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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2017
A new feature of World War II was the physical proximity of a growing number of women to death and destruction. Britain and the United States bombed Germany with the hope that the bombs would demoralize the population and thus defeat the Third Reich from within. Yet, even during the heaviest bombings between 1943 and 1945, no widespread organized dissent formed against the Nazi regime. Taking into account affect concepts of morale, this article examines the gendered experience of bombing in Darmstadt, a small town near Frankfurt am Main. It is based on largely unexamined home-front narratives from 1945, namely, transcribed United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) interviews with Germans who had recently lived through a period of intense air warfare. The experience with deadly force, as well as the gendered and generational preparation with which individuals encountered and made sense of it, shaped morale and social reorganization in a hopeless war. The affective dialogue between the personal sphere of survival and the public sphere of warfare revealed increasingly fluid gender roles in a besieged Third Reich. The bombing set the stage for a period of female self-sufficiency from as early as 1942, which means that increasing opportunities for female agency—usually associated with the “hour of the woman” during the final days of the war and the Allied occupation in postwar Germany—had appeared much earlier.
Der Zweite Weltkrieg konfrontierte eine wachsende Anzahl von Frauen in historisch beispielsloser Weise unmittelbar mit Tod und Zerstörung. Großbritannien und die Vereinigten Staaten bombardierten das „Dritte Reich” mit der Absicht, auf diese Weise die Moral der Bevölkerung zu zersetzen. Aber auch in der Phase der schwersten Bombardements zwischen 1943 und 1945 kam es zu keinem weitläufigen zivilen Widerstand gegen das nationalsozialistische Regime. Unter Berücksichtigung der Affektforschung zur Moral untersucht dieser Aufsatz exemplarisch die geschlechtsspezifische Erfahrung des Bombenkriegs in Darmstadt. Er basiert auf bisher von der Forschung kaum berücksichtigten Quellen, nämlich einer Sammlung transkribierter United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) Interviews mit Deutschen, die gerade eine Phase intensiven Luftkriegs durchlebt hatten. Sowohl die Erfahrung tödlicher Gewalt als auch das geschlechts- und generationsspezifische Wissen mit dem der Einzelne ihr begegnete und sie deutete, formte entschieden die Moral und die soziale Ordnung in einem zunehmend hoffnungslosen Krieg. Der affektive Dialog zwischen privaten Überlebenssorgen und öffentlichen Erwartungen der Kriegsführung offenbarte zunehmend fluide Geschlechterrollen im Dritten Reich. Bereits 1942 beschleunigte der Luftkrieg eine Phase der Tatkraft und Unabhängigkeit der Frauen, die in der Forschung bislang erst der „Stunde der Frauen” während der letzten Kriegstage und der alliierten Besatzung zugeschrieben worden ist.
1 Stadtarchiv Darmstadt (StD), Tagebücher Fritz Limmer, No. 20, Aug. 25, 1944. Limmer kept a record of the air raids in Darmstadt until moving to the countryside after the devastating raid of September 11–12, 1944.
2 For a comparative gender discussion of the European war experience, see the special issue “Gender and War in Europe, c. 1918–1949,” edited by Vincent, Mary, in Contemporary European History 10, no. 3 (2001)Google Scholar.
3 The literature on Nazi reproductive policy and gender relations is vast; see, e.g., Bock, Gisela, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus: Studien zur Rassenpolitik und Frauenpolitik (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1986)Google Scholar; Koonz, Claudia, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family, and Nazi Politics (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987)Google Scholar. These authors are also the protagonists of the so-called Historikerinnenstreit about female responsibility for the crimes of the Third Reich that started in 1989; see, e.g., Grossmann, Atina, “Feminist Debates about Women and National Socialism,” Gender & History 3 (Autumn 1991): 350–58Google Scholar.
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5 Hagemann, Karen, “Home/Front: The Military, Violence and Gender Relations in the Age of the World Wars,” in Home/Front: The Military, Violence and Gender Relations in the Age of the World Wars, ed. Hagemann, Karen and Schüler-Springorum, Stefanie (New York: Berg, 2002), 17Google Scholar.
