"Licht ist das sicherste Bombenziel". Przyczynek do badań nad zaciemnianiem źródeł światła w Festung Breslau w 1945 roku
"Licht ist das sicherste Bombenziel". A contribution to the research on the blackout of light sources in Festung Breslau in 1945

Summary/Abstract: This article focuses on obligations related to blackout which were imposed on the inhabitants of Festung Breslau. It analyzes documents issued by the Fortress Command, the local press (Schlesische Tageszeitung), and written relations in the form of memoirs and diaries. All of these were collected by Horst Gleiss in the source edition Breslauer Apokalypse 1945. There were three main groups of objects to be blacked out: cars, trams and flats. The orders of the Fortress Command were confronted with the legal acts on blackout in force in the whole Third Reich. A study on civil air defense by Erich Hampe, relevant to this topic, was utilized. As far as cars were concerned, the focus was on limiting the light emission from the main headlights. Similar principles applied to the urban trams. These, however, due to the greater number of light sources (e.g. lamps in the passenger compartment), were subject to stricter restrictions. In the case of flats, an analysis of selected testimonies shows that windows were darkened above all.

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