h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I remember visiting Berlin, and discovering that while many of the city's historic churches were destroyed by Allied bombing, the bells from those churches remained safe because they were taken down in 1939 with the intention of re-using the bronze for war weapons (in the event the bells just got put into safe storage and where a church was still intact in 1945, they were re-united). There ism, in fact, a redundant church in Berlin where the surviving bells, the noes without a churcgh to be returned to, are permanent museum exhibits.

Was this the same elsewhere in Germany or was this just a farsighted Berlin thing?

No, it was like this throughout the 'Reich', which is what is implied when I said:
>>As early as 1940, all bronze bells in the Reich were confiscated to secure a long-term reserve of raw materials<<
And Frankfurt was lucky, as the bells were neither melted down, nor destroyed by bombs.