6 See Davis, Belinda J., Food, Politics, and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000)Google Scholar.
7 See Fritzsche, Peter, Life and Death in the Third Reich (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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9 For a recent treatment of the debate, see Benda-Beckmann, Bas von, A German Catastrophe? German Historians and the Allied Bombings, 1945 – 2010 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010)Google Scholar. See also Kettenacker, Lothar, ed., Ein Volk von Opfern? Die neue Debatte um den Bombenkrieg 1940–45 (Berlin: Rowohlt, 2003)Google Scholar; Vees-Gulani, Susanne, Trauma and Guilt: Literature of Wartime Bombing in Germany (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2003)Google Scholar; Moeller, Robert G., War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Arnold, Jörg, The Allied Air War and Urban Memory: The Legacy of Strategic Bombing in Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)Google Scholar. The increasing number of German wartime memoirs and published diaries that first appeared in the 1990s also contributed to this debate. See, e.g., Martin, Angela and Schoppmann, Claudia, eds., Ich fürchte die Menschen mehr als die Bomben: Aus den Tagebüchern von drei Berliner Frauen 1938–1946. (Berlin: Metropol, 1996)Google Scholar; Wojak, Andreas, ed., Wir werden auch weiterhin unsere Pflicht tun: Kriegsbriefe einer Familie in Deutschland, 1940–1945 (Bremen: Temmen, 1996)Google Scholar.
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13 Arnold, The Allied Air War and Urban Memory.
14 Maynes, Mary Jo, Pierce, Jennifer L., and Laslett, Barbara, Telling Stories: The Use of Personal Narratives in the Social Sciences and History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008), 21Google Scholar.
15 National Archives at College Park (NACP), Records of the US Strategic Bombing Survey, Record Group (RG) 243, Entry 6, Box 511, Folder 64b f29, Schedule B Question by Question Objectives, n.d.
16 The USSBS interviews are depersonalized and not ordered by number. They are referenced here using the interviewer's last name, serial number, and date of interview. The transcriptions are written in English, and all quotations include original spelling and grammar mistakes. Edits are added only for clarification or to provide missing context. See NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 510, Folder 64b f25, Facer #3, May 18, 1945.
17 Maynes, Pierce, and Laslett, Telling Stories, 2.
18 Ibid., 41.
19 This approach is mindful of the challenges that both ahistorical deconstructivism and textual analysis pose for historical scholarship. For a detailed critique, see Scott, Joan, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (April 1986): 1053–75Google Scholar; Poovey, Mary, “Feminism and Deconstruction,” Feminist Studies 14, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 51–65 Google Scholar.
20 Gregor, Neil, “A Schicksalsgemeinschaft? Allied Bombing, Civilian Morale, and Social Dissolution in Nuremberg, 1942–1945,” Historical Journal 43, no. 4 (Dec. 2000): 1051–70Google Scholar.
21 These are conservative estimates on the lower end of the spectrum; see The United States Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effects of Strategic Bombing on German Morale, vol. I (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1946), 7Google Scholar. Estimates reach as high as half a million fatalities; Jörg Friedrich estimates six hundred thousand (see note 11). The USSBS survey put the total population of the Old Reich at 69,800,000.
22 For an analysis of working-class behavior under Nazism, see Port, Andrew I., “Predispositions and the Paradox of Working-Class Behavior in Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic,” in Becoming East German: Socialist Structures and Sensibilities After Hitler, ed. Fulbrook, May and Port, Andrew I. (New York: Berghahn, 2013), 201–18Google Scholar.
23 Clarke, Lee, “Panic: Myth or Reality?,” Contexts (Fall 2002): 22 Google Scholar.
24 The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, “The Effects of Strategic Bombing on German Morale, volume II,” Washington DC, 1946, in The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, vol. IV, ed. MacIsaac, David (New York: Garland Publishing, 1976), 32–33 Google Scholar; United States Strategic Bombing Summary Report (European War) (Washington DC, Sept. 30, 1945) (http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS/ETO-Summary.html#tc); Moeller, “Man-Made Destruction,” 108.
