Carpet Bombing

Discussion in 'NW Europe' started by strangelove, Aug 22, 2004.

  1. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    Originally posted by sapper@Jan 30 2005, 01:20 PM
    Holocaust Sites:
    Austria
    Mauthausen
    Hartheim Castle
    Germany
    Bergen-Belsen
    Buchenwald
    Dachau
    Gardelegen
    Ohrdruf
    Sachsenhausen
    Not to mention one we learned about while trying to get to Arnhem ln the Market Garden operation. Breendonk, in Holland.

    [post=31038]Quoted post[/post]

    Sorry, none of these were the Holocaust extermination camps, which were Chelmno, Belzec, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor, Majdanek (all in Poland) and some say Maly Trostenets in Belorus. Other killings were carried out by the Einsazgruppen and many thousands died in forced labour or in the Ghettos.

    The camps you list were indeed concentration camps, where death was common, but they were not used for the extermination of Europe's Jews.

    It is true that many thousands of Jews were in Bergen-Belsen at the time it was liberated and some of the other camps. "Evacuation" to the east was no longer possible as the Red Army advanced and also most of the surviving Jews in the east were sent back to Germany, the so called death marches, and incarcerated in the camps. Until the spring of 1945, when the camp administration had begun to break down, Bergen-Belsen was as well run as any of the camps and, I believe, was used to house "privileged" prisoners who the Nazis wanted to keep alive.

    Of course ordinary Germans were aware of the Nazi state's repressive apparatus, but I think that there was no general knowledge that millions of Jews had been murdered.
     
  2. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    removed
     
  3. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    Sorry, but Bergen-Belsen was well run until almost the end. I know how bad it was at the end when the British troops arrived. The British buried 23,000 bodies on the site and many more people died later because they had been so weakened by starvation and disease, notably typhus. But all this happened right towards the end.

    This page at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre gives a brief history:
    http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/text/x03/xm0333.html

    And the other locations you mentioned certainly had many executions and crematoria to dispose of the bodies. Of course there were some Jews there. He is dead now, but I used to know a Jew who survived Buchenwald. However, the mass murder of the Jews really did take place in Poland and countries of the former Soviet Union and not in Germany itself.

    However, we are getting off topic. I am quite happy to discuss this on another thread, or over on the Holocaust forum though.

    My original point, which I will end on is that I see no equivalence between the Holocaust and allied bombing policy, because I think that allied bombing policy was justified in its own right.
     
  4. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Angie,

    Cannot accept your appraisal of Bergen Belsen as being "well run".

    Its initial record as a Russian POW camp was appalling from any viewpoint. Russians died like flies on the site from willful neglect.

    From 1943 when it became a concentration camp, Jews, following an Himmler idea, were allowed passage to Palestine and Switzerland in exchange for German nationals.Himmler also saw foreign currency as part of the bargain.The numbers exchanged were very small compared to the total incarcerated there.

    From March 1944 it was supposed to be a recovery camp where the sick of other concentration camps were supposed to recover.They were sent to Belsen but there is no record of anyone receiving medical treatment.No organisation, just willful neglect and conditions became out of control when late on, 60.000 Jews were brought in from Auschwitz to be out of the reach of liberation.More flooded into the camp from the forced marches westwards which became the norm as the net closed on Germany.

    The only horror Belsen inmates were saved from was that of forced labour for strangely enough,the SS for some unknown reason did not create their usual "businesses" in the vicinity of the site.
     
  5. morse1001

    morse1001 Very Senior Member

    Originally posted by DirtyDick@Aug 22 2004, 11:33 AM
    I have read that it was as much used to attempt to break the resolve of the German people as much as destroy their factories...[post=27564]Quoted post[/post]
    In his “Despatch on War Operations 23rd February 1942 to 8Th May 1945” Sir Arthur Harris points out:-

    “3. The main task, therefore, laid upon the Command by the Air Ministry directif letter numbered S.46368/D.C.A.S., of 14th February, 1942, was "to focus attacks on the morale of the enemy civil population, and, in particular, of the industrial workers."* This was to be achieved by destroying, mainly by incendiary attacks, first, four large cities in the Ruhr area and, then, as opportunity offered, fourteen other industrial cities in Northern, Central and Southern Germany. The aim of attacks on town areas had already been denned in an Air Staff paper (dated 23rd September, 1941) as follows •:—

    " The ultimate aim of the attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this we must achieve two things ; first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction, and (ii) the fear of death."


