Operation Gomorrah: Thoughts?

[Tycho]

Conflict:
The devastating 1943 bombing of Hamburg shook the Nazi regime as never before.
RAF Bomber Command all but annihilated the German city of Hamburg at the close of July 1943. In the view of Air Chief Marshal Arthur T. Harris, the attacks on the so-called “second city of the Reich” were “incomparably more terrible” than any Germany had suffered to that point. The name bestowed on this series of raids seemed to fit its wrath-of-God nature. The RAF called it Operation Gomorrah.

The redoubtable “Bomber” Harris was right. His Bomber Command threw 2,355 sorties at Hamburg in three massive nighttime raids on July 24-25, July 28, and July 30. The United States Army Air Forces also flung itself into the attacks; Eighth Air Force, based in Britain, generated 235 daylight sorties in two raids during July 25 and July 26.

The main result was a horrendous July 28 firestorm that killed more than 40,000 persons in and around Hamburg. Most died of asphyxiation while huddling for shelter in their basements, or in the above-ground flames and melting asphalt of the streets.

By contrast, the Luftwaffe’s Nov. 14, 1940 firestorm-bombing of the English city of Coventry killed 538 Britons.

The Hamburg raid was a shock to the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, and his air force chief, Hermann Goering. Former reichsminister Albert Speer wrote years later, “Hamburg had suffered the fate Hitler and Goering conceived for London in 1940.”

The situation looked very different from the Allied side. Harris described the RAF’s own losses (57 aircraft in the three raids) as “minute.” Hamburg’s fate, in British eyes, could only be called just. “What happened at Hamburg was what happened when Bomber Command ‘got everything right,'" wrote historian Martin Middlebrook in his definitive 1980 account of the attacks, The Battle of Hamburg.

Few doubted that Bomber Command had taken the World War II air war to a new level.


Total Air War
It was a level that had been conceived—even expected—a decade earlier. Prosecution of “total war” on cities and civilians as well as armies was part of interwar military thought in both England and Germany. In 1932, British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin famously predicted, “The bomber will always get through. The only defense is offense, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy [does] if you want to save yourself.”

The concept resonated with the Luftwaffe, according to American historian Williamson Murray. One Luftwaffe theoretician argued in May 1933 that “terrorizing of the enemy’s chief cities and industrial regions through bombing would lead that much more quickly to a collapse of morale.”

When war finally came, the Luftwaffe soon executed city-busting raids on England, notably in the blitz against London and the firebombing attack on Coventry. Nearly three years later, it would be the cities of the Third Reich suffering the effects of these tactics.

Despite the drift of strategic talk in the 1930s, neither the Luftwaffe nor the RAF built top-class strategic bomber fleets before the war. At Bomber Command, the first years of the air war featured only desultory bombing activity. Initial results were poor and losses high.

Then, in September 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill approved a plan to build 4,000 bombers, devoting one-third of the British war production capacity to the effort.

Churchill believed a bomber offensive against Germany was a way of “breaking her war will,” and he ranked the importance of the effort “second only to the largest military operations which can be conducted on the Continent.”

Churchill put Harris in charge of Bomber Command in early 1942. When it came to faith in the power of the bomber, there was no bigger believer than Harris. (See “Bomber Harris,” January 2005, p. 68.) He took over a command that was expending more than a quarter of its effort against naval targets, a policy he ridiculed as “frightening cod.” The campaign against German industrial targets got about the same level of effort.

Harris redirected the command’s focus, turning it to the generation of mass city bombing.

The choice of tactics came from experience, not theory. Harris in 1942 had tried low-level daylight bombing with his new Lancaster bombers. The results had been disastrous, with the RAF losing many bombers for little gain. From a tactical perspective, Harris thought, the British experience showed that the only way to achieve results was to fly at night and to carpet-bomb entire city areas.


“Hit the Workers”
Harris pursued cities for tactical reasons, but he had a clear operational premise, too. “De-housing” the German workers—and killing many of them along the way—could be as effective as blowing up factories, he concluded. Churchill’s science advisor, Lord Cherwell, calculated that 22 million Germans lived in the Reich’s 58 largest cities and that turning them out of their homes would weaken German morale.

“If you can’t hit the works, hit the workers,” Harris said in a famous, and infamous, formulation.

