German war economy
A protracted world war was never part of the plans of the supreme leadership of the Reich. Hitler expected to achieve all his goals through skillful diplomacy and a series of lightning wars, extensively increasing the military and economic power of Germany - with the expectation that England and France would never keep up with the rapid growth of Germany. The German General Staff, in particular General Thomas, protested against this concept of "arming in breadth". Instead, they pushed “weapons in depth”, namely: direct significant efforts to increase steel production; significantly reduce civilian consumption of steel and other natural resources; additional steel should be used not only for the production of weapons, but also to increase the production of other basic resources. According to General Staff calculations, in this case, by 1945-1950, Germany could be ready for a protracted strategic war.
Hitler's point of view won. To give some idea of the priorities of the German economy, consider the use of steel in the pre-war years (there are no exact statistics, the figures are approximate). About 10-15% of monthly steel production went to railways (mainly scheduled repairs/replacement of tracks). The same amount was spent on non-military and semi-military construction. 30% went to the production of consumer goods (consumer goods) and private construction. The remaining 40% was spent on military production: by 1939 it was planned to create enough weapons for 100 divisions; by 1942 - for another 80. Plus the construction programs for military aviation and navy, no less ambitious.
The choice of this development path largely predetermined many of the problems of the Germans during WWII. In particular, the program for the construction of synthetic fuel plants in 1936-1941 was assessed by the German General Staff as completely unsatisfactory; however, the Reich leadership did not want to increase the steel quota for the construction of these plants. After all, steel is needed for the production of weapons, and a protracted war is not expected.
Raids
I will definitely write about the British/American side of the matter in more detail someday. Pre-war doctrines of strategic raids, disagreements over targets, losses, aircraft production - all this is very interesting. But here for now I will limit myself to just brief statistics regarding raids.
The total tonnage of bombs dropped by the Americans and the British on Germany (including the countries it occupied) and its allies during WWII:
Red is the monthly tonnage of bombs dropped by the RAF.
Blue color - monthly tonnage of bombs dropped by USAAF (US Air Force)
Tonnage by target (larger version of image available):
Goals, left to right, top to bottom:
Aviation factories
Various production
Water transport
Launch points V-1 and V-2
Aerodromes
Production of petroleum products, chemicals, rubber
Military
Industrial targets (which is a euphemism for carpet bombing cities)
Ground transportation network (which partly also includes carpet bombing of cities)
Other
Monthly losses of single-engine Luftwaffe aircraft:
Black curve -- total losses of single-engine Luftwaffe aircraft
Red curve - losses of single-engine Luftwaffe aircraft minus the eastern front (i.e. the USSR)
In general, we should also write a separate post about the battle over Germany, because it’s worth it. IMHO the most significant result of strategic raids.
Work force
Graph of the German labor force during the war:
Top down:
Losses -- irretrievable losses
Armed Force -- armed forces
Foreigners & Prisoners of War - foreign workers and prisoners of war
Civilians (male / female) - civilians (men / women)
As we can see, 11.5 million German workers were drafted into the Wehrmacht from September 39 to September 44; their place was taken by 7 million workers and prisoners of war who arrived or were brought from abroad, as well as 1 million new German workers. This adds up to a loss of 3.5 million workers, or 10% of the workforce.
Let's look at exactly how the strategic raids affected the workforce.
Direct damage (killed and maimed) - by mid-1944 about 250 thousand workers
Unproductive workforce, i.e. people who could not work due to bombings - destruction of factories, transport routes, etc. From September 43 to October 44 - the period for which there are German data on reports from category "A" companies on productive/unproductive work - did not work on average 1.5 million people employed in manufacturing.
The threat of destruction of certain units of the economy made it necessary to disperse production. By the summer of 1944, between 500 and 800 thousand people were involved in additional construction and repair of damage caused by the bombing. An additional 250-400 thousand supplied them with materials and services.
Production of consumer goods to replace those that were destroyed by bombing. This, of course, is extremely difficult to isolate, but you can look at employment in the production of consumer goods. In May 1939, 6.8 million workers worked there. In the period 39-40 there was a drop of 1.7 million. In the period 40-42 there was a drop of 1.5 million. In the period 42-44 (i.e., the period of intense raids) there was a drop of only 5 million people.
Production of air defense artillery and ammunition for it - 250 thousand people. Plus air defense troops. The question has been discussed in more detail.
If you add it all up, it turns out that strategic bombing in one way or another pulled 17-22% of the German labor force available outside agriculture.
It is worth noting here that by 1944 and even 1945, the Germans were far from depleting their labor reserves. For example, both Germany and England started the war with approximately the same number of working women. During the war, the number of employed English women increased by 45%, while in Germany it remained almost at the pre-war level. Another example is that during the war the number of servants and other domestic workers in Great Britain fell from 1.2 million to .5, in Germany - from 1.5 million to 1.2. The German bureaucracy until the end of the war numbered 3.5 million people, and even Speer could not do anything about it.
Fixed assets
Before the war, engineering products were one of Germany's main exports (in fact, it still is). Naturally, with the outbreak of hostilities, trade with most of Germany’s partners ceased, and therefore quite large capacities were unoccupied. So, with the exception of factories producing aircraft engines and some other specific things, German production worked one shift for almost the entire war - unlike the USA, USSR and England. Thus, in 1942, 90% of German workers worked the first shift; 7% in the second, 3% in the third (mining workers are not included).
In 1944, the German machine park amounted to 2,260,000 machines. There are no accurate statistics on destroyed and damaged machines; post-war estimates are 110,000 damaged and 36,500 destroyed by machine-tool raids (both are maximum estimates). A rough estimate of lost machine hours due to machine damage or destruction is 2 to 2.5 percent. Don't forget - this is a ceiling estimate. So, in general, we can conclude that the destruction of German means of production did not cause significant damage to the German war economy. The exception here is the chemical industry; it will be discussed below.
