Luftwaffe pilot apologises to Bath for Second World War bombing

BATH A Second World War Luftwaffe pilot who last saw the city of Bath from the cockpit of a Dornier bomber is to return for the first time in 66 years next month to apologise.

Willi Schludecker, now 87, took part in three raids on the city that killed 400 and destroyed scores of Georgian buildings in April 1942.

Mr Schludecker, who is in failing health, said his dying wish was to make amends. He will visit the annual remembrance service for victims of the Bath Blitz next month and issue a public apology through an interpreter. Mr Schludecker, a widower from Cologne who apologised to the people of York last year, said: “The war was madness. I realise now what I did and will come back to say sorry. I was afraid the British would be very angry but I find that now they are very gentle.”

Chris Kilminster, an organiser of the annual memorial service, who lost several relatives in the raid, said it had not been an easy decision to allow Mr Schludecker to participate, “but it is the man’s dying wish”.