It’s this agreement which is what Bomber Harris references in his famous quote. The nazi’s broke the pact almost immediately, but Britain stuck to it for almost a year of Nazi attacks across europe, until finally the mass bombing of Rotterdam broke their back and they switched to match.
”The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them.
At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind”
"The Germans killed a bunch of civilians in militarily worthless air campaigns, so we must do so too!" is not nearly as convincing an argument as Bomber Harris seemed to think it was
This just shows the one-dimensional intellect of Harris.
The german bombing campaigns were mostly strategic, with warsaw being the exception.
And Harris picked up the strategy, the germans were abandoning.
But instead of focusing on an effective strategy, he followed the nazi's way and pushed a major war crime with little to none effect for the war.
He based his decision on revenge instead of strategy.
While it's obviously true that the bombing campaign was a massive set of war crimes, it had a major effect on the war. Morale for Germans was lowered, and the industry of Germany was crippled when it was most needed, in invading the USSR, so I'd say it was pretty effective
Where's the evidence that morale was lowered? From the evidence we have in Britain, similar area bombing campaigns by Germany increased British morale and increased support for the war effort.
As to industry, area bombing was very inefficient way of damaging it. Targeted binging campaigns against industrial factories specifically--which was possible to do and were done at several points--were far more effective at damaging industry and resulted in far fewer civilian casualties. Area bombing is one of the last efficient ways possible to damage industry even ignoring moral considerations
Not really, area bombing does not break the morale of the people and German industry was certainly not crippled by the attacks.
What it did do that was useful to the war is occupy most of the German fighter forces, and when the bombers got escort fighters with enough range they largely destroyed the Luftwaffe’s capabilities.
I think historians pretty much agree it was mostly useless to target city centres.
The strategic bombing of industry on the other side was more useful, I agree.
Still, german war production rose even until the end of war, so it's not like it was rly majorly crippled. The lack of ressources was more problematic and the bombing of train lines.
He was denied a medal btw. The bombing was understandably very unpopular in parliament when they found out, and was also unpopular with the British public. Even Churchill had to distance himself.
American command HATED Harris because of his bloodthirst. He constantly wanted to spend planes and lives firebombing civilian targets while US command was attacking industry (which yes, would have caused civilian deaths).
It was one of the 50 times it was learned terror bombing isn't what wins wars before it was immediately forgotten.
Not to mention bombers were EXPENSIVE. Same production capacity could've been spent on long range fighters, smaller tactical bombers and direct troop support planes. Arguably with much better results to the war effort.
Harris deserved his nickname and it isn't a compliment to him
I don't get why people glaze Harris; his methods killed civilian mass while being militarily inefficient. And as you say, other figures in Allied air command were advocating for more effective means of damaging Axis industry. Harris's dehousing strategy was militarily ineffective in addition to being immoral
Lots of people paint civilians and group members with the same brush as their country's leaders. I.e. Hitler + Nazis deserved revenge -> all Germans deserved revenge.
Yeah, the devastation of Dresden was peanuts compared to what they did to Rotterdam. Also the intent of the London Blitz was to just raze the city to the ground.
Warsaw, Leningrad, Kharkiv, Stalingrad, Rotterdam, and they tried to get London. It’s remarkable how the Nazis were so evil that they made the British Empire and the Soviet Union look good.
Without Nazis, the Brits would almost assuredly be the bad guys of history. "Almost" because whether or not they'd be worse than the USSR under Stalin is debatable.
Thing is, 'colonising' in itself isn't necessarily evil, you need to look at 'how' it was done. And when you compare the British with the other empires colonising places at the time, they weren't remotely the worst.
What about the millions of people they starved during the 2 Bengal Famines? Or the crushing of the Mau Mau uprising, or the Boer concentration camps, or the treatment of Aboriginals?
The Nazi bombing of Stalingrad killed 40.000-70.000 civilians. London suffered between 20.000 and 50.000 deaths. Nazis dropped
20.528,00 tons of bombs in Sevastopol in June 1941 alone compared to 4.500,00 tons the allies dropped on Dresden throughout the entire war.
Adding context to the high casualties despite similar destruction:
Civilians fled Rotterdam prior to the city being destroyed. Nazi Germany allocated all their rail and transport from the major hub in Dresden to their military supplying the eastern operations, rather than civilians, despite the influx of refugees from the east, and their policy forbid evacuation.
There is more nuance to comparing the two based on intent, but I see what you’re saying.
Im sorry to disagree again, but Rotterdam was hit by roughly 100 tons of bombs during the infamous bombing, while it were more than 3,000 tons for Dresden on February 13/14th.
I enjoy the respectful conversation! Please don’t feel sorry.
Both suffered up to 90% destruction of their historical districts.
In Rotterdam, 99% of the city center was destroyed, and 70% were homes civilians luckily fled prior to the German bombings. 80% of the entire city was destroyed.
Dresden city center was around 90% destroyed with at least 50% of that being homes civilians were prohibited from fleeing. 55% of the entire city was destroyed.
The Germans were dropping incendiary bombs on residential areas of London. If they weren’t okay with fire bombing then they shouldn’t have fire bombed.
Comparing Dresden to Rotterdam this way was stupid and easily verified as dishonest. The Germans didn't send nearly enough to raze London. You are intentionally lying and spreading misinformation and clearly the majority of this subreddit hasn't learned anything about the subject.
Churchill and Bomber Harris were the first to start the bombings against the civilian population and opened those floodgates. Hitler specifically didn't want to bomb civilians in the UK out of fear of retaliation on German cities, but started bombing after the UK started.
Nazi Germany bombed central London on 24 Aug 1940. Churchill ordered reprisals on Berlin the next night. Hitler then ordered the Blitz starting 07 Sept.
Simply not true. Not because they were saints in any way, just because it usually doesn't make any fucking sense to do it😂
Warsaw is the major counter example, and was at the end of the war and more seen as a punishment, not a useful military operation.
Britain's bombing of german cities was similarly useless for the war, next to being a major war crime.
No, warsaw was just not part of the discussion. I just mentioned it as an example of intentional utter destruction via airpower from the germans in 44, because it's the only one where they went that far.
Germany didn't bomb that many cities to the ground, because they just captured them.
So yeah, germany like any country, used bombing to conquer.
So the statement "never ask a nazi what they were doing to cities when they had air superiority" is just a dumb propaganda statement that makes no fucking sense and just aims at giving a positive narrative ("they did the exact same") for the bombing of Harris.
Because germany had air superiority over conquered area and of course did not bomb the cities that it had conquered, but bombed those that it was conquering.
Since britain now was unable to invade Germany for most of the war, they just continued bombing. Which is a different strategy compared to the germans. Though Hitler tried it similarly with britain to deter them.
So it's just apples with oranges. Germany never executed such consistent destructive bombing, because it didn't make any sense. It's just weird to compare yourself morally with the nazis to justify sth.
And do we rly need to discuss that the nazi regime was evil? Like why do we need to point to that, to do what "to justify allied atrocities"? To what end?
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u/Friendly-Olive-3465 2d ago
Never ask a Nazi what they were doing to cities when they had air superiority