WWII Strategic Bombing?

Question

They have been running a series in a Canadian newspaper chain to condemn Canadian WWII veterans who served in heavy strategic bombers (I'm American).

The historians argument is that Strategic Bombing did not affect Germany's war production, it remained the same.

In absolute numbers Nazi war production did remain the same. But using percentages, Nazi Germany was unable to increase their war production and had to direct more resources away from offensive efforts to preserve what they did have.

Because most of Allied production was immune from strategic bombing, they were able to increase war production 200 percent each year.

Nazi Germany had conquered most of Europe and 1,000 miles plus of Russia and were on the verge of winning the war.

Strategic Bombing was the only effective offensive method that could be effectively carried out. Without strategic bombing, I believe the Nazi's would have won the war and that does prove some effectiveness of the tactic.

Thoughts?

Immune: the Nazis were unable to bomb war production in the United States or East of the Ural mountains in Russia.

Percentage: The historians quoted production numbers in terms o the number of units of each weapon. In other words if they produced 1,500 anti-aircraft guns during one year, they were able to produce 1500 the next year. What was not included and I had to look up was that if the Allies produced 900 anti aircraft guns one year, the next 1,800, the next year 3,600 etc.

Article -- Here is a URL on the incident that caused the series to by published and uses "war criminals." I tried before to get the URL to the series but was unable, part of the source used is copyright protected from a book "Death by Moonlight." I have not read this book.

http://origin.www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/story/2007/10/11/war-museum.html

Carpet bombing of civilians: That's exactly my point, technology is technology, you can't fault vetrans for what does exist now but did not exist then. But at the time, it was the only tactic and weapon system available to keep the Nazi's from winning the war. The historians looked only at one aspect, not all aspects. Aside from Strategic bombing that definetly does kill civilians there was nothing, so at the time in that context it was a Hobson's choice -- there was no alternative. I would counter the historians' arguement with NATO. NATOs main weapon system during the 60s 70s 80s was tactical nuclear bombs -- nuclear bombs that are designed to kill with one missle as many civilians as possible because each missle carries multiple warheads. We think in terms of tacticle weapons systems that hit only military targets, but; if that technology didn't exist in the 1980s, why call vetrans during the 1940s war criminals?

I guess that it came down to a choice. Should we use a weapon system that we know will kill a lot of civilians or should we not use it for that reason and let the Nazis win the war. Calling the veterans war criminals is not fair.

Questions, Newspaper owned by CanWest Global.

Did the mention Germany's Bombing of Britian: yes and maybe, they said the Germans used bombing of Civilians as a prelude to Germany's invasion only, but I'm not sure that's true.

Question: War Museum panel. The order of events was this. The veterans complained about the War Museum panel. Historians responsible for the panel called it changing history. The series in the newspaper was then published it was condensed from a book "Death by Moonlight." to support not changing the panel calling Canadian veterans war criminals. "Death by Moonlight" seems to be the source used both by the war museum and the series of articles in the newspaper.

History of the Panels at the Canadian War Museum: The War Museum did change the panels. The previous panels did not call the veterans war criminals, but referred to the book "Death by Moonlight" which did call them war criminals.

When the reference to "Death by Moonlight" was removed, professional historians from Canadian Universities wanted the reference to "Death by Moonlight" be reinstated and said the veterans should not be allowed to rewrite history.

Canadian history professors wrote letters to the editor and petitioned the Canadian Government to re-instate the original panels which referred museum visitors to "Death by Moonlight" if they wished to know more about WWII Strategic bombing.

I'm afraid that's all I know, but I hope some of the answers come from Canadians what struck me was how Canadians do not support their veterans. The average Canadian didn't seem to find anything wrong by historians attacking men who are now over 80 years old or deceased.

