Commemoration of the bombing of Jena

Speech by the Lord Mayor on 19.03.2024

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In a newspaper report in 2005, Hannelore Neuenhahn recalled March 19, 1945 in Jena, 79 years ago today. As a young girl, she was still living with her parents in Camburg. Two days earlier, she had attended the Südschule Am Tatzend for the first time. When the bombers appeared over Jena on her first day of school, she and her classmates were already in the bunker on Knebelstraße.

On March 19, Hannelore refrained from going to school in Jena. Her father Fritz had phoned his wife in Camburg shortly before another attack by American bombers. He worked as an authorized signatory at the well-known Neuenhahn printing works in Leutrastrasse.

His daughter remembered his last words on the phone for the rest of her life: "I have to call it a day now, a bandage is coming."

At 12.20 p.m., the sirens sounded for the third time that day - "Air raid warning!"

At 1.16 p.m., 197 aircraft from the 3rd Air Division of the 8th US Army Air Force arrived in the Jena area.

In seven waves, they again attacked the main Carl Zeiss factory on the edge of the old town. However, only six to eight bombs hit this target, six hit the nearby Jena glassworks Schott & Genossen. The bulk of the explosive, phosphorus and incendiary bombs fell on the area between Fürstengraben and Holzmarkt, about 250 meters away. Several hundred square meters of densely built-up residential and business quarters were reduced to rubble within 20 minutes.

As far as we know today, 236 people fell victim to this attack alone, 100 were seriously injured and another 150 were slightly injured.

Hannelore Neuenhahn lost seven close relatives that day. This family tragedy took place in the basement of the Neuenhahn printing works. Her father Fritz died there, as did Gustav Neuenhahn, who had managed the company since 1880, his wife Doris, their daughters Traude, Brigitte and Gunda and grandson Jens-Peter. Only a few of the cellar occupants were able to escape into a neighboring building thanks to a breach in the wall. The fatalities could only be rescued from the cellar after eight days.

The following night, the two large bells of the town church crashed to the ground. The roof truss of the tower with the bell mechanism caught fire after the attack and the beams shattered a few hours later.

The destruction of the tower and hall roof of the church of St. Michael - the patron saint of the church and our city - symbolized in an oppressive way the devastating consequences of the bombing raid on 19 March 1945.

Since last year, Jena City Church has been a member of the International Cross of Nails Community of Coventry as a symbol of the destruction in the Second World War as well as the conscious confrontation with war and peace and the responsibility for this in the present.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Nothing really needs to be added. Hannelore Neuenhahn's account fully expresses what we always recall on this day of remembrance.

Her report says a great deal about the power of the destruction caused by the war bombs, the powerlessness of the civilians who were at the mercy of such an attack and the personal, individual suffering of the people affected, which came upon them in those hours of the attack and will never leave them again.

For many years, we only knew news of bomb attacks and armed conflicts from distant countries. But Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine has been going on for more than two years. Everyday reporting has now turned to other topics, but there is war in Ukraine every day. Soldiers are fighting on the front line, soldiers are dying every day.

The civilian population of Ukraine is repeatedly subjected to brutal attacks by the Russian aggressors. Missile and drone attacks on civilian targets are still part of everyday life.

Reports only make it into our news when there are a particularly high number of victims. The war in Ukraine has shaken me and many of us awake again. War with all its suffering, death and destruction. War is not a historical event from the last century, but a cruel present-day reality in the middle of Europe.

The escalation of the conflict in Ukraine makes it clear that peace is by no means a given or even a foregone conclusion, but that it is endangered and that our peace must also be protected and defended.

In the debate about how this can and must be done, there is hardly any right and wrong. Decisions on this are the result of weighing up risks, necessities and opportunities. Our commemoration today is not the right place for this weighing up.

However, it is clear here that no one can or should hide from this debate and that conscious decisions and clear patterns of action are required in order to avoid becoming a pawn in geopolitical demonstrations of power and shifts in power.

The war of aggression against Ukraine brings back memories of the bombing of Jena, which is why we have come together here today.

At this point, I would also like to mention the war in the Gaza Strip, Hamas' massacre of over a thousand Jews, the thousands of victims on the Palestinian side, the massive destruction there and the humanitarian catastrophe that is looming or is already a reality.

Even if this terrible war is further away, we as the Western world, and Germany in particular, have a responsibility both to guarantee the existence and security of the State of Israel as the home of millions of Jews and to contribute to a solution to the decades-long conflict with the Palestinians.

The images in today's news make us feel what war means and what happened here in Jena during the years of the Second World War:

In total, more than 800 people died in Jena as a result of the five bombing raids and artillery shelling, including forced laborers. Well over 1,100 people were injured. The dead and injured accounted for around 3 percent of the 79,000 inhabitants and refugees living in Jena at the time.

As a result of the bombing, 17 percent of the houses and apartments in the city were so badly damaged that they were uninhabitable. A total of 2,763 residential buildings with 9,720 apartments were damaged.

The people who had lost their homes, so-called bomb victims, were given a list of addresses in other parts of the city where people had a house to themselves or very few and enough space.

War is part of our history, war is unfortunately also part of our present. Let us be grateful that we can live here today in peace, let us show solidarity with the people who have to flee from war. In the end, the victims are always people, like the Jena victims and their relatives here in Jena in 1945, adults and far too often innocent children.

Let our thoughts and actions always be shaped by this awareness. Let us remember the people who were victims of the bombing war here in Jena from 1943 to 1945, the war that started in Germany and has now returned with all its brutality.