25 Stargardt, Nicholas, The German War: A Nation under Arms (London: Vintage, 2016), 8Google Scholar.
26 For a discussion of the effectiveness of the Volksgemeinschaft, see Welch, David, “Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft: Constructing a People's Community,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 2 (2004): 213–38Google Scholar; Bajohr, Frank and Wildt, Michael, Volksgemeinschaft: Neue Forschungen zur Gesellschaft des Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 2009)Google Scholar.
27 Cocks, Geoffrey, “Sick Heil: Self and Illness in Nazi Germany,” Osiris 22, no. 1 (2007): 107 Google Scholar.
28 Goeschel, Christian, “Suicide at the End of the Third Reich,” Journal of Contemporary History 41, no. 1 (2006): 161 Google Scholar.
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30 Massumi, Brian, Politics of Affect (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015)Google Scholar.
31 Deppert, Fritz and Engels, Peter, eds., Feuersturm und Widerstand: Darmstadt 1944 (Darmstadt: H. L. Schlapp, 2004), 14Google Scholar.
32 Valentin Schröder, “Weimarer Republik Reichstagswahlen Wahlkreis Hessen-Darmstadt,” last updated Dec. 5, 2014 (http://www.wahlen-in-deutschland.de/wrtwhessendarmstadt.htm).
33 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 605, Folder 65c 19, Darmstadt population chart 1938/1940 - Aug. 1944, July 31, 1945.
34 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 605, Folder 65c 19, Ernährungsamt Darmstadt, Übersicht über die Zahl der versorgungsberechtigten Personen im Stadtkreis, June 13, 1945.
35 Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt (HSAD), RG G12B, File 23/9, Jüdische Kultusvereinigung Israel Beratungsstelle des Hilfsvereins der Juden in Deutschland und Palästinaamt, Statistik der ausgewanderten Juden aus dem Freistaat Hessen, 1939 bis 1941; HSAD, RG G12B, File 23/10, Religionsgemeinde Darmstadt e.V. an die Geheime Staatspolizei Darmstadt betr. Monatliche Einwohnermeldung, Oct. 1939—Nov. 1940.
36 The first transport left on March 20, 1942, for Piaski-Lublin, followed by three more transports on September 27 and 30, 1942, and on February 10, 1943. See HSAD, RG G12B, File 23/27, Liste der aus Hessen am 20. März 1942 nach Piaski-Lublin deportierten Juden, n.d.; HSAD, RG G12B, File 23/28, Deportationslisten, 27. September 1942 nach Theresienstadt, 30. September 1942 in das Generalgouvernement, 10. Februar 1943 nach Theresienstadt, n.d.
37 These figures include prisoners-of-war. See NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 338, Folder 37, “United States Strategic Bombing Survey: A Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Darmstadt, Germany” (Area Studies Division Report No. 6, 1945), 10–11.
38 HSAD, RG G12B, File 36/2, Geheime Staatspolizei Darmstadt Rundschreiben betr. Massnahmen gegen Juden, Dec. 9, 1939.
39 For more details on the strategical and technological development of strategic bombing, see Childers, Thomas, “ Facilis descensus averni est: The Allied Bombing of Germany and the Issue of German Suffering,” Central European History, 38, no. 1 (2005), 82–87 Google Scholar; Overy, Richard, Why the Allies Won (New York: Norton & Co., 1995), 101–33Google Scholar.
40 Childers, “Facilis descensus averni est,” 83. Later in the war, the German Luftwaffe also bombed Russian cities such as Moscow and Leningrad on the eastern front.
41 “USSBS: Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Darmstadt,” 3.
42 Ibid., 4.
43 Ibid., 1.
44 The Allies dropped approximately 29,500 tons of bombs on Frankfurt. Only Hamburg, Cologne, and Essen experienced heavier bombings. See USSBS: The Effects of Strategic Bombing on German Morale, 8.
