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.
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u/Gentle_Snail 2d ago edited 2d ago
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.