September 11, 1944 in Darmstadt Brandnacht or "Fire Night"

 

A series of signs in the center of Darmstadt describe Brandnacht translated "Fire Night." On that night thousands died and more than half the city became homeless.

Fifty-seven years before terrorists attacked America on September 11, 2001, the 11th day of the 8th month was among the worst days in the long history of the city of Darmstadt.  On that night Royal Air Force Bomber Group Five attacked the city with 226, four-engined, Lancaster bombers and 14 twin-engined Mosquito bombers. They hit the medieval city center where houses there were mainly built of wood. 

DeHavilland Mosquito Bomber

Avro Lancaster Bobmber

The raid used a new technique. Instead of bombers flying along a single path across the target, the bombers would bomb along a fan of paths over the city. The intention was to spread the fire bombs for maximum effect. The attack started a fierce fire in the center and in the districts immediately to the south and east. The destruction of dwellings in this area was almost complete.

Of the population of 110,000, more than 60,000 were homeless after the attack and thousands died.  

A week later American bombers would strike the technical university in Darmstadt where research was on-going to develop V-2 rockets used to attack England.  I wrote about that previously when I wrote about my friend Cliff Almes and his family's history with Darmstadt.

Darmstadt was a notoriously pro-Nazi city almost from the moment Hitler rose to power.  It was one of the first cities in Germany to boast of being Judenrein or Jew Free.  

A Holocaust Memorial in Darmstadt Attacked Twice and Still Standing

Near the central station of Darmstadt, Germany, there is a memorial to the deportation of Jews and Gypsys (Roma) during 1942 and 1943. This memorial is located on the corner of Bismarckstrasse and Kirschenallee. 

The monument was designed in 2004 by the artist couple Ritula Fränkel and Nicholas Morris. It represents a glass cube filled with shards of glass, on which 450 names are engraved. These names represent 3400 persons from Darmstadt and the surrounding area who were deported to various concentration camps.

Three sides of the glass cube were destroyed by vandals on the night of July 9-10, 2006. In 2014 the damage was repaired but six weeks later it was destroyed again. The monument will not be removed but will remain in this historic place.

This memorial was the last place I visited before boarding a train to return to Paris and then home.  My friend Cliff said this memorial was the other end of the tracks that lead to the rail sidings in Auschwitz we visited in July.  Darmstadt was a well-known as being very Nazi as soon as Hitler rose to power.  

Old Home Week: Meeting My Roommate from Wiesbaden in Baltimore

Tomorrow I am driving to Baltimore to meet my roommate at Lindsay Air Station, Wiesbaden, West Germany in 1978.  Then he was Sr. Airman Cliff Almes.  He left the military in 1979 and become a brother at a Franciscan Monastery in Darmstadt, Land of Kanaan.

We have not seen each other since 2000, though we have talked every month or two since we were roommates in late 1978.  On that Army and Air Force Base, Air Force had to slum with Army depending on availability of rooms.

I wrote about Cliff, now Bruder Timotheus, three years ago, with pictures.

All of my kids have heard the story about me eating with the novices and taking a big piece of meat, finding out too late it was LIVER!!  No one wastes food in a monastery, so I was the entertainment for Cliff and the other novices at that meal as they watched me cover the liver with vegetables and eat it.

YUCK!

Looking forward to a great reunion.