Ultimately, Bomber Command would do both. By the summer of 1943, Harris had built and trained a force geared for taking part in 1,000-aircraft night attacks on German cities. The Americans were ready for mass raids, too. However, the Allies faced a major problem: The air war in mid-1943 had not yet turned decisively in favor of the Allies, and, until it did, the whole plan for the Normandy invasion was at risk.

The most important task was gaining air superiority. Here the Allies were in a tough contest. The more they bombed Germany, the more fighters the Nazis pulled from the Mediterranean and other theaters to stiffen defenses. The Great Depression of the 1930s had left Germany with tremendous industrial overcapacity; war leaders quickly exploited this, and German fighter production actually grew in 1943.

The air war was at a crossroads. London and Washington, being slow in building their strength, had to use their bombers to cripple German industrial production before it was too late. The Americans geared up for August attacks on Schweinfurt and Regensburg. Harris picked Hamburg.

Many factors made Hamburg an ideal target. It was an industrial city, home to Blohm & Voss shipyards and hundreds of other, small manufacturers grouped around the city center. In addition, flying to Hamburg would be easier than flying to most other German cities. To reach Hamburg, the bomber stream could fly eastward over the North Sea, slip past anti-aircraft guns and night fighters in occupied Holland, and reach Hamburg without having to fly over more than a sliver of German land.

RAF Bomber Command crews had bombed Hamburg several times before, but this mission was different. Bomber Command had top-notch Lancaster bombers, trained crews, technical advantages, and a daylight partner in Eighth Air Force. Now, as Harris said, “for the first time, the command found itself in a position, under suitable conditions, to inflict severe material damage on almost any industrial center in Germany.”

Harris also had an ace in his sleeve. It was a supersecret radar electronic countermeasure, code-named Window. For more than a year, the RAF had been holding back on the use of Window, but Bomber Command pulled it out for the first Hamburg raid on the night of July 24-25, 1943.

Window was a huge advantage. One of the biggest problems confronting Bomber Command was the deadly combination of Luftwaffe night fighters and the radar warning system that controlled them. Grid boxes covered occupied Europe and each contained a night fighter—typically a Bf-109 or Bf-110—equipped with short-range cockpit radar. Prong antennae stuck out from the noses of the night fighters and gave their radars a range of about four miles in a 70 degree cone. The best, such as the He-219, could bag Lancasters seemingly at will and even take down the 400 mph Mosquito light bombers.

Long-range Freya radars picked up bombers at their assembly points about 80 miles from the British coast. From early 1942, the Luftwaffe also had a dense line of Wurzburg radars that gave ground controllers accurate vectors to the bombers. The Wurzburgs also assisted flak gun-laying.


Fool the Wurzburgs
Window’s job was to fool the Wurzburgs. Window was tested and ready by early 1942, but then a strange self-deterrence took over and the RAF declined to use it.

Harris said the overriding reason the system did not go into use was the government’s “fear of retaliation in kind at a time when our own radar defenses could have been obliterated by the enemy use of Window.” However, Harris scoffed at this concern. It was folly, he thought, to assume the Germans didn’t know about electronic countermeasures.

“The biggest mistake anybody can make, militarily,” Harris said, “is to credit themselves with being so damn clever that, between two evenly balanced industrial nations, you dare not disclose a particular weapon or device to the enemy for fear of giving him something he doesn’t already have.”

As the Hamburg raids approached, “the power of the enemy defenses required drastic counteraction,” said Harris.

“The morning of July 24, 1943 began as a summer day should, warm and bright,” wrote RAF Flight Lt. A.J.F. Davidson, who was already a veteran of 39 bomber missions over Europe. Soon word came that “ops” were on for the night and “my gut began its familiar crawl.”

For the 791 bomber crews who took off for Hamburg that night, Window was a new device. More than a few of them had doubts about whether it would work over heavily defended Hamburg.

Certainly the device didn’t look like much. Thin aluminum strips, blackened on one side, were tied in bundles. A crew member crouched over a flare chute deep in the fuselage and hand-dispensed one bundle per minute until his bomber was out of Wurzburg range.

With more than an hour’s warning from the Freya radars, Hamburg’s intricate defenses swung into action. Civilians took to shelters. Searchlights swept the skies and flak batteries slewed to engage the enemy aircraft.

Then the Window clouds flooded the Wurzburg radar screens with false returns. Ground control operators lost contacts. This version of Window befuddled cockpit radar, too. On the night fighter scopes, Window clouds forced the fighters to freelance, using only visual cues. Their only option was to turn back into the bomber stream and try to pick out the silhouette of a big four-engine Lancaster.

Window caused the crumbling of the integrated German defenses. Bomber crew reports after the first attack described searchlights waving aimlessly. RAF signals intelligence confirmed the confusion of the ground controllers hit with Window.

The first RAF raid was a success, shutting down parts of the water system, for example. Large-scale fires flared up again and again.


Fire Typhoon
It was the RAF’s Raid Two that began the firestorm.

The RAF did not expect this. Hamburg’s brick buildings and waterways seemed to render it a less-than-ideal target for incendiaries. Also, a major fire in 1842 had already taken out medieval timber buildings still found in some German city centers, such as Dresden.

Consequently the bomb loads on the July 28 raid combined high explosives plus batches of the four-pound incendiary sticks. More than 700 aircraft of the main force dropped 2,326 tons of bombs in a concentrated area about two miles from the city center. Incendiaries started thousands of fires. Hot, dry weather played a part.

Then came the conflagration.

“About half way through the raid, the fires in Hammerbrook started joining together,” noted an official RAF history. Superheated air of 600 degrees centigrade generated suction in the narrow streets and spun tempests where the “overheated air stormed through the streets with immense force,” according to a contemporary German Army report.

Suddenly, the whole area became one big fire, with surrounding air drawn into it with the force of a storm. The RAF bombing continued for another half-hour, spreading the firestorm area gradually eastward. It is estimated that 550 to 600 bomb loads fell into an area measuring only two miles by one mile.

The firestorm raged for about three hours and only subsided when all burnable material was consumed. Sixteen thousand apartment units vanished, along with more than 40,000 people. A German report called it a “fire typhoon such as was never before witnessed, against which every human resistance was quite useless.”

Human tales—some inflated for propaganda purposes, yet all devastating—told of the horror. A policeman wrote of finding a girl, black with soot, wandering aimlessly and dragging her dead little brother behind her. Official records put the dead at 13,000 men, 21,000 women and 8,000 children.


Rattling the Reich
Bomber Command, protected by Window, experienced light losses in the July raids. On previous missions to Hamburg, Bomber Command had lost six percent of each attacking force. This time, however, losses totaled only 57 aircraft—just 2.4 percent of the total.

Beyond the light attrition, both the immediate bomb damage and the ripple effects in Germany high politics were victories for Bomber Command.

“When the smoke cleared,” Harris later wrote, photos showed “the heavily damaged areas” covered at least 74 percent of Hamburg’s closely built-up residential districts. The city docks and four main shipyards were damaged, with power and transport at a standstill. It was World War II’s first widespread destruction of a major city. It would not be the last.

Hamburg’s survivors demonstrated determination, but more than a million moved out of the city. Yet it wasn’t the workers who were rattled. It was Nazi officialdom. For the first time, after almost four years of war, the devastating Hamburg attacks led many in the Nazi leadership to wonder whether Germany would be able to find a way out.

“The first heavy attack on Hamburg made an extraordinary impression,” Speer told interrogators in 1945. Other Nazi higher-ups were also stunned by the bombing of Hamburg. A city with a million inhabitants “has been destroyed in a manner unparalleled in history,” Goering reported. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels wrote that regime functionaries in Hamburg described “a catastrophe the extent of which simply staggers the imagination.” Goebbels thought food, shelter, clothing, and evacuation transport all presented nearly impossible problems after the raid. He added that the local Nazi official “spoke of some 800,000 homeless people who are wandering up and down the streets not knowing what to do.”

To historian William L. Shirer, the greatest damage was “to the homes and the morale of the German people.” Shirer remembered how lurid reports of Luftwaffe bombing of England had “buoyed up” German hopes for a quick victory early in the war. Those hopes, naturally, evaporated in an instant. Germany’s military leaders could not deny the consequences. Hamburg, coming on top of the disasters on the Soviet front, brought home to many that Germany was heading for doom.

Speer said in 1945: “It was I who first verbally reported to the Fuehrer at that time that a continuation of these attacks might bring about a rapid end to the war.”

It was not to be. In 1943, the power to capitulate was held by only one person—Hitler. His flunkies might be terribly shaken, but Hitler was not. He refused to visit any bombed cities despite the pleas of Goebbels and others that he do so.


Beginning of the End
Harris and Bomber Command did not win the war at Hamburg. The Allies couldn’t know it at the time, but they faced nearly two more years of hard fighting and tough losses.

The city of Hamburg was attacked several more times right through the end of the war, although there were no more firestorms there. The only other firestorm to destroy a German city came at Dresden in February 1945. (See “The Dresden Legend,” October 2004, p. 64.)

Still, the destruction of 6,200 heavily urbanized acres of Hamburg was grim enough. Only Berlin, with 6,427 burned-out acres, had more total area leveled, according to Bomber Command’s calculations.

Harris had made his point. He turned the tables on Germany itself and Bomber Command shook the foundations of the Reich. What Bomber Command amply demonstrated at Hamburg was that the war could, and would, be won by the Allies, and that Germany would pay dearly. Time was running out on the Reich. As Churchill said, after the Axis forces began retreating from North Africa in November 1942, it was the “end of the beginning.” Hamburg in July 1943 was the beginning of the end.

In 1945, the city of Hamburg surrendered to British armies with no resistance.

Dates:
The orders for Operation Gomorrah were signed on May 27, 1943. Commencing on the night of July 24, 1943, the bombing continued until August 3.

Commanders & Forces:
Allies


•Air Chief Marshal Arthur "Bomber" Harris, Royal Air Force
•Major General Ira C. Eaker, US Army Air Force
•British: approx. 700+ bombers per raid
•Americans: approx. 50-70 bombers per raid

Results of Operation Gomorrah:
Operation Gomorrah destroyed a significant percentage of the city of Hamburg, leaving over 1 million residents homeless and killing 50,000 civilians. In the immediate wake of the raids, over two-thirds of Hamburg's population fled the city. The raids severely shook the Nazi leadership, leading Hitler to be concerned that similar raids on other cities could force Germany out of the war.

Battle Summary:
Conceived by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Air Chief Marshal Arthur "Bomber" Harris, Operation Gomorrah called for a coordinated, sustained bombing campaign against the German port city of Hamburg. The campaign was the first operation to feature coordinated bombing between the Royal Air Force and the US Army Air Force, with the British bombing by night and the Americans conducting precision strikes by day. On May 27, 1943, Harris signed Bomber Command Order No. 173 authorizing the operation to move forward. The night of July 24 was selected for the first strike.

To aid in the operation's success, RAF Bomber Command decided to debut two new additions to its arsenal as part of Gomorrah. The first of these was the H2S radar scanning system which provided bomber crews with a TV-like image of the ground below. The other was a system known as "Window." The forerunner of modern chaff, Window was bundles of aluminum foil strips carried by each bomber, which, when released, would disrupt German radar. On the night of July 24, 740 RAF bombers descended on Hamburg. Led by H2S equipped Pathfinders, the planes struck their targets and returned home with a loss of only 12 aircraft.

This raid was followed up the next day when 68 American B-17s struck Hamburg's U-boat pens and shipyards. The next day, another American attack destroyed the city's power plant. The high point of the operation came on the night of July 27, when 700+ RAF bombers ignited a firestorm causing 150 mph winds and 1,800° temperatures, leading even the asphalt to burst into flames. Strung out from the previous day's bombing, and with the city's infrastructure demolished, German fire crews were unable to effectively combat the raging inferno. The majority of German casualties occurred as the result of this firestorm.

While the night raids continued for another week until the operation's conclusion on August 3, the American daytime bombings ceased after the first two days due to smoke from the previous night's bombings obscuring their targets. In addition to the civilian casualties, Operation Gomorrah destroyed over 16,000 apartment buildings and reduced ten square miles of the city to rubble. This tremendous damage, coupled with the relatively small loss of aircraft, led Allied commanders to consider Operation Gomorrah a success.

Thoughts on the matter? Did the firebombing of Hamburg go too far as a retaliation by the British or was it a rightful response to the Blitz?

 

[fing0lfin]

My oppinion is that no one judges the victors. If Germany had preformed such airraids(Hamburg, Dresden and other) there would have been hanged nazi war criminals for this.

 

[Winner]

Just one in a long series of Allied war crimes. What truly disgusts me is that some people still justify this even today.

 

[Dreadnought]

All is fair in love and war.

 

[Tycho]

Just one in a long series of Allied war crimes. What truly disgusts me is that some people still justify this even today.

Was it a rightful response to the German's aerial war over the British Isles and the subsequent Blitz? Should it be justified to help speed up the war effort and break the morale of the German people?

 

[fing0lfin]

Was it a rightful response to the German's aerial war over the British Isles and the subsequent Blitz? Should it be justified to help speed up the war effort and break the morale of the German people?

Thr Blitz itself is not a war crime. Also the German air strikes are not even close to to British/American. I think it was mentioned in the article that the bombing over Coventry killed 500 people(which of cource by itself is not a small number and can't be used for an excuse, but can't be compared to the deaths caused by the allied bombings. And the whole thing "but they started first" is irrevelant because it is even disputable wheter it is true or not. And another thing is that someone else war crimes can't be used for an excuse for yours.

But as far as the Germans are usually seen as the "pure evil'' which treathens all the world i guess you can justify everything you wish.

 

[say1988]

Thr Blitz itself is not a war crime. Also the German air strikes are not even close to to British/American.

Why not? War crimes are not defined based on scale but on the actions. If you believe firebombing a city is a war crime, the Germans are just a s guilty. Just because the Allies were capable of doing the same thing to a greater degree doesn't mean the Germans aren't guilty. If the Germans had had the number of heavy bombers and crews the Allies did, they would have done the exact same thing.

 

[fing0lfin]

Why not? War crimes are not defined based on scale but on the actions. If you believe firebombing a city is a war crime, the Germans are just a s guilty. Just because the Allies were capable of doing the same thing to a greater degree doesn't mean the Germans aren't guilty. If the Germans had had the number of heavy bombers and crews the Allies did, they would have done the exact same thing.

And now point me where i say that Germans are not guilty. As a matter of fact i said just the oposite:

which of cource by itself is not a small number and can't be used for an excuse

And also i think that one crime is judged for not only of it motives/actions, but it's result, but may be it would be better some better qualified in the field of international war laws confirm ot deny this.

 

[say1988]

Thr Blitz itself is not a war crime.

Happy?

And also i think that one crime is judged for not only of it motives/actions, but it's result, but may be it would be better some better qualified in the field of international war laws confirm ot deny this.

Punishment may vary based on the scale, but whether it is a crime or not doesn't.

 

[fing0lfin]

Happy?


Punishment may vary based on the scale, but whether it is a crime or not doesn't.

No, not happy at all. In your post you were talking about the bombing of cities. Obvoiusly you didn't bother to read my post carefully, otherwise you wouldn't post on a matter which i made utterly clear.

Punishment may vary based on the scale, but whether it is a crime or not doesn't.
Basicly you are saying the same as me. Only that you try to imply me word i never said. I never said that whether one action is a war crime or not deppends on the scale.

And for the blitz, i don't see how a doctrine based on the rapid advance of your mechanized and armored forces alone, by thus cutting yout enemies' supply lines and maneging to encircle large parts of his armed forces can be called war crime. And as far as i know no one was sentanced only becuse applying such tactics. And also i have not seen a convention which list the blitz as a war crime. Of course i may be wrong, becuse i am not an expert on the field of law and i have not seen all conventions about the ways of waging war.


Sometimes i think that certain people are just posting with the idea to confront.

 

[say1988]

So you just don't know what you are talking about. Then I agree with you.

The Blitz refers to the German strategic bombing of British cities in 1940 and 1941.

Blitzkreig is the supposed doctrine of the German military.

 

[Tycho]

Blitzkreig is the supposed doctrine of the German military.

Was the doctrine of the German military, and was quite effective as well. But I digress.

The firebombing of Hamburg certainly paved the way for other firebombings of key cities across the Axis Powers homelands, and it was very efficient for breaking morale, especially Operation Gomorrah. Was it excessive retribution though to try and burn a large western city to the ground? Sure Gomorrah was a small fry compared to some of the firebombings in Japan, especially one in Tokyo which killed an excess of ninty thousand people, but it was the first of it's kind, in a city where many people crowded together in stone and brick houses.

 

[fing0lfin]

So you just don't know what you are talking about. Then I agree with you.

The Blitz refers to the German strategic bombing of British cities in 1940 and 1941.

Blitzkreig is the supposed doctrine of the German military.

Please leve the "you don't'know what are you talking" for somewhere else. It's goes beyond the polite tone and i think this forum does not tolerete it.
The fact that i am not a native-english speaker, and big part of the references and historical books i have read are not in english, by this making the term rather unfamiliar to me, doesn't mean i don't know what i am talking about. Also blitz is often used for short of blietzkrieg.

 

[Tycho]

Please leve the "you don't'know what are you talking" for somewhere else. It's goes beyond the polite tone and i think this forum does not tolerete it.
The fact that i am not a native-english speaker, and big part of the references and historical books i have read are not in english, by this making the term rather unfamiliar to me, doesn't mean i don't know what i am talking about. Also blitz is often used for short of blietzkrieg.

I agree with you fing0lfin, let us at least try to keep this a civil discussion rather than a place to bicker back and forth.

 

[Masada]

All is fair in love and war.

Rubbish, witness what the Japanese did to Allied prisoners and what the Germans did to the Russians and say that with a straight face.

Was it a rightful response to the German's aerial war over the British Isles and the subsequent Blitz?

No, a murder of a friend does not the murder of the murderer justifiable legally. It might morally and we can debate that; but try to approach a Judge with that excuse and...

Should it be justified to help speed up the war effort and break the morale of the German people?

Was it militarily justifiable which is the bar set by the London Charter? If it wasn't, then no it isn't.

The firebombing of Hamburg certainly paved the way for other firebombings of key cities across the Axis Powers homelands, and it was very efficient for breaking morale, especially Operation Gomorrah. Was it excessive retribution though to try and burn a large western city to the ground?

If it was pure retribution and had no substantive military angle then it was a war-crime.

Thr Blitz itself is not a war crime. Also the German air strikes are not even close to to British/American. I think it was mentioned in the article that the bombing over Coventry killed 500 people(which of cource by itself is not a small number and can't be used for an excuse, but can't be compared to the deaths caused by the allied bombings.

The intentional killing or targeting of civilians is a war crime and the total numbers don't matter a wit. And if it wasn't: then how is the mere killing of 40,000 Germans can even hope to be compared to the genocidial murder of millions of Jews and Russian prisoners-of-war and civilians?

But as far as the Germans are usually seen as the "pure evil'' which treathens all the world i guess you can justify everything you wish.

Killing a few million Jews, Slavs and other assorted people in a demented invasion of the rest of Europe is justification enough - at least in respect of the period 1932 - 1945. Furthermore, using subsequent or past German actions as a basis for a discussion about the Second World War is apologism: nothing more, nothing less.

And also i think that one crime is judged for not only of it motives/actions, but it's result, but may be it would be better some better qualified in the field of international war laws confirm ot deny this.

No, that's not the case. Planning alone is sufficient: in much the same was as conspiracy to murder in most civilised countries is also a crime. Even then, 500 people is a Pretty Bad result no?

No, not happy at all. In your post you were talking about the bombing of cities. Obvoiusly you didn't bother to read my post carefully, otherwise you wouldn't post on a matter which i made utterly clear.

Your post was almost impossible to understand; therefore say1988 was entirely correct in how he responded. Subsequent eloboration doesn't change the fact that it was poorly written to begin with.

Please leve the "you don't'know what are you talking" for somewhere else. It's goes beyond the polite tone and i think this forum does not tolerete it.

You don't. And it doesn't: say1988 is entirely correct for pointing out politely that you were arguing at cross-purposes.

The fact that i am not a native-english speaker, and big part of the references and historical books i have read are not in english, by this making the term rather unfamiliar to me, doesn't mean i don't know what i am talking about

The Blitz is the universal name for the German bombing of London. We don't call it: the German bombing of London or GBOL or something else. There's literally nothing else to call it.

Also blitz is often used for short of blietzkrieg.

No, it's almost never used in that context as a short-hand for blitzkrieg because of the obvious English Blitz connotations. If someone mentioned: "the Blitz" or "Blitz' in the context of war I would almost certainly be drawn to think about the GBOL (I love that word already ). In football I might think of a blitz as a fast-play and if it was carefully framed then I might be led to think of something else. But even so, using blitz all alone is in an invitation to confusion.

 

[Winner]

Was it a rightful response to the German's aerial war over the British Isles and the subsequent Blitz? Should it be justified to help speed up the war effort and break the morale of the German people?

No and no.

The "Blitz" was a German blunder that accomplished exactly nothing while it depleted the Luftwaffe. Since "rightful response" here just means good old revenge, eye for an eye, then this single air raid killed more Germans than the number of Englishmen killed during the Blitz.. If we stick to the logic of revenge, than the German V1/V2 attacks against England were completely justified... right?

As for breaking the morale of the German people by mass murdering them... it's just disgusting. Imagine if an American commander declared today that a new strategy in Afghanistan was adopted: from now on, NATO will napalm bomb Afghan villages and towns until Taleban's morale breaks and it just lays down its arms and surrenders. It's war, so everything is allowed and it's completely justified because of 9/11. Oh, and later we might also use nukes, because they were so effective in Japan.

I wonder how people around the world would take that...

 

[Masada]

The "Blitz" was a German blunder that accomplished exactly nothing while depleting the Luftwaffe. Since "rightful response" here just means good old revenge, eye for an eye, then this single air raid killed more Germans than the whole Blitz. If we stick with the logic of revenge, than the German V1/V2 attacks against England were completely justified... riiight?

This logic isn't any better though. Dismissing the Blitz as a German military blunder does nothing to lesson the legal culpability of the German military. Moreover, assuming that the Allied moral imperative has no corrosponding military logic is also a big stretch. The same applies to the Luftwaffe although there's ample evidence on offer that the former was more important than the latter. I think the same could be said of the Allies however. But it's a slightly more complex process than that.

As for breaking the morale of the German people by mass murdering them... it's just disgusting. Imagine if an American commander declared today that a new strategy in Afghanistan was adopted: since now on, NATO will napalm bomb Afghan villages and towns until Taleban's morale is breaks and it just lays down its arms and surrender. It's war, so everything is allowed and it's completely justified because of 9/11. Oh, and later we might also use nukes, because they were so effective in Japan.

Morally disgusting: but no different from what successful second British invasion of Afghanistan did actually. The real question however is slightly different: whether or not it was militarily justifiable to do so. I would lean towards, no. But that's still different to the arguement presented here.

 

[fing0lfin]

Rubbish, witness what the Japanese did to Allied prisoners and what the Germans did to the Russians and say that with a straight face.



No, a murder of a friend does not the murder of the murderer justifiable legally. It might morally and we can debate that; but try to approach a Judge with that excuse and...



Was it militarily justifiable which is the bar set by the London Charter? If it wasn't, then no it isn't.



If it was pure retribution and had no substantive military angle then it was a war-crime.



1 The intentional killing or targeting of civilians is a war crime and the total numbers don't matter a wit. And if it wasn't: then how is the mere killing of 40,000 Germans can even hope to be compared to the genocidial murder of millions of Jews and Russian prisoners-of-war and civilians?



2 Killing a few million Jews, Slavs and other assorted people in a demented invasion of the rest of Europe is justification enough - at least in respect of the period 1932 - 1945. Furthermore, using subsequent or past German actions as a basis for a discussion about the Second World War is apologism: nothing more, nothing less.



3No, that's not the case. Planning alone is sufficient: in much the same was as conspiracy to murder in most civilised countries is also a crime. Even then, 500 people is a Pretty Bad result no?



Your post was almost impossible to understand; therefore say1988 was entirely correct in how he responded. Subsequent eloboration doesn't change the fact that it was poorly written to begin with.



You don't. And it doesn't: say1988 is entirely correct for pointing out politely that you were arguing at cross-purposes.



The Blitz is the universal name for the German bombing of London. We don't call it: the German bombing of London or GBOL or something else. There's literally nothing else to call it.



No, it's almost never used in that context as a short-hand for blitzkrieg because of the obvious English Blitz connotations. If someone mentioned: "the Blitz" or "Blitz' in the context of war I would almost certainly be drawn to think about the GBOL (I love that word already ). In football I might think of a blitz as a fast-play and if it was carefully framed then I might be led to think of something else. But even so, using blitz all alone is in an invitation to confusion.

1.I don't understand why you post this as a reply to me. I said exactley the same thing. How do you understand this sentance "which of cource by itself is not a small number and can't be used for an excuse" ???

2.As i said before in mu oppinion the war crimes commited by someone else, can't be used for an excuse of your own. And i also said that given the specific situation everything would have been acceptable and justifiable. So why you even bother posting the same thing but said with other words?!? And one more thing, i think that you are not the man who will determine with such absoulety which is apologism and which is not.

3.Again (as i already answered that) i have never said that one action is determined as a war crime or not by the scale of the casualties. And if you like examples, in most civilised countries actual murderers get bigger sentance than those who conspired to do murder, and a murderer of 5 poeple gets bigger sentance than the murderer of 1.
"which of cource by itself is not a small number" so i am a little bid confused why you ask for those 500 when i have already sad that it is "pretty bad result".

I think that i already explaind the issue about the Blitz. And in might be the universal term for the German bombings of London in English, but it is not is other languages. And from this linguistical misunderstanding you draw conculsions that i don't know what i am talking about, and may be the first time i heard of the German bombings of London was when i opened the link to the wiki article...


And actually i am not arguing. I shared my view (as the tread is for this) and from that moment the only think i do is to explain to some people over and over again that i never sayed that killing 500 people is not a war crime because it is a small number for example.

I tried to be polite and kind, but it is not possible with people who are ignorant.

 

[Winner]

This logic isn't any better though. Dismissing the Blitz as a German military blunder does nothing to lesson the legal culpability of the German military.

Oh, I am not denying it was a war crime! I just wanted to add that it was also a completely unnecessary one from a military and strategic standpoint - it didn't damage Britain significantly enough for it to even consider capitulation, and it ignited in the Brits the kind of resolve to fight that they might have lacked before. The failure of the Blitz should have hinted to the Allies that their own version of it wouldn't work either.

In fact, I question the utility of the whole strategic bombing offensive against Germany. It looks to me more like an attempt to convince the public, the soldiers, and the Russians that the Allies were doing something in the war. In the end, it was probably an immensely costly waste of time, effort, lives, and materiel.

 

[Masada]

1.I don't understand why you post this as a reply to me. I said exactley the same thing. How do you understand this sentance "which of cource by itself is not a small number and can't be used for an excuse" ???

You didn't actually. You said something entirely different: that the numbers meant that the two couldn't be compared but that in this case it still can't be used as an excuse. Which seems to admit that the numbers might be significant and could be used an excuse. I'm saying something wholly different: that the numbers don't matter and can never be used as an excuse. Mine's unequivocal.

And one more thing, i think that you are not the man who will determine with such absoulety which is apologism and which is not.

Er, right. You really need to read what you've been writing.

3.Again (as i already answered that) i have never said that one action is determined as a war crime or not by the scale of the casualties. And if you like examples, in most civilised countries actual murderers get bigger sentance than those who conspired to do murder, and a murderer of 5 poeple gets bigger sentance than the murderer of 1.

I answered a question you posed. Planning is sufficient cause for a charge: even if the results were nil. Moreover planning or conspiring to kill can be far more serious than just killing people: Nuremburg showed that.

"which of cource by itself is not a small number" so i am a little bid confused why you ask for those 500 when i have already sad that it is "pretty bad result".

You do realise that the charge wouldn't have accrued to the pilots or bombardiers right?

I think that i already explaind the issue about the Blitz. And in might be the universal term for the German bombings of London in English, but it is not is other languages. And from this linguistical misunderstanding you draw conculsions that i don't know what i am talking about, and may be the first time i heard of the German bombings of London was when i opened the link to the wiki article...

I have no concern whatsoever for whatever the common usage of a word in a language other than English in an English forum generally speaking. There might be some instances where I do: but this ain't one of them. It should have been patently obvious that Say1988 was not arguing that Blitzkrieg, a strategy, was a war-crime in of itself.

And actually i am not arguing. I shared my view (as the tread is for this) and from that moment the only think i do is to explain to some people over and over again that i never sayed that killing 500 people is not a war crime because it is a small number for example.

What's this response nonsense then?

Oh, I am not denying it was a war crime! I just wanted to add that it was also a completely unnecessary one from a military and strategic standpoint - it didn't damage Britain significantly enough for it to even consider capitulation, and it ignited in the Brits the kind of resolve to fight that they might have lacked before. The failure of the Blitz should have hinted to the Allies that their own version of it wouldn't work either.

I'm not suggesting that you are! I'm just suggesting that it was the wrong line to take in light of the argument being made. And I'm not sure if the Allies were inclined to prepare the war materials they had on hand with the paltry arsenals of the Luftwaffe.

In fact, I question the utility of the whole strategic bombing offensive against Germany. It looks to me more like an attempt to convince the public, the soldiers, and the Russians that the Allies were doing something in the war. In the end, it was probably an immensely costly waste of time, effort, lives, and materiel.

Material and effort maybe. It certain diverted a significant proportion of Allied resources and a not insignificant amount of effort. However in terms of lives expended? It was cost-effective compared to other more direct means of fighting. The key is that the Allies seem to have thought that the bombing offensive was having a good military effect or they wouldn't have continued on with it.