Summary: Aerial Warfare, Air Defence and Flak Towers in the Austrian Area during the Second World War
Wolfgang Etschmann/Ute Bauer
The first entries and leaflet droppings by British bombers over Austrian territory can be proved to have taken place at the turn of the year 1939/40, but it was not earlier than after the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, when west-allied air and land operations - according to strategic-operational guidelines - were directed towards the "soft belly” of the "Fortress Europe”, that the British and American strategic air forces, which were stationed in Northern Africa, attacked targets in the "Ostmark” region.
Thus, for instance, heavy bomber formations of the 9th Air Force attacked the Messerschmitt plant in Wiener Neustadt on 13th August 1943, and during the "Big Week” from 20th to 25th February 1944 both British and American bomber formations attacked aircraft industry plants all over the Reich.
On an average, four German fighter wings were at disposal on "Ostmark"airports between August 1943 and June 1944, consisting of not more than 160 operational single-engined fighter aircraft. After the attack on Wiener Neustadt, 32 heavy and 11 light additional flak batteries were transferred into the Air District XVII in order to reinforce the 16th Flak Brigade. Because of that, in December 1943 the 24th Flak Division could be set up, which in June 1944 consisted of a total of 432 anti-aircraft cannons, and was positioned in Vienna and its surrounding areas covering a 25 kilometre radius. Their number, however, was at no point of time adequate for preventing west-allied air attacks on the so-called "Reich Air-Raid Shelter”.
In the winter of 1942/43 the building of the Vienna flak towers started; they belonged to the last of three building generations and were of only little military use. Their symbolic importance as protection and defence buildings, however, was relevant for their realization. Two towers each formed a pair, consisting of a fight tower and a guide tower, the latter collecting data about attacking aeroplanes and transmitting them to the fight tower with its flak guns.
Whereas potential future use was taken into consideration concerning the towers built previously in Berlin and Hamburg, there remained no time for such considerations when the Vienna flak towers were built, because of the air attacks’ growing frequency and intensity. Technically improved and simplified variations, meeting first of all military and not so much formal standards, were realized as quickly as possible. Nowadays the six flak towers of Vienna represent authentic memorials, and three of them even are in practical use.
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