Berliner's reel from RAF raids

25th November 1943: Nazi Propaganda Minister and Gauleiter for Berlin Joseph Goebbels tries to stabilise the situation in the shattered German capital

Kurfürstendamm after a major air raid, Berlin, sometime after 5th November 1943.

After the major raid on Berlin on the 22nd/23rd the RAF returned with a smaller force on the 23rd/24th. The target was successfully marked through cloud again but many of the bombers used the burning fires from the previous raid as their aiming point. The raid added substantially to the damage and probably killed around the same number of people - about 1,500. By the end of this raid around 175,000 Berliners had been bombed out of their home.

… there is no heat, no light, no water. One can neither shave nor wash. One must get up in the shelter by the light of a burning candle.

Air raid damage to Berlin, undated.

One notable feature of this raid was the interception of the German night fighter radio controller by substitute German-speaking transmissions from England. The real German controller became infuriated when false messages were sent to the Luftwaffe night fighters - sending them in the wrong direction or ordering them to land because of impending fog. The Germans attempted to get around this by bringing in a female controller - but a German-speaking woman was immediately used by the transmitter operating from England.