On April 18, 1945, British bombers leveled the German island, which the Nazis had turned into a naval fort in the North Sea. Bombers on April 18 and 19, 1945. The mission of the Royal Air Force, to the expiration of World War II, was the destruction of the Naval Military Facilities built there by the Nazis of Adolf Hitler by turning the small island into a fortress specially designed for submarine. Within 100 minutes about 7,000 bombs fell on the island. About 2,000 inhabitants rushed to the shelters to escape. At the end of the extensive British bombings at the end of April 1945, almost all the houses were destroyed, while the number of victims and injuries were significant.

It should be noted that due to the island’s militarily valuable geographical location, fortification works had been carried out on the island of just 4 square kilometers already in World War I.

The greatest conventional explosion in history

“It was a turning point for the island,” says Simone Arnold, director of the Helgolad Museum. When the inhabitants came out of the shelter, they saw images of destruction. Shortly afterwards they had to leave their homeland. In the following years the British used the island as a place for military exercises. On April 18, 1947, they even blasted what was left of the military facilities, shelters and the Nazi military port, with explosives of 7,000 tonnes. Experts claim to have been the largest nuclear explosion in history. The explosion, which was felt even in continental Germany, about 70 kilometers, with smoke reaching about 9 kilometers, leveled most of the facilities, but failed to completely destroy the island, as many expected after an explosion.

500,000 tourists a year

The inhabitants of the crowded island, who in recent centuries passed from the Danes to the British and ultimately to the Germans in 1890, returned home in 1952, seven years after the end of the war, when the British returned to the Hellenic Republic of Germany.

80 years after the bombing nothing is reminiscent of the island’s military past. Today, the 1,200 HELGOLAND is a popular tourist destination, especially during the summer months, with impressive flora and fauna. Every year almost 500,000 tourists visit the island.