    4. My primary authorised task was therefore clear beyond doubt : to inflict the most severe material damage on German industrial cities. This, when considered in relation to the force then available, was indeed a formidable task. Nevertheless, it was possible, but only if the force could be expanded and re-equipped as planned, and if its whole weight could be devoted to the main task with the very minimum of diversions…”
     
  6. morse1001

    morse1001 Very Senior Member

    However, we are getting off topic. I am quite happy to discuss this on another thread, or over on the Holocaust forum though.



    I think that it should be discussed on the Holocaust Site, leaving the original topic to be discussed.
     
  7. morse1001

    morse1001 Very Senior Member

    If your country wages " total war " then do not complain if you recieve it in kind.

    germany did not declare "Total War" until 1943, Britian on the other declared it from day 1.
     
  8. morse1001

    morse1001 Very Senior Member

    The bombing offensive was, in the long run, an expensive failure, because the wrong targets were selected. The main target to hit should have been oil and transportation, not factories and cities.


    prior to 1941 the british bombing policy was to attack both military and transport targets. However. The RAF had neither the aircraft nor experienced personnel nor bombs in the early day to carryout an effective operation against the oil plant which lay deep inside Germany.
     
  9. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    removed.
     
  10. morse1001

    morse1001 Very Senior Member

    but that's not a reason for killing over 200 000 civilians in dresden, or is it maybe?


    here is a good explanation
    Thunderclap, a plan originally put forward in August 1944 to deliver a catastrophic blow against either Berlin or some other major city hitherto largely undamaged. The Joint Intelligence Committee took up the theme on the 25th, stressing the value to the Russian offensive of the great confusion that would result from the sustained bombing of Berlin. Bottomley immediately discussed the JICs ideas with Harris, who suggested that not only Berlin but also Chemnitz, Leipzig and Dresden should be attacked; all would be housing evacuees from the East and were focal points in German communications behind the Eastern Front.25 There was nothing surprising about this proposal. These three cities, with others in eastern Germany, had long been on the list agreed with the Air Ministry for area attack when circumstances were right and Harris was merely drawing attention to their significance in this particular situation. The real impetus for such operations was about to come from elsewhere.

    The story of the Prime Minister's critical intervention has been often told. On the 25th he asked Sinclair about plans for basting the Germans in their retreat from Breslau, on the 26th he received a guarded response, and immediately, in a sharp minute to Sinclair, he made himself totally clear: 'I did not ask you about plans for harrying the German retreat from Breslau. On the contrary I asked whether Berlin, and no doubt other large cities in East Germany, should not now be considered especially attractive targets. Pray report to me tomorrow what is going to be done.'

    There could be no further hesitation in the Air Ministry, even though there had been as yet no time for the essential consultation with the USAAF — whose participation would be essential — or with Tedder at SHAEF. Knowing that Churchill was preparing to depart for the Allied conference at Yalta, accompanied by Portal among others, Bottomley went ahead and gave Harris his orders. In essence, he wrote on the 27th, Bomber Command was to attack Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz and any other cities where a severe blitz would not only cause confusion in the evacuation from the East but also hamper the movement of troops from the West. The particular object was to exploit 'the confused conditions likely to exist in these cities during the successful Russian advance.' On 2 February Bufton, as Chairman of the Combined Strategic Targets Committee, said he felt the attack on these cities had been ordered, not merely because of their communications value or for any other specific object, but because any additional chaos which could be caused at this juncture would make the German administrative and military problems, already immense, still more difficult.

