* * *
Despite the official suppression of detailed news about the disaster, those who witnessed scenes like this could only conclude that what had happened in Hamburg must have been truly extraordinary in its horror. To their infinite credit, most people extended whatever help they could offer to the refugees. Families all over Germany opened their doors, and shared what they had with those who had lost everything. The state provided free food in all the major towns, but it could not have been distributed properly without the help of thousands of volunteers from the Hitler Youth, the League of German Girls and many other community groups.
The outpouring of goodwill towards the Hamburg refugees was as spontaneous as it was phenomenal. Hans Erich Nossack wrote shortly afterwards about the ‘heartening experience of seeing those who had been most distant, sometimes the most fleeting acquaintances or business associates, voluntarily step into the breach with such kindness that one is shamed into asking oneself whether one would have done the same if the situation were reversed’. 36Inevitably there were some exceptions, but in general refugees were accepted with open arms, and the welcome did not wear thin for several weeks. 37
Those who came into contact with the refugees could not help but be affected by them. Their stories were horrific. One woman told how a succession of badly injured people had clutched at her feet and clothes as she scrambled through the fiery ruins, begging her to take them with her. She had been forced to kick them off, because only by doing so could she escape death herself. 38Another told of how she had wrapped her children in pillows and thrown them out of the window to save them from the fire. Her baby slipped out of the padding and died when it hit the pavement. The mother who told this story ‘did not cry or complain; with the general fear, the thousands in agony, her pain was nothing special’. 39Tales like these were repeated ad infinitumall over Germany in the weeks to come.
Inevitably, gloom descended wherever the refugees gathered. Writing in the months shortly after the firestorm, Hans Erich Nossack claimed that the sense of total defeat was universal among the people of his city.
I have spoken with several thousand people… We were without exception firmly convinced that the war would be over very shortly; there was no debating this point at all; for us, after all, the decision had already been reached. There remained only the question of how and in what place of refuge we would be able to survive this brief interval. 40
This sense of foreboding quickly spread throughout the nation. The general depression was directly comparable to the mood of the country after the defeat at Stalingrad – the difference was that, while the Stalingrad disaster had taken place more than two thousand kilometres away, Hamburg was at the heart of northern Germany. The conclusion that everyone came to was that if Hamburg could not defend itself, even though it had been one of the most heavily protected cities in the Reich, the same fate would come soon to other cities.
* * *
As far as the Allies were concerned, this gloomy atmosphere was the greatest success of all. The intention had been to undermine the morale of the German people to such a degree that they would either abandon their workplaces or rise up against their government and demand an end to the war. Until now the Allies had been unable to deliver a blow hard enough to cause such a drop in morale.
However, to produce the ‘knock-out blow’ that would win the war, the RAF would have to do as Albert Speer had warned Hitler, and follow up with the devastation of another major city. The most obvious target was Berlin, and everybody, including the Germans, expected the Allies to strike there next. The only thing that stopped them was that the nights were not yet long enough for RAF bombers to get there and back under cover of darkness – but they were lengthening, and by the end of August the Reich capital would be within range. Soon observers in Washington were giving Berlin just ‘three weeks to live’, and RAF officials in London were hinting that the city was about to get ‘the Hamburg bombing treatment’. 41
Germany was rife with similar speculation. In Berlin the people were so worried about what was coming to them that even the neutral press remarked on the change of atmosphere in the city. ‘Fear approaching panic prevails in Berlin, and the people expect the city to be laid in ruins at any moment,’ claimed one correspondent from the Swedish Aftonbladet. 42He described how trenches were being dug in the parks to protect people from the effects of a possible firestorm, and how frightened civilians were fleeing the city. While the German authorities must have been dismayed at such gifts to Allied propaganda, there was nothing they could do to deny the reports. Indeed, a partial evacuation of the city had already been ordered by Goebbels himself, in his capacity as Berlin’s gauleiter: to prevent an unauthorized exodus, he had instructed women, children and non-essential civilians to leave the city at the beginning of August. When this was confirmed in an official release to the Nazi Völkischer Beobachtera few days later, the British and American press could barely contain their glee. 43
With the benefit of hindsight, however, all the speculation about Berlin’s fate was hopelessly premature. The RAF could not possibly live up to what was now expected of them: the firestorm they had created in Hamburg had been a matter of chance, and would be virtually impossible to replicate in other cities. Nor were the Allies about to produce the knock-out blow that would end the war. To do so they would have had to demonstrate the power to obliterate any city they wanted at will, which meant destroying Berlin within days, not weeks, then following it up with two or three other cities for good measure. Then, perhaps, Speer’s fears might have been realized. But the RAF had no intention of even trying to accomplish such a feat. While Sir Arthur Harris cherished hopes of teaming up with the USAAF to ‘wreck Berlin from end to end’, he would not make the attempt until the winter of 1943–4. 44In the meantime, there were few suitable alternatives for a second strike: to find new targets of even half Hamburg’s size they would have had to fly as far as Breslau or Dresden – but during the short summer nights that would have posed too great a risk for RAF crews. 45In the end, therefore, the concept of a knock-out blow was nothing more than a mirage.
In the absence of other targets, the RAF contented themselves with bombing those cities in western Germany that were within easy reach. There was nothing new about attacking Essen, Remscheid or Mannheim – they had all been hit during the battle of the Ruhr earlier in the year – but Bomber Command Headquarters felt it better to attack something than nothing. While important cities like Berlin were still out of range, the RAF might at least destroy the industrial plants in familiar targets that had been missed on earlier visits.
With this in mind, Harris decided that he would finish the job he had started on Saturday night. On the morning of Thursday, 29 July, he ordered a third massive strike against Hamburg. If he could not finish the war by bombing, for now he would content himself with finishing off, once and for all, what was left of the city on the Elbe.
18. Coup de Grâce
I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er
William Shakespeare, Macbeth 1
Everybody in Hamburg knew that another raid was coming. In the areas that had not yet been hit, people stowed their most prized possessions in basements and cellars, in the vain hope that they might be spared when the bombs fell. Anything portable was piled into cars, wagons or even prams, and the roads were soon jammed with people carting their belongings out of the city. Many travelled on foot, content to get themselves and their families away with little more than a suitcase between them. The single thought that occupied their minds was to get as far away from the city as possible.