school holidays had begun the city’s many parks were thronging with children playing Völkerballor Kippel-kappel, and the open-air swimming baths at Aschberg and Ohlsdorf were filled with teenagers splashing and calling to one another as they dived from the railings. Down by the Elbe, off-duty workers rolled up their trousers and strolled through the shallow water, or rested on the river’s sandy banks beneath the trees. Old couples walked arm in arm along the Alster, or sunned themselves on their balconies and in their gardens. In the absence of any air raids the atmosphere in the city was fairly calm, perhaps even relaxed. A gentle breeze blew in off the river, caressing the spires of the churches, while those in the city streets below went about their everyday business undisturbed. ⁸

Despite the shortages, there were still plenty of ways to relax in the city. At the beginning of July the famous Althoff Circus had been in Wandsbek, delighting children with a combination of clowning and breathtaking acrobatics. Lovers of horse-sports were looking forward to the Preis von Deutschland at Farmsen Racecourse, and the Hitler Youth were holding their area championships in canoeing. In the evenings there was also a wide variety of entertainment. A Hungarian dance orchestra had been playing in the Orchideen Café, and Strauss’s Die Zigeunerbaronwas on at the Volksoper on the Reeperbahn. The cinemas showed a variety of escapist films, mostly adventure movies or romances such as Der dunkel Tag( The Dark Day) and Du gehörst zu mir( You Belong to Me). ⁹

There was double summertime in Germany, as there was in Britain, so it stayed light in the evenings almost until ten o’clock. As the fleet of RAF bombers took off across the North Sea, many Hamburgers were coming out of the cinemas and theatres. Others were still finishing their evening meal, or sitting out on their balconies to enjoy a cool drink before bedtime. Those who didn’t have to get up for work on Sunday celebrated the end of the week with friends or family, perhaps even with sons or husbands on leave from the front, but towards midnight most of the city was turning in. It was hot and sultry, so many people had dragged mattresses out into the courtyards to sleep in the open air. ¹⁰As they lay looking up at the bright stars above them, the war seemed far away.

Awake or asleep, the whole city was brought back to reality when the quiet of the night was broken by the sound of sirens. The noise did not produce panic – in fact, it was greeted with little more than weary sighs. The alarms had already gone off once that night, at around nine thirty, but they had been cancelled ten minutes later. Now, at half past midnight, people expected a repeat performance and many rolled over to go back to sleep. Hamburgers were used to sirens: in the previous three years they had endured no less than 318 air-raid warnings, the vast majority of which were false alarms. Even the actual attacks they had experienced – 137 in total – were mostly fairly minor, especially during the past twelve months. ¹¹Familiarity had bred complacency.

In Lokstedt, in the north-east of the city, Wanda Chantler was struggling to wake a room full of women and convince them to come to the air-raid shelter. She was a twenty-year-old Pole who worked in a forced-labour camp packing cans of fish for soldiers at the front. As first-aid officer at her barracks, she was obliged to go to the shelter, but few of the others would join her.

First of all there was a great big howl of sirens. And the girls all said, ‘Oh, it’s like this every night – nothing will happen.’ They went off so often, those sirens: we sometimes got them twice a night. We all got so fed up, particularly those that were on the day shift, because they had no sleep – the planes never came in the daytime, they always came in the night. But these girls said, ‘We’re not getting up. Nothing will happen.’ ¹²

Reluctantly, she and five other women trudged down to the makeshift underground shelter on the other side of the compound – a move that probably saved her life.

Elsewhere, other Hamburgers were showing similar reluctance to go to the shelters. Hannah Kelson was fourteen, and had a typical teenager’s response to any suggestion that she should leave her bed just because the RAF might be coming: ‘Let them come, I don’t care.’ ¹³For some it was the conditions in the bunkers kept them away. Martha Bührich, a fifty-seven-year-old teacher who lived in Barmbek preferred to sit on a stool in the doorway of her bathroom rather than go to the ‘community bedlam’ of the air-raid bunkers. ¹⁴Some of the shelters were uncomfortable because people brought as much as they could carry ‘just in case’ – not only jewellery and important papers, but suitcases, pet dogs, cats and even chickens. ¹⁵It is not surprising that many wanted to avoid the shelters unless it was absolutely necessary.

