Hitler's Girls: Doves Amongst Eagles

by Heath, Tim

  When the shelter door was opened and the rays of natural light flooded in, it hurt everyone’s eyes and we came out stiffly like moles from soil. There were one or two girls who were so shaken and petrified by the experience that they could not come out and they had to be helped out from the shelter. One of them was the one who had urinated herself. She did not come back to school after that and her parents moved away to relatives in the Kiel Bay area near Schleswig. When we came out of the shelter, huge plumes of smoke rose into the sky around us. We soon learned that bombs had fallen onto nearby factories.

  It brought home the dangers to us in a way that no propaganda ever could have done. We didn’t believe the propaganda anymore, which told us we were safe in Berlin. I heard stories that many American bombers had been blown to pieces in the skies above the city.

  A few weeks after this first big raid, my two brothers Franz and Josef volunteered to join the local flak unit and were accepted. This caused Mother and Father no end of worry, as this would mean that they would be right in the thick of the action and the danger. When not in action, some nights they used to shoot rats, using their home-made catapults and a hand torch to amuse themselves and pass the time away. They would have competitions and bets to see which one of the crew could get the most rats by the end of the night and be hailed as the Rat King!

  Before bedtime, every single night I prayed for their safety and safe return to us each morning. In fact, I often used to listen out for them to come in through the door during the early hours of the morning, only then could I really sleep. Once I heard that door quietly open and close and the two young men bumping around and saying ‘shhhh’ to each other, trying to come inside without being too noisy, I knew they were alright and I thanked God before dozing off only to be roused a short while later for school.

  On 5 March 1943, the first really effective bombing attack was launched against Essen, a city lying to the north of the Ruhr, with a population of 682,000. It was this first successful raid on Essen that hailed the beginning of the so-called Battle of the Ruhr. The intention of the Ruhr air campaign was to crush the heart of German industry. It was an attempt to sever the very jugular vein of the Third Reich war machine, but it would again prove to be a very costly campaign in terms of the lives of both Allied aircrews and German civilians.

  During the evening of 16 May 1943, the RAF aimed to deliver the heaviest blow to date to German industry in the Ruhr Valley, in a raid that became known as the ‘Dambusters Raid’. The attack was carried out with nineteen specially modified Avro Lancaster four-engined heavy bombers of the specially formed No. 617 Squadron, RAF. The targets were the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams situated in the Ruhr Valley. The attack achieved the objective of breaching both the Möhne and Eder dams, sending a massive destructive tidal wave down into the Ruhr Valley below. The damage caused severe flooding in the region with a massive civilian loss of life. Most had been asleep in their beds as the twenty-five-feet high wave of water came crashing down through the valley at a speed of twenty feet per second. Brigitte Schüttenkopf, who was only a young child at the time of the raid, remembers the terror that came that fateful night:

  We were amongst the very lucky people whose houses were not swept away, as we lived at the far end of the Ruhr Valley region. I remember the distant noise, like a kind of muffled roar. It was loud enough to wake most people who then began to panic and scream, and we then heard the water arriving like an express train, followed by crashing and banging noises coming from downstairs, as the floodwaters rushed into our house, bringing debris with it.

  We had no power in any of the houses, and when we got up to investigate, the whole of the downstairs was full of water up to the ceiling, which must have been over ten feet deep and we could not get out the house. We were trapped upstairs and when we looked out of the window, it was like we were living in the middle of a river. We could see the water rushing by in the moonlight with pieces of debris floating along on the surface. It was very frightening, as we did not know what had happened, but Father had said there must have been an accident at the Möhne Dam, as the floodwater could not have come from anywhere else. We prayed that our house would hold steady and not collapse under the water pressure.

  At first light, we knew as boats came to rescue people and the news went around that enemy planes had bombed the dams and that thousands of people living at the lower Ruhr basin had been swept away in a huge wave of water. It took weeks for everything to get back to normal again, but the floods did not affect the industrial plants too badly, and many were operational after only a few days.

  Afterwards, it was very difficult to rest in our beds at night. I later heard stories of young children in the small village of Himmelpforten swept from the arms of their parents as they desperately tried to escape from their flooded homes. The village priest had heard the explosion as the dam was hit and began to ring the church bells to warn the sleeping villagers. He had feared that such a thing might happen for some years and had arranged such a warning with the villagers. The priest’s warning was hopeless though, and the village, along with that church, was swept away, just like matchwood. The bloated and rotting corpses of cattle, horses, pigs and human beings were found in fields, rivers and woodlands for many weeks after that dreadful event. It made me hate the English and the planes that did this.

  The attack on the Eder Dam was also a success, and from the attacking aircrews perspective, it was an even more spectacular sight than the breaching of the Möhne. Two-hundred-million tons of water, in one great tidal wave, rolled down the steep valley at a speed of thirty feet per second. The RAF paid a high price for the attacks on the dams, with fifty-six airmen of the nineteen aircraft killed. When the result of the mission was found to have not proved that disruptive to the industries in the Ruhr, one has to ask the question, was it worth the cost of all those lives? Of the 1,294 civilians who perished in the floods, 749 were slave and prison labourers. There had been a Russian prisoner of war camp in the valley below the Eder Dam, and this too was swept away, leaving no survivors.

