With such an important range of industries in operation the city of Kassel was targeted for destruction and was bombed around 40 times by the Allies during the course of the war. These unwelcome intrusions severely disrupted Tiger production. The most notable occasion took place in late 1943. During the night of October 22nd/23rd the RAF dropped an amazing 1800 tons of bombs which obviously causing severe damage at the Henschel facilities. In addition to the damage caused to the infrastructure of the factory itself and the local transport system the RAF bombers also killed or injuring a high proportion of its workforce.
Despite these set backs and the huge difficulties which had to be overcome Tiger production continued right up until almost the end of the war. The U.S. Third Army began the battle to capture Kassel on April 1st, 1945. The Henschel works continued working to the bitter end and, as US forces approached, the Henschel factory completed work on the final batch of 13 Tiger II tanks which were handed directly over from the factory to two companies of schwere Panzer-Abteilung 510 and 511. Three days later at 1200 hours on April 4th, 1945 the city was surrendered and Tiger tank production was ended forever.
Tank losses on the eastern front by year:
