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WEATHER

What happened during Germany’s ‘catastrophic winter’ of 78/79?

Weather experts have warned that the coming cold weather in Germany could resemble the 'catastrophic winter of 78/79'. So what exactly happened then?

What happened during Germany's 'catastrophic winter' of 78/79?
Historic photo shows Hohenlockstedt, Scheswig-Holstein in the morning following the first snow fall in 1978. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Signs hanging throughout the harbourside German city of Stralsund try to provide hope for getting through the pandemic.  “We managed the winter of 78/79,” they read amid a list of previous challenges overcome, including the Fall of the Berlin Wall, “Corona? We can also get through that.”

So just what was so bad about this winter at the end of the 70s to merit comparison to big societal shifts?

As any city such as Stralsund, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in northern Germany will recall, the months-long storm saw snow fall so fiercely that it kept people trapped inside of their homes, caused traffic accidents, and even claimed lives. 

Photo: DPA

And it’s the same historical event that meteorologists have been invoking this week, cautioning that the “catastrophic winter of 78/79” could repeat itself in the coming days – although it may not come to that.

However, due to a so-called weak polar vortex, they fear the damages from heavy snow storms about to strike Germany – in some regions up to 50 centimetres high and with temperatures dipping to -7C.

READ ALSO: Weird weather: Temperatures between -7 and up to 20C expected in Germany at weekend

So what happened in the winter of 78/79?

In the days before instant weather alerts on smart phone apps, few people could see it coming: on the morning of December 28th, 1978, the temperature was still a comfortable 10C above zero.

But then, abruptly, everything changed.

Over northern Germany, icy air masses were superimposed on warm, humid Atlantic air – similar to the phenomenon expected to occur this weekend.

READ ALSO: Why Germany is facing extreme winter weather this month

From the afternoon on, temperatures plummeted by up to 30C. Snow began to fall heavily, and quick northern winds led to storms stretching to Berlin. 

At the turn of the year leading into 1979, northern Germany was coated in snow which piled up several metres high. Countless roads were no longer passable and power shortages plagued many areas as falling snow tampered with wires.

But that wasn’t all. The snow and ice storm was joined on the Baltic coast by a severe flood, sweeping through entire neighborhoods in Flensburg, Schleswig and Lübeck, and damaging the port facilities in Sassnitz on the island of Rügen on the Baltic Sea.

Snow completely blocked roads, such as this one in Hohenlockstedt, Schleswig-Holstein, at the end of 1978. Photo: DPA

Matthias Reimer, who lived in the northern city of Lüneburg, recalled his amazement at the layers of snow outside of his home which reached two metres high. 

“I called my boss to tell him that I wouldn't be able to get to work that day,” he said to The Local. “And he told me that I wasn't the only one who wouldn't show up.”

Reimer and his family were trapped inside of their home over the days to come. Having learned to stock up with supplies following another intense snow storm in 1969, they already were prepared with a freezer and “an old wood oven in the cellar so we were able to cook and to heat,” he said.

After three days, the family was freed. “During that time my father tried again and again to break through the snow,” said Reimer.

“He suffered most from the situation. Not because he starved but because he was a smoker and ran out of cigarettes.”

East and West German armies and volunteers came to help

A disaster alarm was sounded in numerous districts and cities; in the northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein, 80 villages were completely cut off from the outside world. 

Helicopters supplied people trapped in their homes from the air, and around 30,000 helpers from various organisations including the German Red Cross and the Bundeswehr. 

In what is now Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the north of the GDR, the National People's Army came to the scene. With the help of tanks, among other things, they worked to make roads accessible again. Helicopters also supplied people trapped in their home from the air. 

The situation was also bad in Berlin. As traffic came to a halt in the streets of the capital, “volunteers shoveled away snow which had piled up on cars,” Rositha Lenz, a lifelong Berliner in her late 70s, told The Local. 

Snow piled up outside of Berlin's Alexanderplatz. Photo: DPA

Yet even the winter of 78/79 paled in comparison to previous winters, she said. Reflecting on her childhood in the post-war years in 1946 and ‘47, she said that it was “extremely cold” with no central heating and thin windows – “not the double layers we have today.”