There were other reasons to stay above ground: a raid on the city could be a spectacular event, and many Hamburgers admit that they often stood in their doorways or on their balconies during an attack to watch the progress of the bombs. The novelist Hans Erich Nossack recorded watching some women on the roof of a neighbour’s house applauding as a British plane, caught in searchlights, was shot down. ¹⁶Civilians have always turned out to watch battles from a supposedly safe distance – however, as Nossack makes clear, the true reason that they watched was not to see the battle in the sky but the unfolding destruction of their city. ‘I had one unequivocal wish,’ he says. ‘Let it get really bad!’ ¹⁷

Tonight Nossack was not on his balcony to witness events: he was on holiday in the countryside, just to the south of the city. Like many others he was unmoved by the sound of the sirens. It was the noise of aeroplanes humming overhead that snapped him into action.

I jumped out of bed and ran barefoot out of the house into this sound that hovered like an oppressive weight between the clear constellations and the dark earth, not here and not there but everywhere in space … One didn’t dare take a breath for fear of inhaling it. It was the sound of eighteen hundred aeroplanes [ sic] approaching Hamburg from the south at an unimaginable height. We had already experienced two hundred or even more air raids, some of them very heavy, but this was something completely new. And yet there was an immediate recognition: this was what everyone had been waiting for, what had hung for months like a shadow over everything we did, making us weary. It was the end. ¹⁸

In the centre of town many others were also beginning to realize that this was the full-scale raid they had been dreading. State Secretary Georg Ahrens was now broadcasting a warning over the radio on all channels: ‘Go immediately to your air-raid shelters! Enemy bombs may drop within the next three minutes!’ ¹⁹Soon the streets were busy with people making their way to the public shelters. There was still plenty of time, but they ran anyway, out of a desire to get a good place in the bunker and genuine fear for their lives.

For those who were late, further confirmation arrived of what lay in store for them. Cascades of bright red and yellow marker bombs, and later green ones too, fell over the city, filling the night with a miraculous glow. For one woman at least, on fire duty at one of the city’s department stores, the Tannenbäumewere a sight she would never forget: ‘I stood there looking out of the hatch at the wonderful sky. This was something one would otherwise never see … The whole sky above Hamburg alight – prettier, much prettier than a firework display.’ ²⁰

Sixteen-year-old Gotthold Soltwedel, who was serving as a flak helper on the huge flak tower in the centre of town, also saw it:

I can still remember the first ‘Christmas trees’ exactly. Dazzling coloured flames hung over us on little parachutes; and likewise on the ground, in the middle of the Heiligengeistfeld, colourful incendiaries lay as markers for the bombers. I can also still hear the first bomb howling down. It was very near. As if on command we charged away from the guns and into the entrance of the bunker, knocking our Leutnantto the floor in the process. He screamed at us dreadfully and called us cowards. ²¹

By now there were very few people out in the open – even the majority of fire wardens had taken cover, coming out intermittently to conduct quick patrols of the buildings. Earlier in the year, Goebbels had discussed with Hitler the idea that fire wardens should be stationed on the roofs of houses during air raids so that they could combat incendiary bombs as soon as they fell, but he soon realized that this would cause too many casualties. ²²In general, only official observers and those manning flak batteries were around to see the sheer mass of marker bombs, incendiaries and the spectacular explosions of the 4,000-pound ‘cookies’ and 8,000-pound ‘blockbusters’.

