Chemnitz contemporary witnesses: Eberhard Steinbach

My work in fire protection began when I was still at school in 1944 as an air-raid warden. We were deployed at Siegmar school at night and at weekends. Our equipment consisted of a combination of armband, (functional) hard hat, gas mask with filter, fire extinguishers, bucket sprayer, bucket with stick sprayer and sand container. Due to the air raids on Siegmar and the surrounding area, I also got to see burning objects.

Example: 11 September 1944 fire at the Wanderer works in Siegmar and the surrounding buildings. The Opel fire engine at a burning barrack, now a mechanics' hotel. Fire in the Jagdschänkenbad and fires in 2 residential buildings on Anton-Günther-Straße. From the Jungvolk, we then had to collect stick bombs from the Jagdschänkenbad to the Stärkerwald and mark out the impact points of explosive bombs. There were hundreds of incendiary bombs that were taken away in lorries. We smashed two incendiary bombs to see the effect. The army fireworkers grumbled, but we had satisfied our curiosity. If all of these bombs had hit the hikers' settlement, it would have been a disaster. Fortunately, there were many unexploded bombs. Events like these, the fire in Chemnitz, the bombing of a refugee train, awakened in me the desire to help other people in need.

For example, on 2 March 1945, I was with the then head of the Siegmar volunteer fire brigade, Hans Mann, near the school gymnasium when a bomber group approached our town from the south-west. The aircraft flying ahead suddenly released a smoke bomb. Shortly afterwards there were detonations. The first, we were in the courtyard in front of the main building. The second when we reached the basement stairs. Then it was quiet. All the inhabitants of the neighbouring houses were in the school shelter. Only the gardener Böttcher was missing, he had stayed in the house. I immediately went into the apartment block. He was lucky, the blast wave from a bomb that had detonated in the town park had pushed him into the corner of the hallway, he was unhurt. Then I saw a bomb funnel in the park and a cloud of dust in the direction of Siegmar railway station. My curiosity was piqued, so I set off in that direction. The first thing I saw was that the Siegmar inn was a pile of rubble. Only part of the east gable wall was still standing. Then a man came towards me and asked me to take a report to the town hall to the operations centre. I reported the attack on a train and that an emergency hospital had been set up in the pharmacy. When I got back, I saw railway carriages behind the pharmacy, one on top of the other, people screaming. One carriage had got stuck on a lattice mast and saved many lives. One was lying on the road by the railway station, where I saw that several houses had been destroyed on the right. There were dead and injured people. Fortunately there were also some unexploded bombs here, but the damage was still very extensive. As I was making my way back, a hospital train from Chemnitz was slowly pulling into the station. The destroyed houses, the screaming people, it was horrific. I told the people back home about my experience and they were all very shocked.

These experiences: The attack on Chemnitz, where much was destroyed by high-explosive bombs and phosphorus, left its mark on my life.

On the evening of 5 March 1945, the city radio reported the approach of enemy aircraft. Mr Böttcher took us out of our flat and told us to go to the air-raid shelter in the school immediately. The reason was that there were already trees of light in the sky above us. Everything was lit up and explosions could be seen over the town in the direction of Schönau. I pushed a pram through the suddenly fallen snow to school. After a short time in the shelter, we went on our first tour. From the first floor of the school (Siegmar) we watched the firelight and the explosion of the town. We were lucky. The wind had blown the Christmas trees towards Chemnitz and Siegmar was spared. After several tours, we stayed in the cellar until the spook was over. I hope that children and their parents never have to experience anything like that again.

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