Duesseldorf in ruins In February 1945, the Americans had advanced to just outside Neuss. On 2nd March, the Oberkassel Bridge was blown up. Barricades and tank blockades were set up on various Duesseldorf roads to halt the Americans’ advance. In addition to iron girders, rubble and wrecked cars, destroyed tramcars were used to create the blockades.
On 3rd March 1945, the American troops had reached the left bank of the Rhine. The city was divided again, as it had been in 1919. The American fired artillery and implemented low-level air raids on the right hand side of the Rhine in Duesseldorf, where Gauleiter Florian, the head of the administrative district, and his followers put up senseless resistance. Supplies of gas, light and water to the citizens who had remained in the city were finally cut off and exposed to the risk of epidemic. People looted the public warehouses whenever possible, even though they feared that the party was hatching out a ‘scorched earth’ plan.
At the same time, city officials, party functionaries and company employees destroyed compromising files in fear of the consequences. They did their work well. Many questions pertaining to this time will never be answered.
On 8th March 1945, the Rheinbahn’s services came to a complete halt.
However, it was only three weeks until the Nazis surrendered. This meant the end of a 1000 year empire after a terrible 12-year reign of terror. More than 10,000 Duesseldorf citizens were killed in air raids and on the front, and many Rheinbahn employees returned from the war wounded and mentally scarred.
They now faced the task of clearing away the rubble and giving to the future a meaning.