Advanced search

Volume 7 1941~1945

Doc No.
Date
Subject

No. 307  NAI DFA Secretary's Files P48/1

Personal code telegram from William Warnock to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)
(No. 58)

BERLIN, 3 August 1943

While I have no definite information regarding Hamburg, it seems most of city is in ruins. Rumour places number of dead at 150,000.1

Yesterday official notification served on all households in Berlin warning non-working women and children to leave city. Squads of men detailed to dig air raid shelters in public parks. At present moment there is a feeling of panic in city.

The fall of Mussolini, raids on Hamburg and the sudden evacuation, all inside one week, have combined to instil great uneasiness into the people here in Berlin.

1 In a series of night-time raids from 24 July to 2 August 1943 the RAF reduced almost half the north German port city to rubble and in the process caused the first man-made firestorm. Later estimates of the death toll reduced the figure to 45,000.

<<< Previous Document Next Document >>>