In his Palm Sunday sermon, 29 March 1942, Stellbrink said "In the misery of our home city we hear God's voice" [quoted from Stellbrink's Statement given during interrogation 9 April 1942] which some had interpreted then as Stellbrink meaning God's judgment upon the city was expressed in the effects of a British air raid on Lübeck the previous night. More than 300 people had been killed, the worst civilian casualties in an Allied bombing raid up to that time in the war.