45 See, e.g., NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f23, Oberlander #22, May 4, 1945; Brandenburger #21, May 4, 1945; Brandenburger #20, May 4, 1945.
46 HSAD, RG N1, File (W) 3826, Rundschreiben vom Mobilisierungsbeauftragten an alle Kreisleiter betr. Richtlinien für Alarmierung, Nov. 18, 1940.
47 Friedrich, Der Brand, 37–43.
48 StD, Limmer, Sept. 12, 1944. A report on the extent of the damage that Allied bombing inflicted on the city, compiled by the Statistical Agency Darmstadt in the late 1940s or early 1950s, lists seventeen air assaults between July 22, 1941, and March 24, 1945; it considered eight of them to have been of “larger scale.” See StD, RG ST 63/1H, Folder “Brandnacht,” compilation of war damage, n.d.
49 Max Hastings, Bomber Command (New York: Touchstone, 1989), 307.
50 Ibid., 308.
51 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 339, Folder 37 d 2, Aufstellung, Organisation des Luftschutzes im Luftschutzort Darmstadt, April 23, 1945.
52 Echternkamp, Germany and the Second World War, vol. IX/I, 398.
53 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f 24, Meyer-Hohenberg #21, May 2, 1945.
54 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 339, Folder 37 d 1, Aufstellung, “Luftschutzräume in Darmstadt, die vor der Zerstörung der Stadt als öffentliche Luftschutzräume und Sammelschutzräume vorhanden waren,” Oct. 4, 1945.
55 See NACP, RG 226, Entry 145, Box 65, Folder 287, “Kellergassen durch die Nachbarhäuser,” Völkischer Beobachter, Aug. 11, 1943.
56 See, e.g., Gellately, Robert, “Denunciations in Twentieth-Century Germany: Aspects of Self-Policing in the Third Reich and the German Democratic Republic,” Journal of Modern History 68 (Dec. 1996): 931–67Google Scholar.
57 StD, RG ST 63, Folder “Verstoß gegen Bestimmungen des Luftschutz und der Verdunkelung,” police statement, Jan. 30, 1943.
58 StD, RG ST 63, Folder, police statement, April 22, 1943.
59 StD, RG ST 63, Folder, police statement, May 4, 1943.
60 For a discussion of women who remained single against their will as a result of Nazi racial policy and the regime's control of access to the institution of marriage, see Heineman, What Difference Does a Husband Make?, 17–31.
61 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f25 [1 of 2], Boeger #4, May 19, 1945. This childless, married woman was very upset about her social status and about the strict legal controls she experienced at her workplace. For a discussion of female mobilization for the war effort, see Rupp, Leila J., “Women, Class, and Mobilization in Nazi Germany,” Science & Society 43, no. 1 (1979): 51–69 Google Scholar.
62 “USSBS: Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Darmstadt,” 10–11.
63 See Heinemann, What Difference Does a Husband Make?, 56–59.
64 HSAD, RG G12B, File 34/8, Gestapo Darmstadt, Einsatz der Partei bei der Überwachung fremdvölkischer Arbeitskräfte zur Begegnung volkspolitischer Gefahren, Oct. 25, 1942.
65 HSAD, RG G12B, File 40/6, Meldeblatt der Kriminalpolizeistelle Darmstadt, 6. Jahrgang 1942, Nummer 260.
66 NACP, RG 226, Entry 145, Box 65, Folder 287, “Women to join the Fire Brigades,” Neue Deutsche Zeitung, Nov. 6, 1943 (trans. for Digest).
67 NACP, RG 226, Entry 145, Box 65, Folder 287, “Women as Fire Guards,” Transocean, July 6, 1944, (trans. for Far East).
68 NACP, RG 226, Entry 145, Box 65, Folder 287, “Women on AA Defence Service,” DNB, July 11, 1944.
69 Ibid.
70 For an analysis of the negative societal perception of women working in the military Etappe during World War I, see Bianca Schönberger, “Motherly Heroines and Adventurous Girls: Red Cross Nurses and Women Army Auxiliaries in the First World War,” in Hagemann and Schüler-Springorum, Home/Front, 87–114.
