3 Hamburg Police Report, p. 37.

4 Interview with Annegret Hennings, in Kerstin Rasmuβen and Gunnar Wulf (eds), Es war ja Krieg(Hamburg, 1993), p. 94.

5 Gretl Büttner, in Carl F. Miller (ed.), Appendixes 8 through 19 to the Hamburg Police President’s Report on the Large Scale Attacks on Hamburg, Germany, in World War II(Stanford, December 1968), Appendix 10, pp. 119–20, although my translation differs very slightly. Erhard Klöss (ed.) Der Luftkrieg über Deutschland 1939–1945: Deutsche Berichte und Pressestimmen des neutralen Auslandsgives the original German, pp. 104–5.

6 Hamburg Police Report, p. 43.

7 Ibid., pp. 72–3, 75.

8 Ludwig Faupel, typescript account, FZH 292–8, A–F, p. 8.

9 See Luise Solmitz’s diary, 17 August 1943, in Renate Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe vom Sommer 1943 in Augenzeugenberichten(Hamburg, 1993), p. 343; see also Hans Erich Nossack, Der Untergang, p. 99.

10 Hamburg Police Report, p. 74.

11 Jan Melsen, quoted in Ulrike Jureit and Beate Meyer (eds), Verletzungen: Lebensgeschichtliche Verarbeitung von Kriegserfahrungen(Hamburg, 1994), pp. 149–50.

12 Ibid., p. 150.

13 Hamburg Police Report, p. 22.

14 Die Zeit, 30 July 1993.

15 Ben Witter interview for Thames Television’s The World at War, IWM Sound Archive 2916/01. This quote has been lightly edited, but only to remove repetition of the same phrases.

16 Jan Melsen, in Jureit and Meyer (eds), Verletzungen, p. 151.

17 Ben Witter interview for Thames Television’s The World at War.

18 Hamburger Zeitung, 29 July, 1 August and 15 August 1943. See also Hamburg Police Report, pp. 4, 82–3; and Miller (ed.), Appendixes, Appendix 17.

19 See Hamburg Police Report, p. 82.

20 Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg, On the Other Side, pp. 76 and 80.

21 Nossack, Der Untergang, pp. 99–100.

22 See, for example, Herman Sieveking, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 299.

23 Gretl Büttner, in Miller (ed.) Appendixes, Appendix 10, p. 119. The original German account has been reproduced in Klöss (ed.), Der Luftkrieg, p. 104.

24 Nossack, Der Untergang, p. 68.

25 Ibid., pp. 72–3.

26 Hamburg Police Report, p. 79.

27 Ibid., p. 76.

28 USSBS, Economic Effects, p.7a.

29 See contemporary photographs of Gothenstrasse.

30 There is perhaps some truth in this rumour – the Hamburg Police Report mentions it, and Liselotte Gerke, whom I interviewed, said that this happened to her. She was convinced for months that it was a sort of divine punishment for entering the forbidden area.

31 Nossack, Der Untergang, p. 99. According to police pathologists this was unlikely to be true, at least in the early days (Miller (ed.), Appendixes, Appendix 15, p. 211), and I have not come across any first-hand accounts describing such scenes.

32 See Martin Caidin, The Night Hamburg Died(London, 1966), pp. 142–7, and the refutation of this myth in Martin Middlebrook, The Battle of Hamburg(London, 1980), pp. 328–9 and Hans Brunswig, Feuersturm über Hamburg(Stuttgart, 1983), pp. 244–5.

33 See Nossack, Der Untergang, p. 98 for rumours. See USSBS, Economic Effects, p. 7a for probable number of deaths.

21    Survival

1 The words of the angels to Lot, as they saved him from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s wife did look back, and as a consequence was turned into a pillar of salt.

