Traces of War – Bautzen

The latest episode of the Europe At War Podcast, episode 2.4, looks at the intense street battles which raged throughout Bautzen as the Soviets assaulted the city in April 1945.

Last month I went hunting through Bautzen for signs of the fighting, and whilst the city has gone through several makeovers since the war, I was able to find some Second World War scars (you just need to know where to look 😎).

1. First up, we have some Spang and exterior damage on a house along Löbauerstrasse. This street was one of the main routes which the Soviet 24th Mechanised Guards Brigade advanced down as part of their thrust from the east towards the city centre.

2. Covered-up bullet holes can be found under the alcove of a flat just off the main Hauptmarkt square in the city centre. Here the Germans and Russians fought for 3 days for control of the main square, with ownership changing back and forth as the tide of the battle swung back and forth between the German defenders and the Soviet attackers.

3. There is a large piece of granite weighing 14 thousand kg, which is the centrepiece of a public park in Bautzen. This huge clump of rock became a handy place to take cover during the fighting in April 1945, and thus it became damaged, possibly due to a mortar round or a shell.

4. A house on the corner of Holzmarkt and Wallstrasse still has impact damage on its window sills from projectiles or rounds which hit them during the Soviet assault.

5. The walls of the Ortenberg castle in Bautzen are also still marked by bullet holes, along with a very inconspicuous hole which was hastily bricked-up again after the war. – This hole was likely caused by Russian artillery as they tried to blast the German garrison making a last stand inside the castle.

These examples were tough to find, and I imagine they go completely unnoticed by the people who pass-by every day. But they help tell a story of what happened in Bautzen in the final weeks before the end of the war…a story you can hear all about in the latest episode of the Europe At War Podcast.