    At High Wycombe, surprising though it may seem, doubts were beginning to surface. David Irving, in his comprehensive study of the whole subject of Dresden, discussed this aspect at length with many of the senior officers involved, including Harris, and concludes that there were widespread
    misgivings. For one thing the Intelligence Staff had far less information about the city than for most other potential targets, which made them wonder how strong was the case for the attack. For another Dresden was a particularly long way to go, the winter weather could make the operation very hazardous, little was known about the enemy defences, and much could go wrong; indeed, the target was not all that far from the old Czechoslovak frontier and the Soviet front line. As Harris, Saundby and their colleagues studied the operation the less they liked the look of it and, Saundby later recalled, they decided to question whether Dresden was intended to be bombed. It took some time for their doubts to be resolved. Since the operation would be a joint one with the USAAF General Spaatz had to be involved; Eisenhower's headquarters had a major interest; and since Churchill, Portal and many others were at Yalta conferring with the Russians the subject was bound to feature in their discussions. Here General Antonov, the Red Army Deputy Chief of Staff, speaking on 4 February, emphasised the need for Allied air operations to prevent the Germans moving troops from other theatres to the Eastern Front. While the formal records indicate that the only individual targets he specified were Berlin and Leipzig the British Chiefs of Staffs own interpreter is certain that Dresden was also requested, not just by Antonov but also — strongly — by Stalin himself. In any case, when the Russians were subsequently told of the many operations being planned in their support, including attacks on Berlin, , Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, they raised no objections.
    So by 8 February all the key figures were in the picture and the Combined Strategic Targets Committee issued a new directive listing ten towns selected because of their importance for the movement of refugees from the East and for military transportation to the Eastern front. While Berlin, already attacked by the Americans on the 3rd, was still first priority, Dresden came second and Harris and Spaatz were ordered to attack it at the first oppor¬tunity. Yet even now, Irving tells us, Harris told Saundby to double-check Dresden's inclusion and not until the 13th, when the right weather forecast at last arrived, did Harris seek formal agreement to the operation from SHAEF and order the attack. 'With a heavy heart,' said Saundby later, 'I was forced to lay the massive air raid on'; and some of the Group Commanders recalled 'the distinctly reserved note in Harris's voice when he confirmed the order, gaining the impression that he was dissatisfied with the whole affair.' When referring to the decision in informal conversation in later years, Harris used to say that the order had come from SHAEF.30 In the sense that SHAEF had to give final clearance for all Harris's major operations this was true, but without doubt the real decision was the result of much discussion at the highest levels of command, with Churchill himself the prime mover. Martin Gilbert goes so far as to call the raid a direct result of

    Bomber Harris - His life and times by Henry Probert

    View attachment 451
     
  11. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Originally posted by morse1001@Jan 30 2005, 09:35 PM
    The bombing offensive was, in the long run, an expensive failure, because the wrong targets were selected. The main target to hit should have been oil and transportation, not factories and cities.


    prior to 1941 the british bombing policy was to attack both military and transport targets. However. The RAF had neither the aircraft nor experienced personnel nor bombs in the early day to carryout an effective operation against the oil plant which lay deep inside Germany.
    [post=31060]Quoted post[/post]

    German oil plants,both refineries and synthetic plants were identified early in the war and certainly by 1941 by the Ministry of Economic Warfare.They were recognised as prime economic targets and the outcome of this policy was underlined by early winter 1944. These oil targets were given their fair share of priority in selecting targets intially by the RAF and later by the USAAF.German aviation fuel output in 1939 proved to be inadequate and over the previous two years this had been anticipated.Consequently during this period a reserve was built up from imports of 355.000 tons and designated "Supreme Command of the Armed Forces Reserve".However this reserve amounted to about 3 months supply under war conditions which fortunately the lightening campaigns of 1940 did not reduce.However the start of the Meditterranean and Eastern Front operations had a never ending demand on aviation fuel and althought there was a considerable improved output from synthetic plants in the winter of 1943/44 the effect of Allied bombing saw aviation stocks which peaked at 574.000 tons in April 1944 to deteriorate to a postion in November 1944 such that the shortage of aviation in all operational fronts caused flying units to be grounded for lack of fuel.Equally disasterous for the Luftwaffe was the affect on flying training.Pilot training was retarded and front line replacement quotas could not be made.The fighting strength of the Luftwaffe went from bad to worse and it could not be relied on to protect Germany from the continous air bombardment.

    A further dimension in the elimination of the Luftwaffe as a fighting air arm was caused by the loss of the Rumanian oil fields to the Russians by August 1944.The USSAF had bombed Ploesti initially in August 1943 without much success and it was later prior to the Russians overrunning the oilfields that the USSAF with long range fighter escorts delivered a number of successful raids.The loss of the Rumanian oilfields led to an increased assault on German synthetic oil plants by the USSAF 15th Air Force which had been operating against the Rumanian plants and by the middle of September, German synthetic plant output was at a standstill.

