1945

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On January 2nd, a Tuesday, there are four air warnings. In the late afternoon I am assigned to the mail handling in the post office. Erwin and I, who is also assigned to handle mail, have decided to go to the revue film tonight

 

"The woman of my dreams" with Marika Röck,

 

currently running at Phoebus Palace. But as is so often the case, the mail from Messrs. Georg and Max Theisen comes very late to the post office. We apprentices still have to take the mail to the main post office at the train station. As we exit the post office at the train station, a public air warning is given.

 

It is 6:33 p.m. when I board the tram to Mögeldorf. Just 10 minutes later, at 18:43, the air raid alarm went off. The tram stops at the "Arminiusstrasse" stop. I have to walk the rest of the way to Marthastrasse.

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The anti-aircraft batteries are already beginning to fire. The first reconnaissance aircraft have broken through the ring of barrage and are in the middle of the city area. Suddenly it becomes daylight over the city. The reconnaissance aircraft dropped the first magnesium flares, popularly known as "Christmas trees". It's 7:18 p.m. on my watch. The four-engined bombers roared dully, coming on a broad front from the south to the south-west. When I reach our apartment on Ostendstrasse, there is a bright flash. An explosion shows me that the first bombers are over the city area.

 

Now begins the greatest catastrophe in the worldHistory of the city of Nuremberg.

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High-explosive bombs, aerial mines and incendiary bombs fall into the city by the thousands, deliberately thrown into the residential areas of the old Noris.

 

The attack ended at 8:13 p.m., and the all-clear was given at 8:24 p.m.

 

In the 1  1/2 hour of terror as the bombers plow through the city, nearly 5,000 residential buildings are totally destroyed and over 12,000 others badly damaged. Almost 2,000 people killed, more than half of them women and children, over 3,000 people injured. 650 people are still being dug up alive from the rubble, more than 1,600 only dead.

 

It is estimated that the 594 English bombers

 

1,000,000 incendiary bombs (479 tons)

100 mines, 6,000 heavy explosive bombs and

428 high-explosive bombs with slow-release fuses,

 

together about 1,828 tons of high-explosive bombs dropped on the city.

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A cloud of smoke hangs over the city for days and it seems as if day will never come. There is no water, gas or electricity for days. Trams and trains no longer run.

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In our apartment on Ostendstrasse, all the windows, including window frames and door frames, have been ripped out - and that in the freezing cold. After the most necessary tidying up work in our apartment, I walk to the company on "Schusterrappen". Here, too, I have to state that the company was hit hard. The building at Färberstraße 41 / corner of Karthäusergasse 47, in which our offices for our machine department and the steel warehouse on the ground floor were located, burned down completely.

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The machine department, in which I am currently in training is outsourced to Roth. The special office A 4, which is responsible for supplying the armaments industry, is also relocated to Weißenburg.

 

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February 13 

 

I still remember my first day at work in Roth: the train is very late. We need more than 3 hours from Nuremberg to Roth. At 5 p.m. we take the train back to Nuremberg, which is again late. When we reached Nuremberg-Hohe-Marter train station at around 8:30 p.m., there was another air raid alarm. Despite the overcrowding of the public air-raid shelter at the Hohen-Marter, we are admitted there. Shortly thereafter, the flak opened fire. Bombs don't fall on Nuremberg this time. The English bombers fly their attack on Dresden and only fly over Nuremberg airspace.

The all-clear was not given until around 11:00 p.m., as the bombers were again flying over Nuremberg airspace on their return flight. Then it's back to Mögeldorf on foot in the freezing cold and snow. My head of department, Mr. Faber, who lives in Zerzabelshof, accompanies me to Marthastrasse in Mögeldorf. When I'm in bed, it's already 1:15 am. At 7:30 a.m. we walk back to the train station and take the train to Roth. From Dr. Max Theisen was later instructed that the return trip to Nuremberg should take place at 3:00 p.m.

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February 20 

 

In February I will be transferred from the machine department to the registry for further training. This department is not very popular with us apprentices, we only see this training as a necessary evil. For me, however, the transfer is a joy, because thank God the stress of the daily trip to Roth is finally over.

 

One of my first jobs is to burn documents from our A 4 office in an open fireplace in our courtyard next to the three-storey engine house. This is a large number of Leitz folders with documents that should probably not fall into the hands of the advancing enemy. After the burning of the individual receipts proceeds very slowly, after a while I always throw the entire contents of the Leitz files into the fire. However, I soon find out that these bundles of paper burn very badly. With a shovel, I try to separate the half-burnt bundles of paper. In the middle of my "war-related activity" the sirens "air-raid alert" suddenly wailed. From the noise of the bombers' engines I can tell that the first planes are already over Nuremberg. I don't have time to put out the fire because the first bombs are already falling. And now there's non-stop bombing. The earth is shaking, our LS basement is shaking. We sit powerless in our seats, heads bowed low.

