J. M. Spaight - Bombing Investigated

Posts: 1737

Of coarse I don't know any of this because I learn my History from the movies and Mr. Spielberg

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The German Campaign of Misrepresentation

'Whatever is bombed in another war,' said Lord Trenchard in the House of Lords on 15 March, 1939, 'nothing we can say or do will prevent enemy propaganda from asserting that women and children are bombed intentionally, because, of course, a large number of women and children will undoubtedly be hit.' The truth of his prediction was most abundantly proved in the course of the war which began less than six months later. From the first the German re-action to our air offensive took the form of representing it as an intentional attack on women and children. The chorus of denunciation of it on this score has gone on increasing in volume to the present day.
The extracts from Hitler's speeches quoted in Chapter II included a number of references to the ruthlessness of our raids as the Germans saw them. With our methods of brutality the German propagandists contrasted the burning German desire to save non-combatants from the rigours of war. One of them, speaking on the Berlin radio on 8 August, 1941, stated that the Führer had always been in favour of a convention to prevent the bombing of civilians in the interests of humanity. He was nothing of the sort. He was in favour of it in the military interests of Germany. He wanted a particular kind of convention which would have banned the type of bombing which did not suit his book but would have left the type which did perfectly uncontrolled. His proposals of 1935 and 1936 would not have prevented the bombing of Warsaw, Rotterdam or Belgrade. They would have prevented our raids on the Ruhr. It was to rise, indeed, to the height of impudence to

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mention the Führer and regard for the interests of humanity in the same breath. What Hitler really thought upon this subject has been disclosed by one who was formerly intimate with him.

Hitler and Humanitarianism

Herr Hermann Rauschning has put it on record that shortly after the Reichstag fire (27 February, 1933) Hitler summoned him, with Gauleiter Forster, to the Reich Chancellery to discuss a report on the Danzig situation. The discussion veered round to the subject of the place of brute force in government. 'I have no choice,' said Hitler, 'I must do things that cannot be measured by the yardstick of bourgeois squeamishness. . . . The world can only be ruled by fear.' The same subject came under discussion when Rauschning saw Hitler again, in the autumn of 1933, at Danzig. 'Brutality is respected,' Hitler said. 'Brutality and physical strength. . . . The people need wholesome fear. They want to fear something. They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive. . . . Terror is the most effective political instrument. I shall not permit myself to be robbed, of it because a lot of stupid bourgeois mollycoddles choose to be offended by it. It is my duty to make use of every means of training the German people to severity and to prepare them for war. . . . My behaviour in war-time will be no different. The most horrible warfare is the kindest. I shall spread terror by the surprise employment of all my measures. The important thing is the sudden shock of an overwhelming fear of death.' [1]

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The German Army's Ethics

Hitler's sudden conversion to humanitarianism under the stress of circumstance was accompanied, it seems, by a similar change of heart in the German military hier-

1 H. Rauschning, Hitler Speaks, 1939, pp. 87, 89, 90.

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archy. The German army, the world was solemnly assured by a quisling radio commentator, has always had a code of ethics which makes it unthinkable that war should be waged unchivalrously. Here is what Max Blockzijl said from the German-controlled station at Hilversum in the autumn of 1942:

'The German people have a great military tradition which the British have not; certainly not so far as the army is concerned. The German professional officers, who were always very numerous in Germany, stick particularly to their code of honour and chivalry. The English commanders are mostly dilettantes and are hastily recruited, under the pressure of emergency, from the most varied group of the population. They don't know the moral scruples which a German commander possesses as an inborn gift.' Hence, said Blockzijl, the Royal Air Force's attacks on women and children, hospitals, churches, historical buildings and monuments, whereas the Germans attacked only military objectives. If the Luftwaffe did bomb even industrial objectives, which he doubted, 'it was exclusively a retaliation measure, reprisals after endless warnings.' [1]

It is true that the German people have 'a great military tradition' and a numerous class of professional officers. How far have these assets served to assure humane treatment of enemy civilians? The answer will be apparent to anyone who has studied military history. In 1870 the German commander refused a request that the bombardment of Paris should be restricted to the Festungswerke. A similar practice was adopted at Péronne, and the result of a general bombardment of that town was that it was speedily captured. A regular investment (Belagerung), says a German professor, [2] a who approves the ruthless procedure

1 Quoted in Aeronautics, November, 1942, p. 63.

2 Dr. Heilbron of Breslau, article on Deutsch-Französicher Krieg in Strupp, Wörterbuch des Völkerrechts, 1924, pp. 232-3.

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Adolf Hitler only undertook the bombing of British civilian targets reluctantly after the RAF had commenced bombing German civilian targets... It gave Coventry, Birmingham, Sheffield and Southampton the right to look Kiev, Kharkov, Stalingrad and Sebastopol in the face. Our Soviet allies would have been less critical of our inactivity if they had understood what we had done... Hitler would have been willing at any time to stop the slaughter. Hitler was genuinely anxious to reach with Britain an agreement confining the action of aircraft to battle zones.

Bombing Vindicated