Once airplanes had been invented, it became part of war strategy to terrorise enemies’ civilian populations with massive bomb drops. The idea is that they are supposed to turn against their own government. To disguise their preparations for war, the Nazis ordered air raid protection measures which were intended to make the population feel safer. In fact, only a very low proportion of people could be protected effectively – around 4% of Berlin’s inhabitants.
In addition to special exercises, the construction of shelters and the makeshift upgrading of cellars served as preparation against air raids. A number of laws and ordinances were issued to achieve this. As part of the Nazi surveillance apparatus, air raid wardens had to supervise and enforce these measures. Allegedly insufficient window blackouts were often used as a pretext for harassment.
You can find an example of such preparations on the cellar window of the house in Alt-Moabit 37: Instead of the typical grille above the light well, there is an almost square cover with a wide frame. It is labelled “Mannesmann Luftschutz” – “Mannesmann Air Raid Protection”. This special cover also used to have a construction that was supposed to keep out poison gas. Almost all of them also had a manual air filter. Usually, however, these makeshift shelters were only reinforced with beams and tree trunks. Of course, they could not withstand direct hits from bombs. Diagonally across, at Alt-Moabit 81, many people died in their shelter during an air raid.
Under pressure from the escalating bombings by British and American troops, the construction of large bunker facilities was quickly pursued. Forced labour was used to speed up construction. However, the labourers were not allowed to use the shelters they had constructed. With regard to Jews sheltering from air raids, Minister Hermann Göring wrote in a decree in 1941: “The utilisation of air raid shelters by Jews cannot in practice be prevented, however, they should be separated from the other inhabitants, either by creating separate rooms for them or dividing existing rooms.”
