Bombings of Heilbronn in World War II

During World War II, the German city of Heilbronn was bombed numerous times by the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces. The largest air-raid occurred on December 4, 1944, but Heilbronn was targeted several times before and after until the end of World War II. Altogether, an estimated 7,000 inhabitants of the city lost their lives during bombings.

On 12 April 1945, the U.S. military took control of the city after a ten-day battle, ending bombings of the city. In 2015, Heilbronn had a population of 123,000.

The first raid occurred on December 17, 1940. Three high-explosive and 20 incendiary bombs were released upon the city, resulting in the destruction of 20 houses and the damaging of 70 more. Three people were killed, and a further twelve were injured. Two days later, heavy anti-air defence was installed in the city, but was soon replaced by a lighter version, due to military requirements.

Between August and November 1941, the city was bombed four times. However, the resulting damage was minimal. During the day of one of these raids, individual fighter-bombers had been seen flying close-to and around the city. On May 7, 1942, a raid struck the city center, destroying or damaging approximately 150 houses, and killing seven people.

In January and February 1944 Heilbronn suffered a two-week-long attack by the Royal Air Force. These raids continued into April, by when the city had been utterly devastated, and air-raid alarms sounded almost daily. Later in the year, the attacks grew so bad that theater in the city was abolished, and the local police decided to enforce a ban on any decorations in windows that could be potentially flammable. On August 5 air-defense devices and weaponry was reinforced. By the beginning of September, the number of air-raid alerts sounded in the city had risen to 160.

By September 1944, Allied forces were seriously considering a major assault on Heilbronn.

At this time, frequent and near-daily alerts were still occurring in the city, but on September 8, four alarms were triggered due to bombers heading for Nuremberg. The alarms happened from 1:45 am to 2:31 am, 11:34 am to 12:42 pm, 2:38 to 3:48 pm and from 10:30 pm to 11:42 pm.

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