On 10 May 1940, theLuftwaffe erroneously bombed the city ofFreiburg im Breisgau in a case offriendly fire, killing 57 inhabitants.
Thekette (three aircraft) involved, commanded byLeutnant Paul Seidel, were from8. Staffel,Kampfgeschwader 51 "Edelweiss" (8./KG51) operating theHeinkel He 111 medium bomber. They had taken off at 14:27 fromLandsberg-Lech Air Base inBavaria to bomb the city ofDijon inFrance, or the alternative targetDole–Jura Airport, as part of theBattle of France. While en route to Dijon, they lostorientation over Germany due to navigation errors and were unable to determine their exact position, but were convinced they had crossed theRhine into France. They spotted achurch spire rising out of the fog, which they mistook forSt Martin's Church inColmar, a French city only 35 kilometres (22 mi) from Freiburg on the opposite side of the Rhine. The spire was in fact from a church in Freiberg. An air raid watch based at the Hilda Tower on theLorettoberg identified the aircraft as German, so it was only after the attack was already over thatair raid warning in Freiburg was given. Starting from 15:59 the planes dropped a total of 69 bombs on the city.[1]
The German leadership immediately tried tocover-up the bombing and passed it off as enemy action, which thestate media accepted without any hesitation.UFA's newsreel seriesDie Deutsche Wochenschau reported in its issue no. 506 on 15 May 1940 describing the incident as the "brutal and ruthless air raid on anunfortified German city".[2] The local newspaperFreiburger Zeitung described it on 11 May 1940 as a "malicious air raid"[3] by the enemy. In the course of this "sneaky, cowardly air raid against alllaws of humanity andinternational law",[3] the newspaper continued "24 civilians were overtaken by death". At the same time the incident was used to justify further attacks against the enemy. Thus, "any further planned bombing of the German population will be counteracted by five times as many German aircraft attacking anEnglish or French town."[3] In a speech to workers at the Borsig factory inBerlin on 10 December 1940,Adolf Hitler accused the British Prime MinisterWinston Churchill to have started with "terrorist" attacks against the German civilian population with the bombing of Freiburg.[4]
TheLuftwaffe pilots, for their part, declared to have attacked the secondary target Dole Tavaux. However, that declaration was made only later in the year. The claim that theduds of the attack were not German, had already been refuted by the time code. Nevertheless, the myth that foreign aircraft had bombed Freiburg had a long-standing basis. Background for this could have been memories of the air raids duringWorld War I, when Freiburg was bombed 25 times byAllied aircraft.[5] A reinforcing factor might have been theshelling of Freiburg by French artillery on 11 and 13 June 1940. On that occasion shells fell on the southern Lorettoberg,Merzhausen,Günterstal, and the area around the airport as well as on the premises of the company Rhodia and thegasworks. This possibility of attack was eliminated by the advance of the German troops in France from 15 June 1940 onwards.[6]
ColonelJosef Kammhuber, at that time commander of KG51, alleged for a long time that it would never be possible to clarify who was responsible for the bombing of Freiburg. In August 1980, however, Kammhuber presented his knowledge regarding the bombing of Freiburg to two military historians:"The fact that the attack on Freiburg was conducted mistakenly by a chain of III/KG51 is evident".[7]
The German historians Anton Hoch,Wolfram Wette andGerd R. Ueberschär contributed significantly to the clarification of the events on 10 May 1940. In consequence of their work, the persons responsible for the bombing could be identified. On 5 April 1956,The New York Times reported that the puzzle of who bombed Freiburg had been solved.[8]On theHilda playground in Freiburg's suburb Stühlinger next to which[9] 20 children were killed,[10] a memorial stone refers to the incident. The construction of the memorial stone was initiated by theUnion of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime. On the 40th anniversary a preliminary plaque existing only for a short time was installed. It followed up the assumption that Freiburg was intentionally bombed by the German Air Force which was later disproved.[11] The present monument was dedicated on the 45th anniversary. The present inscription on the plaque is based on the findings of historical research about the event.[12] MayorRolf Böhme as well as the chairman of theVVN and the chairman of theSPD local association of the suburb Stühlinger spoke at the dedication of the memorial stone.[13]