From his flak battery in the north east of the city, Rudolf Schurig had a panoramic view of the unfolding situation:

We soon saw anti-aircraft fire at eight o’clock, and then they were there: direction Eimsbüttel, Altona. The first Tannenbäumefell there, a glowing green hail of fire, which was to mark the target for the following aircraft. And suddenly the sky above that district was as light as day. A large number of bright parachute flares, which ignite very low down and slowly drop, lit up the district as if it were an enormous freight depot, lit by many flood lamps. Here the first anti-aircraft shells were fired, the first of our new artillery. How it thundered! … At each volley we had a feeling of security. We would show the Tommies what it meant to attack Hamburg, our Hamburg! ²³

Things started to go wrong when the effects of the RAF’s new radar-jamming device, Window, took hold. As Rudolf Schurig was soon to discover, his earlier sense of security had been misplaced:

Everything seemed to be going well, as we had practised in exercises and battle hundreds of times. But suddenly our radar apparatus stopped working. This happened regularly to this highly sensitive machinery, and would quickly be fixed; in the meantime we would switch to the neighbouring battery. But they were unable to give us any information, as their radar was also broken … It was then confirmed that none of the radar in Hamburg was functioning; we did not yet know why … A paralysing terror began to creep over us. We felt like someone who has been given a rifle to defend himself, but who is blindfolded at the same time. ²⁴

For Johann Johannsen, who was manning a flak battery in Altona, things were even worse. Altona was directly beneath the RAF marker flares, and was about to receive the full force of the bombs.

High above us we could hear the drone of the enemy machines. Suddenly countless flares were above us, so that the whole city was lit up in a magically bright light … With incredible swiftness the disaster was suddenly upon us. Before and behind our battery heavy chunks of metal were striking. Howling and hissing, fire and iron were falling from the sky. The whole city was lit up in a sea of flames! With dogged fury we remained at our guns, exposed to the raging force of the attack. Everyone looked for something to hold on to, so as not to be hurled down by the pressure of the exploding bombs. Every now and then I cast another look over towards my house. I skipped a breath – a column of fire shot up high – everything was in flames! ²⁵

Johannsen was in the unenviable position of being able to see his house from the flak position. Bound by duty to remain at his post, he was powerless to react when he saw his home on fire: the best he could do was to pray that his family had not been killed and continue firing at the enemy. In any case, with bombs raining around him there was plenty to occupy him here. Moments later he was startled by a terrible howling above him, and an incendiary bomb hurtled down exactly between his two flak guns: it crashed through the roof of the building and set fire to the fourth floor below. Despite injuries to his hands and face from exploding shards of glass, Johannsen was still not given permission to leave his post and check his family – the flak battery needed all the men it could get. Despite physical pain and mounting anxiety he remained at the guns until after the all-clear was sounded.

* * *

For some who were sheltering in bunkers and cellars, things were almost as terrifying as they were for those outside. The difference was that while the flak gunners at least had a role to play, those in the shelters could do nothing but sit and wait. The tension and uncertainty that built up over several hours became almost unbearable.

Hiltgunt Zassenhaus had been studying for her university exams at home when the alarms went off. She lived in the north-west of the city so the bunker where she and her family took shelter was beneath the flight path of the bombers as they approached. At the beginning of the attack the shelter was virtually empty, and there was space to relax and reread a letter from her brother Björn. ‘Then came a sudden flicker of the lamps, a roar, an explosion. Was it inside or outside? The light went out. My pocket torch fell to the ground. The pram rolled towards me, set in movement by the shaking of the bunker. I jumped up. The light flickered a couple of times – then another explosion – and all was dark. I fell on my knees, my head in my hands.’ ²⁶

The sound of the bombs was terrifying, but it was perhaps even more frightening when the bomb was so close that it was no longer audible. As another woman who lived through this series of raids explains, the bombs became truly terrifying when one stopped hearing and started to feelthem. ‘Whenever a person hears a “singing” or “whistling”, it doesn’t matter if he is in a cellar or in a living-room, the impact of the bomb is some distance away. But woe betide you if you can feel the air pressure blast on your ears (very unpleasant); then the bombs are falling directly in the vicinity. One hears no booming, nothing, only this terrible blast of air pressure. ²⁷