2 Hans Erich Nossack, Der Untergang(Hamburg, 1981), p. 136.

3 René Ratouis, Mémoires de guerre d’un non-combattant(Paris, 2003), p. 117.

4 According to the situation report of the head welfare officer at the end of September 1943, cellars everywhere were overflowing with people, and families were often forced to sleep six to a room. See Monika Sigmund et al. (eds), ‘ Man versuchte längs zu kommen, und man lebt ja noch…’: Frauenalltag in St Pauli in Kriegs- und Nachkriegszeit(Hamburg, 1996), p. 25.

5 Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg, On the Other Side, trans. and ed. Ruth Evans (London, 1979), p. 81.

6 To add to the huge destruction to the transport infrastructure, 600 of Hamburg’s 1,600 tram cars were completely destroyed, and half of its underground trains either destroyed or very badly damaged. What few trams, buses and trains still existed were strictly rationed at rush-hour: even those who were permitted to use them often could not cram their way in, and were obliged to walk anyway. See Hamburg Police Report, p. 86; and USSBS, Economic Effects of the Air Offensive Against German Cities: A Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Hamburg, Germany(November 1945), p. 24.

7 Wolff-Mönckeberg, On the Other Side, p. 81.

8 Johannes Schoene, in Renate Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p.304.

9 Ilse Grassmann, Ausgebombt: Ein Hausfrauen-Kriegstagebuch von Ilse Grassmann(Hamburg, 2003), p. 28.

10 Maria Bartels letter, 15 September 1943, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 314.

11 Maria Bartels, letter to her husband, 8 September 1943, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 312.

12 Uwe Bahnsen and Kerstin von Stürmer, Die Stadt, die sterben sollte: Hamburg in Bombenkrieg, Juli 1943(Hamburg, 2003), p. 67.

13 USSBS, Economic Effects, p. 22.

14 Hamburg Police Report, p. 84.

15 See USSBS, Economic Effects, pp. 23–4; and Hamburg Police Report, pp. 84 and 91; and Carl F. Miller (ed.), Appendixes 8 through 19 to the Hamburg Police President’s Report on the Large Scale Attacks on Hamburg, Germany, in World War II(Stanford, December 1968), Appendix 18. For restoration of phone lines, see also Kurt Ahrens and Friedrich Ruppel, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, pp. 308 and 318.

16 USSBS, Economic Effects, pp. 44–6; Charts 15 and 16.

17 Ibid., pp. 44–5; Chart 15.

18 Ratouis, Mémoires de guerre, p. 111.

19 Eberhard Rössler, The U-boat(London, 1981), p. 266; see also Bahnsen and von Stürmer, Die Stadt, p. 71. This U-boat, U-792, was finally commissioned on 16 November.

20 Hannah Kelson interview, IWM Sound Archive 15550/5.

21 In Günther Severin (ed.), Briefe an einen Pastor(unpublished), letter 161.

22 Ahrens, in Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, pp. 225–8.

23 See, for example, Nossack, Der Untergang, p. 108; Hans Brunswig, Feuersturm über Hamburg(Hamburg, 2003), p. 305; Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe, p. 285; and Hiltgunt Zassenhaus, Ein Baum blüht im November(Hamburg, 1974), whose title refers to this event.

24 Gretl Büttner, in Miller (ed.), Appendixes, Appendix 10, p. 122. There are dozens of other accounts of this happening across the city.

22    Famine

1 Heinrich Böll, The Silent Angel(London, 1994), p. 75. Food, and its lack, is the central theme of this novel about the aftermath of war in Germany.

2 Figures according to Hans Brunswig, Feuersturm über Hamburg(Stuttgart, 2003), pp. 454–6.

3 Hermann Holthusen, diary account, 11 August 1943, in Renate Hauschild-Thiessen, Die Hamburger Katastrophe vom Sommer 1943 in Augenzeugenberichten(Hamburg, 1993), p. 235.

4 Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg, On the Other Side, trans. and ed. Ruth Evans (London, 1979), p. 88.

5 Adolf Hitler’s political testament, 29 April 1945, in Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, 1939–1945: Der zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten(Darmstadt, 1961), p. 531.

6 Tommy Wilmott, IWM Sound Archive 19806, reel 9.