“People carried coal to have enough heat,” said Lenz, adding that the decades which followed were not much better, with Fensterblumen (frost work) forming on the windows and coating roofs every year. 

She added: “Nowadays we have some really warm weather in the winter.”

Snow in some places until May 1979

For weeks to come, northern Germany was covered in a complete blanket of snow, and roads completely blocked. In Husum, a seaside town in Schleswig-Holstein, snow continued to fall until May 20, 1979.

According to crisis researcher Frank Roselieb, the exceptionally harsh winter cost the lives of 17 people in the-then Federal Republic alone, and several hundred in the GDR, according to recent findings. Exact figures were never fully disclosed.

Nevertheless, the experience of the extreme winter also had a positive side for many people. The common need welded neighbours together, with people helping each other where they could. 

“It was an incredibly friendly togetherness. People talked to each other more again,” said firefighter Johann Müller from the East Frisian town of Norden in an interview with public broadcaster NDR. 

“There was communal shoveling of roads. There was a sense of community that I remember fondly.”

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FLOODS

Four dead as floods sweep southern Germany

Rescuers battled Monday to evacuate people from floods in southern Germany that have claimed four lives, as Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it a "warning" that climate change was getting worse.

Four dead as floods sweep southern Germany

Thousands of people in the regions of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg had to leave their homes since torrential rain on Friday sparked deadly flooding.

More evacuations were called overnight into Monday as the huge volumes of water caused flood defences to fail.

In Bavaria, around 800 people were asked to leave their homes in the area of Ebenhausen-Werk after a dam burst early Monday.

Residents around Manching-Pichl, in the area worst affected by the floods, were told to shelter on the upper floors of their homes.

Speaking on a visit to Reichertshofen, in a flood-hit area north of Munich, Scholz said that such floods were no longer a “one-off”.

“This is an indication that something is up here. We must not neglect the task of stopping man-made climate change,” Scholz told journalists.

The floods were “a warning that we must take with us”, he said.

READ ALSO: ‘No future’: How the climate crisis is changing Alpine ski resorts

‘Never before’

The Bavarian state premier, Markus Söder, who accompanied Scholz on his visit, said there was no “full insurance” against climate change.

“Events are happening here that have never happened before,” Söder said, after a state of emergency was declared by districts across his region of Bavaria.

Around 20,000 people in Bavaria alone had been deployed to tackle the consequences of the flood, he said.

The historic part of Heidelberg is flooded during high water of the Neckar river in Heidelberg, southwestern Germany on June 3, 2024.

The historic part of Heidelberg is flooded during high water of the Neckar river in Heidelberg, southwestern Germany on June 3, 2024. Photo by Daniel ROLAND / AFP

Police in Baden-Württemberg on Monday said a man and a woman were found dead in the basement of their house in Schorndorf following the flood.

The same fate befell a 43-year-old woman in Schrobenhausen, Bavaria, whose body was found by rescuers earlier Monday.

The discoveries took the total killed by the floods to at least four, following the death of a volunteer fireman whose body was found on Sunday.

The 42-year-old volunteer died after his vessel turned over during a flood rescue operation.

Another volunteer, 22, was still missing after his boat also overturned overnight into Sunday.

A search operation to find the missing rescue worker had to be stopped due to the exceptionally high waters and strong currents, local police said.

The German Weather Service on Monday issued new warnings for heavy rain in parts of southern and eastern Germany.

READ ALSO: How floods are wreaking havoc across southern Germany

‘Rail delays’

The widespread flooding and continuous rainfall impacted transport in the region with widespread train cancellations and delays.

Train lines leading from Munich to Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Wuerzburg were unusable, rail operator Deutsche Bahn said.

A landslide near Schwaebisch Gmuend overnight into Sunday caused a high-speed train travelling between Stuttgart and Augsburg to derail, blocking the line. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

READ ALSO Trains cancelled in Germany due to severe flooding 

Despite Scholz’s pledge to combat climate change, a panel of experts separately said Monday that the government’s emissions forecasts through 2030 were unrealistic.

The government had underestimated future emissions in the transport, building and industry sectors, the climate panel said in a report.

Overall, the experts assumed that the government’s emissions-reduction target for 2030 “will not be met”.

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