    Consequently when thrust towards Antwerp commenced in December 1944, (The Battle of the Bulge) the Luftwaffe could only be allocated 25% of its anticipated aviation fuel consumption.The German ground forces were expected to achieve
    their objectives utilising captured fuel dumps.
     
  12. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    removed
     
  13. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    removed
     
  14. Friedrich H

    Friedrich H Senior Member

    but that's not a reason for killing over 200 000 civilians in dresden, or is it maybe?

    May I ask where did you get this number? The source post below?

    Dresden - 150 000
    Tokyo - 84 000
    Hiroshima - 72 000*
    Nagasaki - 24 000*

    In find these ciphers terrible unaccurate, since most sources I've read state Tokio as the bloodiest bombing of the war.

    there was no military objects, weapons and ammo depots. they didn't have a single aa-gun!

    In WWII cities were considered legitimate military targets. And it was the Germans and the Japanese who got the idea and the first ones to implement it (Nan-Jing, Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London).

    i don't think so, this is much worse then Wielun city, war against humanity form both sides...

    No, no, no.

    One side was made out of democracies who fought for their way of life and for giving back sovereignity to invaded nations.

    The other side was a totalitarian genocidal régime which invaded sovereign nations and started breaking all international laws.

    There's NO comparisson.

    germany did not declare "Total War" until 1943, Britian on the other declared it from day 1.

    When the very existance of your country is treathened, I think that's pretty much bloody total war, don't you think?

    Sapper:

    Amen to all of what you've said.

    About DRESDEN:

    FDR and Churchill agreed at Yalta to support the Red Army's offensives in the eastern front. One of the main targets south of Berlin was the rail-junction and very important city of Dresden, which had not been touched during the war, and which had to be 'prepared' before the T-34s started going in. At a time when killing enemy civilians was morally correct, Dresden was a legitimate MILITARY target.

    The Germans supported Hitler, the Germans provoked WWII, the Germans comitted unknown attrocities in the occupied territory and organised the greatest genocide ever and they treathened the very existance and esence of Western civilisation. They had to be stooped BY ALL MEANS. One of those means, whether we like it or not, was strategic bombing and 'Bomber' Harris should be regarded as a hero of the Western democracies.

    The destruction of German cities made the Germans lose the little confidence they had in the corrupt Nazi Party and it destroyed their faith in their Führer, it affected their war effort and it provided a tremendous moral buster to the peoples of the Allied nations, who had endured horrible things under German attacks.

    The Germans invaded Poland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, France, Norway, Denmark, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy, Hungary, Romania and the Soviet Union. Which of these nations attacked the Germans and provoked them?

    The Germans organised the meticulous industrialised extermination of 7 million Jews and 1 million other 'a-socials' and 'racially inferior' people, they killed over 20 million Soviet civilians in the eastern front, plus hundreds of thousands of civilians of other nations. 50 millions in total, as Sapper said.

    100.000 people killed in a legitimate bombardment may even be too little a price for that… :rolleyes:
     
  15. sappernz

    sappernz Member

    Number of Germans killed in Dresden who cares. Number of Germans killed in Hamburg who cares. Number of Nips killed in Hiroshima who cares. Number of Nips killed in Nagasaki who cares.
    Who Won. I BLOODY CARE.
     
  16. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    Originally posted by sappernz@Feb 2 2005, 03:18 AM
    Number of Germans killed in Dresden who cares. [post=31145]Quoted post[/post]

    I care as a matter of historical accuracy.

    When people quote figures of 150,000+ or 200,000+, then the likelihood is that they got these figures from highly dubious and unreliable sources, either out of ignorance (I am sure you know the phenomenon of reading one book or article on a subject and accepting what it says 100%) or from political motives.

    If we are serious about history, then we have to try for accuracy.
     
  17. Kiwiwriter

    Kiwiwriter Very Senior Member

    Originally posted by angie999+Feb 2 2005, 06:52 AM-->(angie999 @ Feb 2 2005, 06:52 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-sappernz@Feb 2 2005, 03:18 AM
    Number of Germans killed in Dresden who cares. [post=31145]Quoted post[/post]

    I care as a matter of historical accuracy.

    When people quote figures of 150,000+ or 200,000+, then the likelihood is that they got these figures from highly dubious and unreliable sources, either out of ignorance (I am sure you know the phenomenon of reading one book or article on a subject and accepting what it says 100%) or from political motives.

    If we are serious about history, then we have to try for accuracy.
    [post=31150]Quoted post[/post]
    [/b]It's not only a matter of historical accuracy, it's also a matter of preserving truth. Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis and their sympathizers point to the Dresden bombing to give the Allies moral equivalency (at best) with the Nazis or to make the Allies into far worse murderers than the Nazis (more often). This kind of moral relativism demeans the Allied cause, democracy in general, and its values. In turn, it empowers Nazism and its vicious philosophies and actions. If you remove the Holocaust and its associated events from World War II and history, Nazi Germany is just another tough, crude, occasionally harsh dictatorship...but not the appalling act of inhumanity that it was. Neo-Nazis and deniers do that removal, and turn Nazism from being an unparalleled horror into a heroic nation defending the white Aryans from the beastly Communists, Jews, and Satan. Nazism becomes attractive to its new generations of adherents, who come from poverty-stricken and economically-deprived backgrounds (often from extremely dysfunctional families, and cultures of drug and physical abuse), and minimal education. These are people whose best job will be to sweep floors or clean toilets at Burger King. Poorly educated and frustrated, they are ripe meat for any demagogue who can convince them that the reason they don't live like kings ("proper Aryans") is because of the venomous Jewish conspiracy. That's how Hitler did it in 1923. We don't want David Duke to do it in 2023.
     
  18. morse1001

    morse1001 Very Senior Member

    Originally posted by Kiwiwriter+Feb 2 2005, 03:09 PM-->(Kiwiwriter @ Feb 2 2005, 03:09 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'>Originally posted by angie999@Feb 2 2005, 06:52 AM
    <!--QuoteBegin-sappernz@Feb 2 2005, 03:18 AM
    Number of Germans killed in Dresden who cares. [post=31145]Quoted post[/post]

    I care as a matter of historical accuracy.

    When people quote figures of 150,000+ or 200,000+, then the likelihood is that they got these figures from highly dubious and unreliable sources, either out of ignorance (I am sure you know the phenomenon of reading one book or article on a subject and accepting what it says 100%) or from political motives.

    If we are serious about history, then we have to try for accuracy.
    [post=31150]Quoted post[/post]
    It's not only a matter of historical accuracy, it's also a matter of preserving truth. Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis and their sympathizers point to the Dresden bombing to give the Allies moral equivalency (at best) with the Nazis or to make the Allies into far worse murderers than the Nazis (more often). This kind of moral relativism demeans the Allied cause, democracy in general, and its values. In turn, it empowers Nazism and its vicious philosophies and actions. If you remove the Holocaust and its associated events from World War II and history, Nazi Germany is just another tough, crude, occasionally harsh dictatorship...but not the appalling act of inhumanity that it was. Neo-Nazis and deniers do that removal, and turn Nazism from being an unparalleled horror into a heroic nation defending the white Aryans from the beastly Communists, Jews, and Satan. Nazism becomes attractive to its new generations of adherents, who come from poverty-stricken and economically-deprived backgrounds (often from extremely dysfunctional families, and cultures of drug and physical abuse), and minimal education. These are people whose best job will be to sweep floors or clean toilets at Burger King. Poorly educated and frustrated, they are ripe meat for any demagogue who can convince them that the reason they don't live like kings ("proper Aryans") is because of the venomous Jewish conspiracy. That's how Hitler did it in 1923. We don't want David Duke to do it in 2023.
    [post=31161]Quoted post[/post]
    [/b]
    Hear! Hear! well said.

    Because, “history is the conscience of the Nation” then it is incumbent upon us to get not only accurate figures but a truthful account of what happened as a means of ensuring a true history. So that it can be passed down to the next generations. By doing so, we might be able to avoid a repeat of what happened in Germany.

    Sadly, and I make no apology for what I am about to say, in Britain there is evidence of similar attitudes of discrimination against “foreigners” be they Jewish or Muslim becoming widespread.
     
  19. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    removed
     
  20. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    Writing as a moderator, can I suggest folks that this would be a good point to pull this discussion back on topic again.
     

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