Luftkrieg und “Heimatfront”

More than 3,000 people lost their lives in Kiel during the Second World War in air raids, 75% of the buildings were destroyed or damaged and 167,000 people were made homeless. 75 years after the end of the war, this publication traces the events with texts by eleven authors as well as numerous historical photos and posters. It documents how the air raids and the destruction of human lives, of housing, infrastructure, cultural and economic assets increasingly changed everyday life and the urban community and how life was organized under fear and privation. The civilian population on the “home front” was an important component of military production and logistics, so that Kiel, as a major armaments and naval location, became the target of massive Allied bombing raids, which bunkers and air raid protection measures could not withstand. The Nazi machinery of power, which was responsible for the war situation, also influenced the personal experience and mental processing of the war events with its ideology and propaganda. The book also deals with the question of the place of aerial warfare in the urban culture of remembrance in view of the unprecedented Nazi crimes.