| Original caption: “The German ultimatum ordering the Dutch commander of Rotterdam to cease fire was delivered to him at 1030 Hours on May 14, 1940. At 1322 Hours, German bombers set the whole inner city of Rotterdam ablaze, killing 30,000 of its inhabitants.” LIFE Magazine caption, December 1, 1941: “The Tidy Dutch Clean Up The Mess of Rotterdam. The model of a perfect job of bombing an undefended city was Rotterdam. For two and a half hours on May 14, 1940, the German Luftwaffe systematically demolished an area of 1½ square miles in the heart of the city. Hardly a building was touched on either side but within the area scarcely a wall was left standing. Since then the tidy Dutch have labored mightily to clean up the mess. Result is shown above. The church, the one building not flattened by the bombers, is the three-hundred-year-old Groote Kerk [Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk; Great, or Saint Lawrence Church)], which used to stand among quaint old streets almost unchanged since the seventeenth Century. The picture was taken from the once-humming shopping street of the Coolsingel. On the near side of the four-story shell at right, beside the railway trestle, was the Groote Markt, and the birthplace of the great Dutch philosopher Erasmus. His statue has disappeared. The thin trickle of pedestrians is passing along what was once the busiest shopping street in Rotterdam, the Hoogstraat. Off to the right stood the Rotterdam Exchange and Chamber of Commerce. Just beyond the church stood the Old Town Hall and, to the left, the great library. The famous old Oostplein windmill in the right background is at the end of the Goudsche Singel, the important market street. In the left distance flows the River Rotte, whose damming gave Rotterdam its made Rotterdam a great city, home of 600,000 Dutchmen. Of these about 32,000 were blown to bits on burned alive on May 14, 1940. Rotterdam had already surrendered when it was bombed. The pre-arranged signal of surrender, a red flare, was ignored by the German bombers, which returned again and again. The German Air Force needed Rotterdam as a test case and an example to the other cities of Europe.” Rotterdam was subjected to heavy aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe during the German invasion of the Netherlands. The objective was to support the German troops fighting in the city, break Dutch resistance and force the Dutch army to surrender. Bombing began at the outset of hostilities on May 10, 1940, and culminated with the destruction of the entire historic city centre on May 14 an event sometimes referred to as the Rotterdam Blitz. According to an official list published in 2022, at least 1,150 people were killed (not 30,000 as reported in 1940-41), with 711 deaths in the May 14 bombing alone, and 85,000 more were left homeless. The psychological and the physical success of the raid, from the German perspective, led the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL) to threaten to destroy the city of Utrecht if the Dutch command did not surrender. The Dutch surrendered in the late afternoon of May 14 and signed the capitulation early the next morning. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0376.jpg |
| Image Size | 745.09 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 3000 x 2269 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | January 1, 1941 |
| Location | |
| City | Rotterdam |
| State or Province | South Holland |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-208-PR-10L-3 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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