 

Due to the bomb impacts in our vicinity, the plaster trickles from the ceiling. Words cannot describe the horror and horror. Anyone who did not witness this attack can hardly imagine this terrible event. The attack occurs in four waves. When the first wave of bombers has completed its deadly task, our air raid protection troops begin their deployment. Equipped with air-raid helmets, gas masks and fire swatters, each squad, consisting of two men, runs to their assigned area to put out any fires that may have broken out. Mr. Rottenbacher and I are responsible for the three-story engine house. We can't find anything apart from broken windows and roof damage. When we leave the building, the second wave of bombers is already over the city. We run across the yard in the direction of the air-raid shelter, then down the steep wooden stairs to the LS room, our colleagues are still holding the iron air-raid shelter open for us. A bomb hit with an explosion wave throws us down the last few steps. A huge cloud of dust rolls over us into the steel door of the air-raid shelter, which is still open. The air is full of dust and dirt that almost takes our breath away and I can feel the sand between my teeth. In the air raid shelter there are water barrels and towels that we slap in front of our faces to save ourselves from suffocation.

 

Between the second and third wave of bombers we rush back up with our equipment. But Herr Rottenbacher and I have to realize that our area, the engine room, is no longer there. A direct hit left only a pile of rubble. If the two of us had left the engine house just a minute later between the first and second wave of bombers, we would have been buried under the rubble.

 

At 1:44 p.m. the bombers turned away.

 

As we leave the air-raid shelter, a peculiar, sweet smell hits us. There is a dead horse in front of our house entrance. Men and women are in the process of cutting pieces of meat out of the horse's carcass with large knives. Their hands are smeared with blood, they transport their loot home in buckets and bowls.

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Where there were houses just an hour ago, there is nothing but piles of rubble, smoke and blazing conflagration.

 

As I make my way home to Mögeldorf, I find that my half-burnt documents from the A 4 office have been thrown to the opera house and main train station in the firestorm that always occurs when there is a major fire. The "war important" secret papers fluttered through the city center - from today's point of view a reason to smile.

 

21 February -bombing raid-

 

Almost 24 hours after the previous day's bombing raid, the American force, with around 1,200 bombers and numerous escorts, launched another attack on the city. It is hardly possible to assign the damage to the individual processes. Many objects are hit multiple times. The air raid protection, fire brigade and Wehrmacht forces are still exhausted from the first attack,  da comes down the following day with a hail of bombs from a second attack. The gas, water and electricity supply collapsed. Most streets have become trails over collapsed house facades. Train and tram connections are interrupted. Where there were apartments and factories yesterday, there is nothing but piles of rubble that cannot be overlooked.

 

After today's air raid, there has been no tram service for a full three weeks. Only then will operations resume on a tenth of the previous network.

 

A provisional water supply with horse-drawn breweries can just avert the extreme need.

 

The food rations have to be cut again and reach a weekly ration of at the beginning of April

 

1,700g bread, 250g meat and 125g fat -

 

the lowest level during the entire war.

 

But at that time we had no idea what else awaited us after the end of the war in May 1945 until the currency reform in June 1948   in terms of nutrition. Since this weekly ration is still the purest land of milk and honey!

 

After these two bombing raids, the management ordered that in the event of an air raid alarm, the employees should go to the Färbertorbunker for safety reasons, with the exception of the "air raid squads".

 

March 

 

Not a day goes by without an air raid warning. On some days, the sirens wail up to ten times, announcing an air-raid alert or pre-alert. Sometimes bombs fall without warning. There is often only an hour or two between the all-clear and the air-raid alert. Our workplaces were moved to the air-raid shelter a few weeks ago. Since an air-raid shelter has no windows, we don't see daylight all the time.

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After a power failure, we work with carbide lamps. With that stench and the heating of our little food pots on an iron stove in the basement, the air is to cut.

 

March 16 -Last major attack at night-

 

Between 8:53 p.m. and 10:40 p.m., our three-storey rear building falls victim to the explosive and incendiary bombs. Was this attack still necessary? There is not much left to destroy, the bombs mostly fall in ruins. Military or industrial facilities important to the war can no longer be hit because there are no longer any of the kind.

 

April 

 

On April 5 and 11, the last two daytime air raids took place, wreaking further havoc in the city center.

 

Nuremberg is dead......! There is no electricity, no water, no coal, no flour and therefore no bread. There is unspeakable misery, unspeakable need. There are many sick and dying people, but there are only a few doctors left.

 

The war is drawing to a close, and you can already hear the distant thunder of cannons. But one must not say that this is the approaching enemy. The party leaders claim that the noise comes from exercises of their own Wehrmacht.

 

Our company is shutting down.

 

April 16 

 

At noon of that day, "enemy alarm" was given to the civilian population by radio, loudspeaker vans and the few air raid protection sirens that were still intact.

