The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1939-1949, 1943-07-29
b-BIasted
J. ] R |''Ll: .P]E'ara9lyzed
Travellers Describe Ravage
OF Hearts of German Y
Industrial Centers.

STOCKHOLM. = Railway traffic
through the industrial metropolis OF
Dortmund was paralyzed for at least
three days after the last great Raj
raid, according to persons who have
travelled through bomb blasted west
ern Germany. d. .......
Movement through Dortmund' s
main station was impossible and
traffic had to be rerouted around the
city, causing bottleneck in the
transportation of war freight and
passengers from the Ruhr eastward
to points such as Berlin and Ham
burg. Police closed the area and
officials told travellers that an Raj
blockbuster dud was lying in the
station, but English reconnaissance
pictures since show the station is
badly damaged.
IT the Nazi claims are correct,
then the blockbuster obviously ex-
ploded later.
Neutral Swedish and other sources
over period of days drew the fol-
lowing picture of morale and DAM
age by air raids in the front line of
the Reich: ~. 1=.' -.
Ravage Industrial Centers.
Hearts of most of the great indus
trial centers in western Germany
such as Cologne, Essen, Duessel-
dorf, Duisburg and Dortmund. have
been torn out by explosive fires leav-
ing either an expanse of twisted
wreckage and mountains of debris
or the tottering facades> of Quilted
buildings.
A description of western German
cities by the Nazi newspaper Voelk-
ischer Boebachter recently only be-
gins to tell the story. It said: 1T
isn't single houses any longer which
are being destroyed but entire dis
tricts are burned out and laid waste.
There are business streets which
must be closed off because on both
sides only smoke blackened facades
stand and threaten to collapse.
There are squares surrounded by
ruins and without a single distin-
gushing feature, neighborhoods in
which one hardly meets a soul be-
cause the houses are empty. Quilted.
battered or destroyed. 90" :
Outlying residential districts are
much less damaged than the CEN
tiers of towns, where the extent of
the damage is really breathtaking.
Yet this does not mean that life is
'stagnated. One explanation is the
manner in which the Germans tackle
the cleanup job, restoring, a resem-
blance of order as rapidly as pos
sible. sgc' s3szfs.tf rs r szEe.s ;. ~. IS
f&~Ha Foreigners Put to Work.
=, Fire-fighting apparatus stands
ready day and night near military
detectives. As fires rage and threat
en- to grow out Of control-as in
Dortmund which undoubtedly is typ
ical-air raid wardens dash from
shelter to shelter ordering all males,
including foreigners, to help battle
the flames. 49,
Like the British, the Germans
have built emergency reservoirs for
pumping because water service is
frequently interrupted by a heavy
raid. Dortmunders were surprised
that the Raj failed to come after
preaching German dams to the
south.
ar ~ r E#-.- 80
For three days Dortmund and
the entire surrounding area were
without water" one source ex,
planned.
Sven Malmberg, Swedish violinist
who was in Dortmund on tour dur
ing the heavy raids of May As and
May 1924, told the Stockholm news
paper Tidningen that the scenes in
Dortmund were almost impossible
to describe
81 will never forget it and I will
never return to western Germany
as long as the war lasts" he said.