21. Juni 1944
Bombing raid on Berlin![1] We stand at the windows of the barracks and watch the attack. The blue sky is strewn with countless silver dots, the bombers. A whole stream of many hundreds of aircraft flew over the city and rained down a hail of explosive bombs and incendiary canisters. We see them fall. They hurtle towards the earth as dark dots, sometimes flashing in the sun or trailing a long, white wisp of fog behind them. A huge, dark cloud of smoke slowly billows upwards from the city. The dull rumble of the detonations reaches as far as Potsdam, and the air trembles with the pressure of the explosions. Like a huge mushroom a thick mass of clouds spreads over the sea of houses, a mixture of clouds of fire and condensation vapour.
I stare at this picture of destruction with a fearful heart. Carola was in Potsdam and left an hour ago. She must have ended up right in this hell! There, where this inferno of crashing bombs is now raging, where the black clouds of fire are billowing into the sky, there sits my wife now! For the first time I fear for her and feel how much I love her.
The attack is over and the sirens sound the all-clear. I can't hold on any longer. I leave the barracks and run to the people where Carola was lodging. My hope that she might have returned before the attack is not realised. In the meantime it becomes known that the attack was mainly aimed at East Berlin. I immediately get on the train to go to my parents. There are already maps at the stations showing the destroyed railway lines and where to change trains. Between Friedrichstraße and Ostkreuz stations, the multi-track line has been destroyed between all the stations in several places. I have to travel via the northern ring and arrive home three hours later. Carola hasn't been here either. Now I'm really worried. There is no starting point for further searches. I stay with my parents overnight.
Six hours after this devastating attack, the first makeshift trains are already travelling again.••• im Original weiter ohne Zeilenumbruch •••
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- ↑ During the course there were day raids on Berlin on 19 and 24 May, but according to the order of the narrative, this attack should have taken place towards the end of the course - that would be the air raid (Eighth Air Force mission no. 428) of 21 June with around 1000 bombers and just as many fighters (figures vary due to different counting methods), in which incidentally Potsdam was also hit.