Battle of Dortmund
Battle of Dortmund was major battle of World War II in the Western Front European theatre between the Allied forces and Nazi Germany. The part of the larger Ruhr Pocket encirclement. It started with a major bombing of the City of Dortmund on 12 March 1945 and ground troops taking the city on 18 April 1945.[4][5] In 1945, the city had many forced laborers living in concentration camps in Nazi Germany's coal and steel industries. The forced laborers were from Poland, Soviet Union, Belgium, France, and other occupied territories. At the end of the battle, 4.070 prisoners of war from 13 nations were liberated.[6][7]
Bombing
The battles start with the bombing of Dortmund, in North Rhine-Westphalia of Germany on 12 March 1945. The Royal Air Force (RAF) dropped 4,851 tonnes of bombs using 1108 aircraft. The bombing raid used 748 Lancasters, 292 Halifaxes, and 68 Mosquitos. The raid destred 98% of the downtown of the city. The bombing started at 4.30 pm, and lasted 29 minutes. The city was bombed repeatedly, including bombing of the Dortmund-Ems canal and coking plants, which limited Germany's fuel production.[8][9]
Ground Assault
The US 95th Infantry Division took the Dortmund on 13 April 1945. The battle was part of the encirclement of German Army Group B under Field Marshal Walter Model. Model put up strong resistance along the Dortmund–Ems Canal. The capture of the City of Dortmund and the Ruhr region was completed 18 April 1945. The Ruhr Pocket encirclement led to over 300,000 German soldiers being taken prisoner. [5][10][11][12]
Forced laborers camps
Hoesch AG, Harpener Bergbau AG, Deutsche Edelstahlwerke AG, Gewerkschaft des Steinkohlenbergwerkes and Concordia Bergbau-Aktien-Gesellschaft operated Dortmund mines and steel production with forced laborer camps. [13] The Dortmund prison inmates or concentration camp inmates were to be used for the dangerous work of uncovering and disposing of unexploded bombs.[14] When the US 9th Army troops entered Dortmund, Germany on 14 April 1945, they liberated 4,070 prisoners and slave laborers of 13 nationalities–men, women and children. The Americans discovered many of prisoners-of-war and workers too weak from starvation, malnutrition and disease to move.[15] Camps at Dortmund: Kommando 5005 and Kommando F756.[16] [17][18]
See also
References
- ↑ MacDonald 1973, p. 372.
- ↑ Zaloga & Dennis 2006, p. 87.
- ↑ Wolf Stegemann, Der Ruhrkessel: Ende der Kämpfe im Westen – Verbrechen der Wehrmacht, der SS und Gestapo an der Bevölkerung bis zum letzten Tag
- ↑ "On This Day: April 1945 | National Army Museum". www.nam.ac.uk.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 MacDonald 1973, p. 364.
- ↑ "Kriegsgräberstätte: Dortmund-Hauptfriedhhof - Bau, Pflege und Instandsetzung | Volksbund.de". kriegsgraeberstaetten.volksbund.de.
- ↑ "International Touring Exhibition, FORCED LABOUR THE GERMANS, THE FORCED LABOURERS AND THE WAR, Industrial Museum in Dortmund, initiated and sponsored by the Remembrance, Responsibility and Future Foundation (EVZ) 15 March 2012" (PDF).
- ↑ "Mission - 100th Bomb Group Foundation".
- ↑ Adams, Sharon (October 7, 2020). "The bombing of Dortmund".
- ↑ "The Final Offensive". March 6, 2021.
- ↑ The 95th Infantry Division during World War II
- ↑ The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket: A Combat Narrative, Richard Arthur Briggs, 1957
- ↑ "IG Farben to be dissolved". BBC. 2001-09-17. Retrieved 2018-02-18.
- ↑ he United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- ↑ "Dortmund-Dorstfeld". February 4, 2026.
- ↑ In Re HOLOCAUST VICTIM ASSETS LITIGATION (Swiss Banks) SPECIAL MASTER’S PROPOSAL, September 11, 2000, Owned or Controlled by the Nazi State or SS that Exploited Slave Labor
- ↑ "Dortmund-Witten". February 8, 2026.
- ↑ The Factory Action and the Events at the Rosenstrasse in Berlin: Facts and Fictions about 27 February 1943 — Sixty Years Later, by Wolf Gruner
Bibliography
- Forczyk, R. (2011). Walther Model (Command). Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84908-357-7. Search this book on
- MacDonald, C. B. (1973). Victory in Europe, 1945: The Last Offensive of World War II. United States Army in World War II European Theater of Operations. Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, United States Army US Government Printing Office. OCLC 963582. Search this book on
- Zaloga, Steve; Dennis, Peter (2006). Remagen 1945: Endgame against the Third Reich. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 1-84603-249-0. Search this book on
- Zaloga, S. (2016). Downfall 1945: The Fall of Hitler's Third Reich. Osprey. ISBN 978-1-4728-1143-1. Search this book on
- Citino, Robert M. (2017). "Five Minutes Past Midnight". The Wehrmacht's Last Stand: The German Campaigns of 1944–1945. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780700630387. Search this book on
- Littke, Peter (2026), Major Dunker und das Kriegsende 1945 in Beckum [Major Dunker and the end of war 1945 in Beckum], Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, ISBN 978-3402142943 [in German, especially interesting for events prior to the immediate closing of the Ruhr pocket].
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