 

The collapse of order in April

 

We are not particularly intimidated by the enemy alarm and also later by the artillery fire and low-flying aircraft attacks. Where there is something to buy, we stand in line and wait patiently for the delivery of food and other things. Some shopkeepers are quick to sell goods to their customers for fear of looting. In some shops, goods appear that you haven't seen in a long time. When the bourgeois order collapses during the fighting and immediately afterwards, i.e. the police no longer protect property, the looting begins. I also take part in it. At the Mögeldorf train station, the railway wagons standing there are broken open. My loot is a box of fake honey and a sack of grapes. We live off this booty for the first few weeks after the end of the war, until there is some food again.

 

 

On April 20 Nuremberg is taken by the Americans. For us Nurembergers, the war is over.

 

Even after the fighting ended, the looting continued. I see it more as organizing food to survive though.

 

The most important places of looting in Nuremberg after the end of the war are the marshalling yard, the Klöwer and Böhm distillery (the later NORIS wine distillery) and the wine cellar of the Zeltner brewery in Tullnau. Since you are literally wading in wine, this is no exaggeration. The wine is carried home in buckets.

Countless freight wagons have been standing at the marshalling yard for weeks. Some of the cars have been damaged by bombs, others are broken into by foreign workers.

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The LINDE cold store in Gibitzenhof was also a place of looting. It is surprising how much high-quality food is stored in the six-storey cold store. The outrage of the population is understandable when people see what has been withheld from them. So they lug away what they can carry. In addition, one does not want to see how the foreign workers help themselves.

 

Since there is a lack of transport, sacks of sugar and flour are cut open and crates are broken open to take away manageable quantities. If you have a handcart or a bicycle, you can transport larger quantities of goods. But for most of them the means of transport and the goods are taken away from them by the foreign workers on their way home.

 

 

surrender

 

On May 8, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signs the document with which the German Wehrmacht surrenders unconditionally to the Allies on land, at sea and in the air

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Nuremberg was a city and is now a dump.

 

Under the impression that the inner city was almost completely destroyed by the bombing and the life still dead in it, serious consideration is given to not building up the old town anymore, but rather leaving "this valley of rubble" to its condition and building a new Nuremberg next door. Old Nuremberg would then be a sight like Pompeii. A pilgrimage destination for foreigners. It's "God thank you" turned out differently.

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The Second World War is over

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Section of an aerial view of our company premises in June 1945. Three quarters of our office and storage rooms have been destroyed.

 

Red = Färberstrasse 41

Office building, shop and tool store

 

Yellow = rear Karthäusergasse

Ruin office and steel warehouse

 

Blue = ruin engine house

Bearings for machine tools, etc.

 

Black = ruin central building (warehouse)

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Collapse and new beginning of the German economy

 

The Allies agree that Germany must not only be deprived of power militarily, but also economically. The intention is therefore to decentralize Germany's industry, break up monopolies and cartels and significantly reduce the remaining capacities.

The occupying powers order the dismantling of entire factories or parts of the machinery nationwide. What has been worked out over the years is lost without any compensation. The companies have to bear the losses themselves.

 

May 

 

Just a few weeks after the collapse, a group of loyal employees return to our almost completely destroyed company, who, like the Theisen brothers, are determined to risk a new start.

First the rubble has to be cleared away, new walls have to be built and the roof has to be re-roofed.

 

In order to warm the food the employees have brought with them, stones are stacked in the courtyard, a sheet of metal is placed on top and a fire is made underneath. That's the emergency stove.

 

June 

 

Three quarters of our office, storage and sales rooms in Nuremberg died in the bombs. Our branch in Vienna was lost at the end of the war.

Due to the loss, the working conditions in the remaining rooms are extremely primitive. We have to work in poorly lit and cold rooms, starving and freezing. Even then, the external circumstances are not exactly inspiring, until the reconstruction of our office building in Kolpinggasse in 1961 and the conversion of Färberstraße in 1964 are completed.

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May

 

In May I will be transferred to the incoming goods department for four months for further training. Department head is Mr. Paul Hollweck. What particularly struck me here was that with almost every goods receipt, a delivery was made to the company "Paul Mirgabe Nuremberg" was there. Later, after the currency reform, it became clear to me that these goods were held back until day X in June 1948 (currency reform). This fictitious address consists of the first name of our incoming goods manager "Paul Hollweck". meant our head of department, Mr. Müller II (shop/warehouse), who had the goods stored in our former air-raid shelter until day "X".

 

 

June 

 

On June 11th   the first tram after the war runs again for the first time on the 3.4 km long route between Plärrer and Muggenhof.

 

means of transport are missing.

 

Since our company has no other means of transport, in the first few months of 1945 we apprentices have to fetch goods from suppliers with handcarts to Laufamholz, Stein and Fürth and deliver goods to our customers in Nuremberg and the surrounding area.

 

 

Herbst 

 

Life is slowly starting to get back to normal.

Vocational school classes are resumed.

 

 

 

Christmas

 

We must celebrate this first Christmas of peace very lonely. Lonely and in the poorhouse of the world. Despite everything, for the first time in years, Christmas 1945 is a celebration of peace, a celebration of hope. The horrors of war and bombing are a thing of the past. The gifts are modest, but we are glad that the war is over.