Answer 1

I'm with you, madder. And very surprised and disappointed that Canadian revisionists are now saying that those brave men who risked their lives are somehow guilty of something. By the time the U.S. entered the war, bringing all the resources we had to the Allied effort, there was no competition. Allied bombers took out significant targets, not only in the industrial sections of Cologne and Hamburg, but also factories in Norway and Denmark that were being forced to produce materiel for Nazi Germany, like the ball bearing factories, missile production and heavy water.

Answer 2

It forced the Nazis to use some (and sometimes a lot) of their resources to :
1 - defend their factories
2 - hide those factories
3 - bring the goods to the factories and bring the finished product to the front line (destruction of railway centres)
And it did damage the German infrastructure badly enough to slow production of new weapons. I might mention nuclear bomb, jet engines, V1 and V2...

What you forgot to mention was the carpet bombing of cities. Was it what they complained about in that newspaper, the loss of civilian lives?

Edit : read your link, the first panel was short of explanation and the second one much better - still missing the fact that bombing cities on a large scale was started by the Nazis - but nowhere it is said that the bombers were war criminals. Though I understand that veterans would have been annoyed at the one sidedness of the first panel that ignored the what, why and the price they paid too. What newspaper was it that used this to call them war criminals?

Answer 3

Madder,
I agree with you that it is NOT fair to call these veterans "war criminals". They were doing their duty at the time and revisionists are now popping up all over the place on this topic. There is much more to come and I sense that by the time we reach the 100th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and the surrender of Germany in 2045 a new way of thinking will have progressed to a point where there may not be an official Government acknowledgement of these events at all.

During the last 9 months of the war 5 million German citizens lost their lives, another 2.5 million would die between the fall of the Reich and the beginning of the Marshall Plan. These are numbers not often discussed because lets face it the "Victor" gets to tell the story afterwards.

Consider this statement by Hitler on 19 March 1945 - this was then a "counter" memorandum to Albert Speer and Heinz Guderian on a memorandum they sent to Hitler the day before. It reads as follows:

"If the war should be lost, then the nation too, will be lost. That would be the nation's unalterable fate. There is no need to consider the basic requirements that a people needs in order to continue to live a primitive life. On the contrary, it is better ourselves to destroy such things, for this nation will have proved itself weaker and the future will belong exclusively to the stronger Eastern nation. Those who remain alive after the battles are over are in any case only inferior persons, since the best have fallen." (Exerpt from "Panzer Leader" by Heinz Guderian page 423).

Speer and Guderian were attempting to persuade Hitler NOT to destroy bridges, mining installations, electrical and other utility works, communication facilities and inland waterways. Most of the destruction orders by Hitler were NOT carried out in the last days of the war. The infamous Corporal of WW 1 was much more to blame for the destruction of that nation than ANY bombing sortie or combination of bombing of sorties ever could have accomplished.

These are my "thoughts" as you posed at the end of your original question. Hitler was to blame, and to blame for the "unintended victims" as well - NOT the Allies. It was after all Germany that declared war on the USA on December 10th 1941 (December 11th if you were a German Soldier on the Eastern Front at the time). Canada merely took the call to the war in 1939 when Brittain told them to - these Airman were doing their duty and conscripted into service.

Answer 4

Well thought out.
I've heard stories of German factory workers walking into their roofless, rubble-filled factories, lifting bricks and timbers to clear a workspace, and starting back up where they left off.

The word "immune" seems to be the most controvertial statement in the essay. Further explain why British, Australian, Russian, and other front-line allied nations were "immune" to strategic bombing and the Germans were immenently vulnerable.

The third paragraph is also a little vague; "by using percentages" is neither a military production strategy nor a specific form of statictical analysis.

Answer 5

Most allied bombings were not aimed on industry, but on civilian institutions like residential areas to break the will of the people (what appeareantly did not work). Beside that, many attacks aimed on infrastructure, what indead had some influence on industry.
Still the main problems about industry that occurred were not destroyed factories, but shortage on basic materials and qualified workers in the later years of war.
I rather don't aggree to your thesis.

Answer 6

Most certainly...

Answer 7

Post the link for this story please I'd like to read it