Chemnitz contemporary witnesses: Karl Keller

Karl Keller was born in 1935. He lived in Schönau, Peter-Mitterhofer-Straße 8 and was nine years old when the worst attack on Chemnitz took place.

His father Kurt worked at the Wanderer works, which is why the family lived in the neighbourhood. Karl Keller remembers Hitler's speech on the occasion of the attack on Poland: "He announced over the radio in his brash voice that they were going to shoot back now. My parents had lived through the First World War. It was clear to us that something bad was coming." What nobody knew at the time was that his beloved brother Helmut was going to be hit.

Helmut had trained as a lathe operator and then joined the Reich Labour Service. He joined the Wehrmacht at 17. In 1945, he was taken prisoner by the Soviets in the Oderbruch. A letter reached the family in the winter of 45/46: "Dear parents and siblings, I'm doing well so far, only the soup could be better, your Helmut." It was his last sign of life. "He never came back," says Karl. Tears well up in his eyes.

Back to 1939: father Kurt was uk, so he was indispensable. He was a member of the NSDAP. He distributed ration cards as a block leader. He worked as a highly specialised vending machine setter, so he wasn't at the front. The machines were programmed mechanically. What does Karl think of his father today? "Every man was somehow connected to the war. Either as a soldier on the outside, he had to let himself be shot away by people he had done nothing to. Or kill others who hadn't done anything to him. And in Chemnitz you also had to help out. That was normal back then. I grew up in the Wanderer housing estate. When it was Hitler's birthday, there wasn't a window that didn't have a flag flying out of it. It was one big flood. They weren't all in the NSDAP. But they got the flag out. Because you had to take part, otherwise you might not survive."

He remembers the first bombings: "Chemnitz was bombed wherever there were people. I began to suspect that the intention was not to destroy the industrial plants, but to kill the people who worked in industry, in war production. The Nazis did the same to England. The war had returned." Attacks were part of everyday life. Usually between 10 pm and midnight. That's when the air situation reports were issued: "Enemy bomber units approaching." First on Leipzig, Merseburg, Halle. "Yes, and then Chemnitz was also included," says Karl. "When the siren went off, I stood up in bed and was stiff. Sister Lisa had to dress me."

5 March. It was snowing. There was a beautiful, white, smooth blanket of snow. "I went to bed between 7 and 8 in the evening. Then the sirens went off, I got dressed, Lisa dressed me, then to the cellar. Older men, women and children were there. The aeroplanes went lower, squares were marked out with 'Christmas trees' (the bombers' target markers)," Karl Keller later learnt. "And that's where they dropped the bombs. We reckoned it could be our last hour. How it cracked. The walls of the houses shook to their foundations. We cowered and thought we were going to be hit by a bomb at any moment. There's no way to describe it. The fear of death! We knew from Leipzig that we had to open our mouths, otherwise pressure waves could tear our lungs apart. So we put staples in our mouths. Then at some point it was quiet. We didn't get hit. We got out and saw the blood-red sky reflected in the snow. Flames flickered, it crackled. Mum said: 'scary and beautiful'."

"Everything in the city centre had been shaved away. There was still something in the old Gartenstraße." The chimneys of the houses had mostly remained standing, towering into the sky. Chemnitz had been densely built-up. "Only narrow-gauge railways could run, there was no room for wide tracks. Everything was gone now."

Chemnitz slowly got back on its feet after the capitulation. "For example, a light railway was laid out to the airfield. There was a demolition site behind the Ikarus airfield. A lot of the rubble was taken out there. The first trams ran again from Schönau to the city. We children travelled back and forth on them. Windows were nailed shut with boards, there was no glass. In the end, we were amazed that the city was free of rubble." Karl's father had to help clean up. He had to rebuild the motorway bridge on the A4 that had been blown up. "They came for him in his spare time."

"I'm 83 now. Many of my contemporaries have already gone. There are fewer and fewer people who can talk about it. I think it's important that what we experienced is not forgotten."

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