Charles III commemorates the victims of the bombing of Hamburg

HAMBURG. The British King Charles III. together with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Hamburg’s Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) laid a wreath at the ruins of St. Nikolai on Hamburg’s Hopfenmarkt, which were destroyed by British bombers during World War II. Apart from the main tower, the church was destroyed by British bombing raids in 1943.

All in all, at least 35,000 people died when the British Air Force bombed the Hanseatic city during “Operation Gomorrah” until August 3, 1943. Well over 100,000 were injured in a deliberate firestorm.

Today St. Nikolai is a memorial dedicated to the victims of war and tyranny between 1933 and 1945. (ho)