In Hiltgunt Zassenhaus’s bunker one such wave of pressure blew the internal cover off the ventilation shaft, and the iron doors of the bunker groaned under the strain. The girl cowering inside was paralysed with fear. Once it became obvious that this was a full-scale attack, scores of other people arrived, desperate to escape the nightmare in the streets. Within a short time Hiltgunt’s bunker was overflowing with shocked and frightened people: ‘One explosion followed another. Suddenly from outside a despairing hammering on the bunker door – wild screams tore the night. Someone opened the door, and the crowd fell in like the possessed; they screamed to one another and struggled for breath, and the block walls echoed with the howling of children and the wailing of women. Over all droned the voice of Herr Braun [the bunker warden]: “Calm down! We have space for everyone!”’ ²⁸Beneath the seemingly endless explosions Hiltgunt lost all sense of time and, in the pitch darkness, all sense of space. She was aware only of the heaving mass of humanity around her. ‘Crammed together in the darkness, we became just a single mass of bodies, and at each explosion we swayed with the shaking bunker walls.’ ²⁹

On the first night of bombing the conditions inside some bunkers were appalling. Many of the structures were little more than a series of narrow tunnels in the ground, with wooden benches along their concrete walls. Even the larger, overground bunkers were often extremely cramped. They became so overcrowded that sometimes they were reserved exclusively for women and children, while some over-zealous bunker wardens also excluded foreign workers. There were simply not enough places to go round.

Paul Elingshausen, who witnessed the bombing that night, was shocked by the air-raid shelters. After trying, and failing, to save his house from the hail of incendiary bombs, he eventually joined his wife and two young children in the nearby bunker.

Imagine around a thousand people crammed into the small rooms, a real heat inside, sweat running down our bodies, the bunker full of smoke from outside, not a drop of water to drink, no food and no light. The electricity went straight away. Torches were all flat; the few tallow candles were soon finished. And the whole time there was such an atmosphere; outside the bombs roared, often so close that the bunker shook. Can you imagine this with women and babies? ³⁰

Despite the conditions, few complained. They were aware that the alternative – to weather the storm outside – was infinitely worse. Occasionally those near the doors would hear reports on what was happening outside as those on fire duty returned with messages for the bunker warden. In general, no news was good news. Fire wardens rarely beat on a shelter door unless it was time for everyone to evacuate the shelter.

* * *

Descriptions of what it was like to be in the streets at the time of the bombardment are rare, for the simple reason that few were foolish enough to risk it. With more than thirteen hundred tons of high-explosive bombs falling on the city, there was the strong likelihood of being caught in the blasts. Also, incendiary bombs struck the ground at high speed, and the most fearsome spilled liquid phosphorus as they landed. There was also the threat of being hit by falling masonry.

Wanda Chantler was one of the first to discover why it was so important to seek shelter during an air raid. She was sitting in the makeshift earth bomb shelter with the handful of women she had managed to rouse from their beds earlier when ‘Suddenly a gust of wind blew the door in. There was a terrific noise. It was like a winter’s night when the wind comes howling through the door and through the window, and you sit in the kitchen hoping it will go away – that sort of noise. And this wind blew our wooden door right open and we were exposed to a terrific blast of hot air. Until then we didn’t hear the bombs falling. We didn’t even knowthey were falling.’ ³¹

The blast knocked Wanda off her feet, and the other girls had to help her up. Shaken by the explosion, they huddled in the open doorway wondering what to do. Since their shelter no longer seemed to provide much protection they decided to venture back across the compound to see if the other women were all right. But as soon as they stepped through the door they saw that ‘The barracks was not there. It just was not there. I looked, and then I looked down, and it was all in a heap. That was all that was left of the barracks … We stood, the six of us, and we didn’t know what to do.’