The river flowed quietly past heaps of rubble 
and charred ruins into the endless void of time

Würzburg, a city once renowned for its gothic and baroque churches, its wine and for its abundance of fish, where every second house was a unique architectural gem, which looked back on thirteen hundred years of history, was devastated by incendiary bombs in a mere 25 minutes. On the morning after the attack the river Main, which had hitherto reflected the images of the most beautiful town in the whole area, still continued to flow slowly and casually into the endless void of time.

Translation of a text from "The Apostles of Jesus" by Leonhard Frank.

Death rises to the sky 

They took off at about 5.30 p.m. on 16th March 1945. The Royal Air Force elite squadron, Bomber Group No. 5, complemented by Bomber Groups No.1 and No.8, assembled at Reading to the north-east of London. All in all, the fleet comprised 500 airplanes, each of them fully loaded with a cargo of deadly bombs. Bomber Group No.5 was said to be the most experienced squadron and had achieved a high degree of precision on previous bombing missions to Germany. They had already launched attacks on Heilbronn, Darmstadt, Königsberg, Braunschweig, Munich and Kassel. On 13th February 1945 they had also executed the first of several devastating attacks on Dresden.

Why did it all happen?

In 1942 Royal Air Force commander Sir Arthur Travers Harris, better known as "Bomber Harris", had taken over the Supreme Command of all the British "strategic bomber squadrons". Both Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Harris believed that by systematically bombing major German cities the determination of the German people to fight on could be broken. Consequently, all German cities with a population of more than 100, 000 became potential targets for bomber fleets.


"Highly precarious situation for Würzburg”

Spring arrives early in the city in 1945. On 16th March the inhabitants of Würzburg are able to enjoy a warm, cloudless day. Having already experienced 334 air-raid warnings during the war, with a death toll of more than 400 citizens through British and American bombing, for many it is inconceivable that the worst is still to come.

Darkness falls and the deadly fleet approaches. At around 9 p.m. the bomber fleet splits up into two groups. 280 planes take course for an attack on Nürnberg and the remaining 236 planes of Bomber Group No. 5 head for Würzburg.

At 7 p.m. a preliminary air-raid warning is sounded. By 8 p.m. every air-raid siren in the city is going full blast. The inhabitants take refuge in cellars and in air-raid shelters. At 9.07 p.m. the early warning radar regiment (western section) at Limburg on the river Lahn receives the message: “Highly precarious situation for Würzburg!” 


The “Master of Ceremonies” arrives on the scene

The first enemy plane to reach Würzburg is the so-called “Master of Ceremonies”, whose task it is to mark out the area to be bombed. The torch signals used are called “Christmas trees”, and serve to guide night bombers to their targets. 

At 9.30 p.m. the bombing itself begins. In three separate waves between
360, 000 and 380, 000 cylinder-shaped incendiary bombs, between 180 and 220 1,000 pound blast bombs and an unknown number of canisters containing petroleum gelatin are unleashed on the city. At 9.42 p.m. the bomber pilots turn their machines away from the city which has been mercilessly hit to the quick. The subsequent fire becomes so intense that, even at a distance of 200 kilometres, they can look back and still discern the burning city.


Würzburg becomes one gigantic bonfire

By midnight the inferno reaches a temperature of between 1,000 and 2,000 degrees centigrade. A fire-storm rages through the streets and alleys. Everything that has not yet been destroyed by the actual bombs falls victim to the searing heat. Gradually, the numerous individual fires conglomerate into larger ones. For fear of being burnt alive, many people emerge from their cellars and, in panic and desperation, seek refuge near the river. Others flee to the surrounding park, which has miraculously been spared by the fire. About 82% of the living space, almost every public building and most of the cultural monuments and churches are destroyed. A total of about 5,000 people - about 3,000 of whom are women and 700 children and adolescents - perish in the inferno. Many of them are burnt to death. Others are killed by falling masonry or suffocate in their cellars.


Make war history!

During World War II approximately 16 million soldiers died in battle, from their injuries, or in prison camps at the hands of the National Socialists. About 20 to 30 million civilians – men, women and children – perished due to the results of war and the Holocaust. There could be only one alternative after this terrible experience of mass sorrow and death, i.e. Make war history! People in all over the world have embraced this goal. They have gotten involved in the reconciliation process with former enemies to overcome the deadly result of National Socialism to establish a basis for a peaceful future.
Also today and in further times our efforts to maintain Peace and Communication may not diminish.

Lord Mayor Dr. Pia Beckmann on the occasion of the Path of Reconciliation on 16th March 2004 

“Women – heroic helpers in clearing away the debris”

On 6th June 1945 a total of 36, 845 inhabitants (22, 407 females and 14, 438 males) were counted for urban Würzburg.

Women are undoubtedly the unsung heroes of post-war Würzburg. They cleared away the rubble, fended for their families and brought up children. However, their achievements have been only inadequately acknowledged in the archives.
They toiled away with spades and wheelbarrows, even using sledgehammers to break up large slabs of stone amidst the charred ruins of the city. Initially, they did this on a voluntary basis, but as from 18th December 1945 they were obliged to enlist in what was then called “General Labour Duty” and which, as from 8th March 1946, was renamed “Duty of Honour”. 

“After the 16th of March, with a courage that sprung from black despair, women cleared away the debris, hammered stones and cleared the streets from obstacles. They put an enormous amount of energy into the reconstruction of their city, showing us that one must never give up!

Lord Mayor Dr. Pia Beckmann on 16th of March 2006

More than two years were to elapse before the task of rubble clearance was passed into the hands of private companies.

Rebuilding the city

Gustav Pinkenburg, first post-war mayor of Würzburg, described the city as an area where the charred ruins and the appalling devastation just brought tears to one’s eyes.

Governor Wagoner, who headed the American military administration in Bavaria, suggested that Würzburg should remain as Bomber Group No. 5 had left it.
He wanted the town to serve as a kind of “museum of wartime devastation”.
The intention was to rebuild Würzburg anew further upstream opposite Randersacker.

But the citizens of Würzburg would not give up the town they still loved so dearly. Citizens who had survived the bombing returned to the smouldering ruins of the city to help repair the devastation. In his address on 1st May 1945 Mayor Pinkenburg said: “Würzburg is not dead. Würzburg must rise up again and live.”

Only six houses on the Juliuspromenade and one house in the Büttnergasse survived the bombing. As regards wartime bombing attacks, only Dresden and Pforzheim suffered worse devastation than Würzburg. A mere 5,000 of Würzburg’s inhabitants were lucky enough to suffer no damage at all. 

Nine months after the attack the town authorities registered 55, 000 inhabitants -
who had to squeeze into only one third of the original living space.

Two and half a million cubic metres of debris were driven away by lorry and loaded onto river barges – a volume which corresponds to an area as large as the square in front of the Bishop’s Residence and five times the height of that building. House by house and street by street Würzburg was reconstructed.

In the same way as the Phoenix once emerged from the ashes Würzburg gradually crept out of its own grave and returned to the land of the living.