71 Peukert, Detlev J. K., Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life, trans. Deveson, Richard (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 99Google Scholar.
72 See the USSBS interviews with Darmstadt women aged between thirty and fifty.
73 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f 24, Himmelstoss #H1, May 1945.
74 For a discussion of a similar role reversal within German Jewish families, see Kaplan, Marion, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 59–62 Google Scholar.
75 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f 24, Boeger #3, May 18, 1945. The interviewee's husband died as a soldier in the war.
76 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f25, Brink #2, n.d.
77 For a detailed discussion of gender roles during the Third Reich, see Mason, Tim, “Women in Germany, 1925–1940: Family, Welfare and Work. Part I,” History Workshop 1, no. 2 (Autumn 1976): 74–113 Google Scholar.
78 Cocks, “Sick Heil,” 108.
79 Meyer-Hohenberg #21, May 2, 1945.
80 NACP, RG 226, Entry 145, Box 65, Folder 286 “All Air-War Reports Previous to October 1, 1944,” “Alert Psychosis,” DNB, June 29, 1943 (translation of article by Prof. Dr. Schenck of the Central Office for Public Health of the NSDAP).
81 Ibid.
82 See, e.g., the interview with a twenty-year-old woman raised in the spirit of the Hitler Youth and drafted to the AA-units in NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f 24, Boeger #2, May 8, 1945.
83 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f 24, Kurtz #28, May 8, 1945.
84 For details about the attack, see StD, RG ST 62, Folder 1C, RAF Operations Record Book: Detail of work carried out by No. 627 squadron for the month of Sept. 1944. For the bomb tonnage, see “USSBS: Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Darmstadt,” 5b.
85 Kurtz #28, May 8, 1945 (see note 83).
86 Gregor, “Civilian Morale in Nuremberg,” 1056.
87 HSAD, RG N1, Folder (W) 3826, Stellvertretender Gauleiter der NSDAP and alle Kreisleiter betr. Abwurf von Blechkanistern mit Phosphorkautschuklösung als Brandstiftmittel, Oct. 1, 1941.
88 Ibid.
89 See NACP, RG 226, Entry 145, Box 65, Folder 286, Office of Strategic Services newspaper clippings.
90 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 510, Folder 64b f27, Hicks #2, May 9, 1945.
91 See, e.g., NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f 24, Facer #1, May 17, 1945.
92 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f24, Diefenbach #1, May 8, 1945 (see note 75).
93 See, e.g., Boeger #3, May 18, 1945 (see note 75).
94 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f 24, Workman #2, May 17, 1945.
95 On “hysterical” women on the home front also being blamed for the loss of World War I in 1918, see Stargardt, The German War, 74.
96 “USSBS: Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Darmstadt,” 10.
97 Kurtz #28, May 8, 1945 (see note 83).
98 Ibid.
99 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 510, Folder 64b f25, Brink #1, May 18, 1945.
100 Aufstellung, Organisation des Luftschutzes im Luftschutzort Darmstadt (see note 51).
101 Kurtz #28, May 8, 1945 (see note 83).
102 See the Darmstadt USSBS interviews in NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 510.
103 Ibid.
104 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f 24, Blitz #1, May 8, 1945.
105 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f23, Brandenburger #19, May 4, 1945.
106 Domansky, “Reproduction and Militarization during World War I,” 437.
107 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f 24, Gottlieb #1, May 8, 1945.
108 Ibid.
109 “Alert Psychosis,” DNB, June 29, 1943 (translation of article).
110 Facer #3, May 18, 1945 (see note 16).
111 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 501, Folder 64b f 23, Fluss #22, May 4, 1945.
112 “USSBS: Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Darmstadt,” 6.
