One German Town Mourns 13 Dead

While all of Germany was stunned by the deaths of 96 countrymen in the crash of an Air France Concorde outside Paris Tuesday, the town of Munchengladbach lost more than most.

CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey reports 13 of the victims—six couples and a child—hailed from the bleak industrial town.

In this town of 270,000 in Germany's industrial heartland, residents knew who among their town's leading lights had booked the pricey flight and cruise.

"These people are the upper-class people of Moenchengladbach," said Michael Muehlenbroich, a police spokesman in the town. "They're known to everybody in town."

The manager of the travel agency that booked the trip said the couples were longtime friends and customers who booked annual trips together, usually cruises in warmer climates.

"What can one feel when you get such a report about such longtime customers?" said Christian Stattrop, sitting in the Clemens Travel Agency office in the shadow of city's cathedral, where a memorial service is planned to take place later in the week."It's just a kind of feeling of emptiness, that's all we have at the moment."

For this trip, the Moenchengladbach group split up. Thirteen people took the Concorde charter to New York—at roughly a $1,500 surcharge—where they were to board the luxury liner MS Deutschland to start a 16-day cruise.

Three other couples and the travel agent booked cheaper regular flights, not learning until they reached New York about the fate of the rest of their group.

Among the victims identified by the newspaper were Kurt Kahle, 51, the head of a private business school, his 37-year-old wife and their 8-year-old child; Harald Ruch, 45, owner of a building cleaning company and security service, and his 46-year-old wife; and Werner Tellmann, 69, a furniture store owner, and his wife, Margarete, 66.

Outside the store, a single bunch of flowers was left in their memory.

"I myself bought furniture from him," Muehlenbroich said.

"At the start of a dream vacation, 96 Germans burned to death in Concorde," the B.Z. tabloid headlined its front page. "Germany is in mourning."

Throughout Germany, in communities touched by the tragedy, there were signs of mourning. Flags flew at half-mast in Hamburg, home to seven of the victims. Crisis centers were set up at the Munich and Duesseldorf airports. A memorial service was planned for Thursday in the Baltic port town of Neustadt in Holstein, where the cruise ship company is based.

Protecting the bereaved is a prime consideration. The emotionally-wracked man who set up the tour has issued only the briefest of statements. Crisis centers have been set up to help relatives and to find ways of identifying bodies.

"We have to collect fingerprints," police spokesman Peter Sperz said, "and things like hair that will help with DNA identification."

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and most of his government ministers attended a hastily arranged ecumenical service at the Christus Pavilion on the World's Fair grounds in Hanover, where the Cabinet was holding its last regular meeting before summer break.

"Today Germany is shaken," Schroeder said. "Germany is stunned.".

"We are powerless. All we can do is offer our respects and condolences, to show our sympathy to the families," the chancellor said.

"We think of those who flew off on vacation full of hopes and expectations, and how they were dragged into terror and death," Evangelical Bishop Horst Hirschler said. "How can this happen?"

The Foreign Ministry identified the victims booked for the cruise as 49 men, 47 women and three children. All were from Germany except for two Danes and an Austrian. The list was broken down by states, but a spokeswoman said Wednesday no further identifying information would be released.

Air France said nine crew members and an on board also were killed. The lone American killed in the crash has been identified as 65-year-old Christopher Behrens, a long-time Air France employee who lived in Germany and was taking one last Concorde flight before retiring.

Five people on the ground also were killed, and 12 people were rushed out of Hotelissimo, the hotel that was hit. One was seriously injured, police said early Wednesday.

But the toll on the ground could have been much worse: 45 Polish tourists who were staying t Hotelissimo had left earlier to go sightseeing. They returned after the crash to find an inferno where the hotel once stood.

CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report