  The terror from the skies could come at any time of the day or night. Anna Dann was lucky to survive an attack on a train she was travelling in with her BDM group. She recalls:

  I had not been a member of the BDM for long having just turned fourteen years old. I had been looking forward to my first summer camp and there had been talk that there would be no summer camp that year because of the risks and everything. In the end, it was decided we should continue and go to summer camp as usual. In the days prior to our trip, we were told what must happen in the event of an air-raid alert. We were told that in the event of an air raid while we were on the train, the train would be stopped and we must immediately get down onto the floor and curl up under the seats, and remain there until we were cleared to come out. Under no circumstances was anyone to come out until instructed.

  The day we left for the trip to the camp we all got onto the train and were a little anxious to get away from the city. I was also anxious about leaving my home, as it was the first time that I would be away and sleeping in a strange bed and in a strange place. The ride through the city and its immediate outskirts was fine and we soon began to settle and lift our spirits. It must have been half an hour to maybe an hour later when the train suddenly shuddered and we thought it was going to come off the rails as it shuddered and the breaks screamed.

  Immediately our leader sprang from her seat shouting, ‘Get down, get down!’

  We knew what we had to do and got down beneath the seats and I placed my arms over my head and waited. We heard the roar of engines and they sounded very close – the engines faded and then grew louder.

  We heard someone shout outside, ‘Achtung! [Attention!] They are turning back around.’

  There was a loud cracking noise and a small series of explosions and whistling sounds, then the roar of engines again, only much louder and we heard the planes going right over our heads. We remained motionless beneath the seats of t
he train, when a man came through into our section of the carriage and told the group leaders, ‘You must all disembark from the train immediately.’ They gave the order for us to get off quietly as possible with no pushing. When we got off the train we could see that the locomotive pulling our carriages had been hit as it had holes in its boiler and the steam was pouring out at very high pressure. We were told that we had to get as far away as possible from the boiler in case it exploded. We had to line up and leave by walking back along the track we had travelled along staying close to the trees at all times. I don’t know what upset me the most, the fact that I had just been on a train that had been attacked, or the fact that our summer camp was now over. The walking was no problem as we were quite used to walking, but all the time we were nervously looking back behind us up at the sky.

  Minutes later, we heard more planes coming, and someone shouted up through the line that we should not panic as they were ours. They roared overhead and were probably looking for the planes that attacked our train. One of the Messerschmitts turned back around and circled around us for some minutes before flying away, maybe it was protecting us from further attack. We all waved at the Messerschmitt as it came around. We had to go to the nearest station where another train was waiting to take us back into Berlin. We discovered later that the planes that had attacked our train had been two British Mosquito fighters.

  When we arrived back in Berlin we were told that an alternative camp would be arranged before the end of the summer, or maybe a few weeks’ time. When we arrived home our parents were waiting for us, and we were amazed at how quickly they had been informed. As I got off the train my mother grabbed me and hugged me, she was crying and saying, ‘I have been so worried, are you alright?’

  After that, she was very concerned about me going anywhere alone, and wherever possible she sent Franz or Josef with me, even to buy sweets from the shop.

  On 24 July 1943, the RAF launched Operation Gomorrah, an attack on the city of Hamburg, utilizing 746 RAF bombers. The attack was a devastating success, the bombers dropping 2,300 tons of high-explosive bombs onto the city within a period of forty-eight minutes. The fires of Hamburg were clearly visible from a distance of 200 miles away.

  On the 25th, the city was attacked again by the USAAF in daylight. There were already 100,000 people homeless as a result of the attack on the 24th. The situation was becoming extremely untenable in the city, forcing the authorities into planning the mass evacuation of the city. Essen also received the attention of the bombers on the 25th, with over 2,000 tons of high-explosive bombs being dropped on the city. On 29 July, the authorities officially ordered the mass evacuation of the city of Hamburg. Casualty figures were quoted at the time as being in excess of 50,000 dead.

  On 23 August, it was the turn of Berlin to receive the full attention of the Allied bombers, in what would be a series of sustained, heavy raids on the city by both the RAF and USAAF. During the night of the 23rd, 727 RAF bombers took off from their bases in England to drop some 1,700 tons of high-explosive bombs on the city.

  Dana Schmidt remembers the nightmare that came in the blackness of 23 August 1943:

  I was thirteen years old, still at school and living with my mother. Father was in the German army as an artillery officer, and I also had a brother who was also serving with our army and he was a corporal serving with an infantry unit. This meant me and Mother were left on our own, though we tried to get on with our lives as normally as we could under the circumstances. There had been attacks on Berlin before and we knew what we had to do to keep safe and where the nearest air-raid stations were. There was a large one that was only some four hundred yards from our house, so at a run we could get there very quickly. The shelter was one used mainly by machine workers of a nearby factory. For safety’s sake, and to avoid any confusion in the dark, Mother and me decided to sleep in the same bed.

  Things were very much as normal during the early evening of 23 of August 1943 and me and Mother had eaten our meal, which was not very much, just a few small sandwiches with a little milk. It was a warm evening and before getting into bed Mother opened the window of our room a little to prevent the room becoming stuffy. We got into bed and were asleep in a matter of minutes, and the next thing I was aware of the air raid siren blaring very loudly as it was only a short distance from our row of houses.

  Mother immediately jumped from the bed and said, ‘Dana, quickly put this on, we must get out of here now.’

  She handed me my jacket, which I then put on, back to front at first, so I took it off and wrapped it around my shoulders. I went to put my boots on but Mother said, ‘No leave them here just get your socks.’

  I quickly pulled out a pair of thick socks from the cupboard and as there was no time to put them on, I stuffed them into my jacket pockets. Mother put her coat on and then grabbed my hand and we both ran down the stairs. We went straight out of the front door and mother slammed it shut behind us without locking it. We ran down the road and I was aware of others coming out of their houses. With nothing on my feet, the road felt quite cold, but Mother and me ran like champion sprinters to the shelter and were soon safely inside. Many others had decided to leave the shelters in their gardens to seek the safety of this larger and more heavily protected one made from concrete.

  Once inside, Mother and me huddled up in a corner and wrapped our coats around ourselves. I put the thick wool socks on my feet and tried to settle down to sleep. It was still relatively quiet even after half an hour had passed, though there was the distant rumble of the flak on the outskirts of the city.

  One by one the other gun teams protecting the city began to fire, the noise grew increasingly louder. We could hear the drone of the planes above and whistling noises. An explosion shook our shelter and put out the lights inside it. Nobody dared move and you could hear the cries of frightened children and their mothers trying desperately to comfort them. One of the old women had managed to light a candle, even though the explosions continued nearby, making the ground shake and more dust fall from the ceiling. The candle did not throw out much light, but it was better than sitting in complete darkness. Some of the men were mumbling obscenities about what they would like to do with ‘those bastards dropping bombs’. One of the younger women reminded them that there were young children and babies in the shelter too and to ‘keep their voices down’. It was strange, as for a minute it felt like a full-scale argument was going to develop.

  Someone had boiled up some water and made some coffee, and this was passed around in small metal military cups. I had a few sips but shuddered as there was no sugar in it and I quickly passed the cup to Mother who finished it off, and I tried hard to drift off to sleep by covering my ears with my coat.

  The next I knew Mother was shaking me to wake me up, ‘Dana, wake up, it’s safe now, we must go outside and see if everything is alright.’

  I rose to my feet and felt a little stiff and Mother helped me into my coat and put her arm around me as we made our way out of the shelter, it was getting light by this time. The all-clear had sounded some time ago but there was a scare and some confusion that some bombs had landed nearby without exploding, and before anyone was let outside, this had to be verified. Even from the shelter, the sheer damage was evident, the sky was blanketed with thick black smoke and as we walked along the road, we could see piles of rubble that had once been houses and fires burning out of control. The sky was blood red over the city and glowing like hot coals from the fires.

  ‘Maybe, they did not get our house,’ I said to Mother, but she was silent as we approached our street.

  I prayed under my breath that our home was still standing. Smoke hung above the street where we lived and RADw men and firemen were busy digging into the rubble piles of many of the houses in our street to free trapped people and fires were still being fought. We walked a little further and could see that the whole row of houses including ours had gone; just piles of broken bricks and timber remained and yellow flames poured out
of a broken gas main. Women and children who we knew as neighbours wandered around in a daze crying. Mother broke down into tears as bodies were brought out of some of the rubble. To me they did not look like human bodies, they looked like dust-covered rag dolls, and some had patches of blood on them while others had legs or even heads missing. Some of the corpses did not have a mark on them, but it was a horrific sight and as Mother wept uncontrollably, I tried to comfort her.

  Some friends of ours from the next street took us down to the church hall where everyone who had lost their homes had been taken. There we were given blankets and coffee and told that later we would be escorted to our home where we could try and salvage some of our property. The authorities basically asked if any relatives lived nearby whom we could stay with and they helped to arrange everything for us.

  The Moelle family, living on the edge of the city in the relative safety of pastureland, were astonished by the sight that greeted them when they came out of their shelter beneath the house.

  Theresa relates:

  I ran straight up to my room and pulled back the thick black curtains, and I said, ‘Oh, my God.’ The other Moelle children followed and said, ‘What is it, Theresa?’

  We stared from the window towards the direction of the city and there was this huge yellowy-red glowing halo that filled the sky above and around the city. We knew that this meant that Berlin was on fire, and that it must be very bad indeed. I pushed up the window to open it and leaned out, and I could smell the smoke.

  Walter Moelle came into the room and from the doorway he could clearly see the city burning. The look on his face was one which I will never forget, and he quickly left the room and went downstairs to talk with his wife. I followed him and crept quietly half way down the stairs to try and listen to what they were talking about. I did not hear everything but I heard them talk about getting us children out of here where it would be safer.