113 StD, RG ST 63, Folder 1H, “Brandnacht,” Statistisches Amt Darmstadt, Zusammenstellung der Kriegsschäden und Verluste durch die Luftangriffe (1939–1945) im Stadtkreis Darmstadt, n.d., and Die bei Luftangriffen auf Darmstadt entstandenen Personenverluste, n.d. The death toll varies in several reports because the demographic data was destroyed in the fire on September 11–12, 1944. Estimates expected five thousand more dead once all former inhabitants of Darmstadt had returned, amounting to 10 percent of the prewar population and thus the highest death toll in any German city. For detailed listings, see “USSBS: Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Darmstadt,” 9a.
114 See ibid.
115 For a discussion of the November 1943 women's protest against evacuation policies in Witten, see Torrie, Julia S., “For Their Own Good”: Civilian Evacuations in Germany and France, 1939–1945 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 96–98 Google Scholar. On the difficulties of the KLV in Nuremberg, see Gregor, “Civilian Morale in Nuremberg, 1942–45,” 1062–63.
116 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 339, Folder 37 d 2, 3, Polizeirevier Darmstadt betr. Fliegerangriff auf Darmstadt am 23. Sept. 1943, Oct. 1, 1943.
117 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f23, Fluss #22, May 4, 1945.
118 Brink #2, n. d (see note 76).
119 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f24, Plunder #1, May 8, 1945.
120 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f24, Brink #1, May 8, 1945.
121 See the USSBS interviews in NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f23.
122 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f24, Himmelstoss #2, May 8, 1945.
123 See NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 509, Folder 64b f24, Diefenbach #2, May 8, 1945; NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 339, Folder 37 d 2, 3, Polizeirevier Darmstadt betr. Fliegerangriff auf Darmstadt am 23. Sept. 1934, Oct. 1, 1943.
124 See NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 339, Folder 37 d 1, Polizeipräsident and die Amerikanische Militärregierung (April 11, 1945); “USSBS: Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Darmstadt,” 3.
125 NACP, RG 226, Entry 145, Box 65, Folder 288, “Country People Must Help the Victims,” Neue Deutsche Zeitung (trans. for Digest).
126 Interview with Fritz Deppert, Brandmale: Die Bombennacht von Darmstadt, 11. September 1944, DVD (Darmstadt: Gropperfilm Produktionsgesellschaft mbH, 2004)
127 Knowing that the Allies monitored national newspapers, the details provided in articles about bombing attacks supplied little information about the extent and the death toll of the raids. See NACP, RG 226, Entry 145, Box 67, Folder 385, “Casualty in Darmstadt,” Transocean, Nov. 14, 1944, and “Damage in Darmstadt,” Transocean, Oct. 31, 1944. See also Stargard, The German War, 360–61.
128 Boeger #4, May 19, 1945.
129 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 510, Folder 64b f24, Arran #4, May 18, 1945.
130 See also Bessel, Richard, “The End of the Volksgemeinschaft ,” in Visions of Community in Nazi Germany: Social Engineering and Private Lives , ed. Steber, Martina and Gotto, Bernhard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 281–94Google Scholar.
131 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 339, Folder 37 d 2, 4, Polizeirevier Darmstadt betr. Verleihung des Verwundetenabzeichens für im Heimatgebiet zu Schaden gekommene Volksgenossen, Nov. 15, 1944.
132 NACP, RG 226, Entry 145, Box 67, Folder 286, “All Air-War Reports Previous to Oct. 1, 1944,” Rhein-Mainische Zeitung, untitled editorial, Oct. 10, 1943 (trans. for Digest).
133 NACP, RG 243, Entry 6, Box 339, Folder 37 d 2, 3, Polizeirevier Darmstadt betr. Fliegerangriff auf Darmstadt am 23. Sept. 1943, Oct. 1, 1943; 1. Polizeirevier Darmstadt betr. Schlußbericht zum Terrorangriff am 11.9.1944, Oct. 20, 1944.
134 Stargardt, The German War, 357.