Common consumption goods
In general, the Nazis tried to maintain the production of consumer goods at a more or less acceptable level. Here's a detail: in the fall of 1943, Hitler protested Speer's decision to stop allocating resources to the production of curling irons.
From top to bottom:
GNP taking into account foreign participation (read - robbery of occupied countries)
GNP without it
Home Equity Gain
Share of civil expenditures in Nazi Germany's GNP (black part of the graph)
Table on the dynamics of civil expenditures:
Level 1939 == 100
Well, as a bonus, the percentage of industrial workers employed in the civil/military sector:
The white part of the graph is the civilian industry
The shaded part of the graph is the military industry
In general, we can confidently say that the destruction of consumer goods was not directly related to the military collapse of Nazi Germany. The only thing is that the regular destruction of houses during raids generated a surge in demand for certain consumer goods, and thereby prevented the transfer of a certain part of the civilian industry to a military footing. For example, the production of kitchen utensils in 1943 was 25% higher than the level of 1942; production of bed frames increased by 150% during the same period.
Military production
At the beginning of the war and until the defeat near Moscow, and especially at Stalingrad, German military production was limited by one thing - the lack of orders from the military leadership. As described earlier, Hitler did not count on a protracted war. Moreover, some euphoria from successes in the West and a general underestimation of the enemy played a bad joke on the Germans.
Thus, as of May 11, 1940 (i.e., before the start of the operation on the Western Front), the Luftwaffe had 4,782 aircraft of all types. A year later, on June 21, 1941 (i.e., before the invasion of the USSR), there were 4882 aircraft, only a hundred more. In particular, the Germans had 200 fewer bombers (!) than before the invasion of Benelux and France. Military production was 1% higher than the 1940 production level.
And even after the defeat near Moscow, the situation largely remained the same. For example, the Chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff, Hans Jeschonneck, said back in March 1942 to Milch, who was pushing a program to increase aircraft production at that time: “I don’t know what to do with the additional 360 fighters!” By the way, this same Eschonnek shot himself a year later when British planes razed Peenemünde to the ground.
The German leadership truly realized that Germany had gotten involved in a total war only after Stalingrad. But, as they said during my childhood, it was already too late to rush around.
German military production index:
Level 1940 == 100
So, now let's look at how strategic raids directly affected German military production.
Note: I decided to leave the bombing of ball bearing factories behind the scenes. These raids had no effect on the war economy, although Speer, in his own words, did shit a couple of bricks after the bombing of Schweinfurt. I may write more in detail in the next post, when I describe the differences in the doctrine of the Americans and the British.
First half 1943
The Allies tried to reduce the production of German submarines by bombing. The effect is near-zero; production continued to proceed almost without deviation from schedule.
Second half of 1943
In the second half of 1943, the Allies decided to switch to bombing factories producing fighter aircraft, because by that time the scales in the Atlantic had already tipped very significantly in favor of the Allies. Thanks to the raids, 13% fewer fighters were produced than the planned number. It should be noted that only part of the fall is a direct consequence of the raids; a significant portion of the decline was due to the start of a large-scale production dispersal program. I will not dwell in detail on the repetition of bombings, on how they first bombed the production of fuselages (in vain), then switched to engines.
First half of 1944
Significantly stronger attacks on aircraft manufacturing plants. But - a paradox! -- fighter production doubles from December 1943 to July 1944. Supporters of the version that the bombings were absolutely useless like to trump this fact (and indeed the strong growth in German military production). The truth is that this hypothesis does not fit well with the fact that the Germans agreed to such a large and disproportionate increase in the production of single-engine fighters (see graph below). Well, oh well, God bless him, I hope that above I was to some extent able to explain why this happened with production.
German aircraft production:
Top down:
Single-engine bombers
Twin-engine bombers
Four-engine bombers
Single-engine fighters
Twin-engine fighters
Assault
Others
The growth in fighter aircraft production is a consequence of two things: 1) increasing production efficiency (i.e., reducing labor costs and increasing the efficiency of resource use); 2) an increase in fighter production was planned back in 1943. It is difficult to say what the true production figure would have been without strategic raids. The estimated figure is that the Germans were missing 18% of the possible number of fighters.
Well, little things. Tanks. Here the Germans were missing 5% (thanks to the RAF raid on Friedrichsshafen). Ammunition. Production is 6-7% less than potential.
Second half of 1944
The raids intensify, and the Allies begin to concentrate on the tank and automobile industries in addition to aircraft.
The decline in aircraft production by December 1944, compared to June - 60%. Lost aircraft production as a result of direct raids on airlines - 23%. Losses in the production of tanks and cars as a result of direct raids on factories - 20% and 20%.
In general, the bombing of military production itself probably did not achieve a decisive effect on the German military machine, but a significant drop in production in certain areas was achieved.
Natural resources
And here is the most interesting thing, IMHO. So.
Germany's dependence on imported natural resources has always been considered the main weakness of its military capabilities. Just before the start of the war, Germany imported 70% of its iron ore, 90% of copper, 100% of chromium, manganese, nickel, tungsten, and much more. By and large, the Germans only had plenty of coal.
The Germans were of course aware of this weakness. Two solutions were chosen:
1) The beginning of the development of domestic iron ore deposits (albeit of poor quality), the construction of factories for the production of synthetic fuel and rubber.
2) Creation of reserves of strategic resources before the start of the war.
When the war began, the Germans had nine months' supply of iron ore, copper, lead and magnesium; manganese - for 18 months. However, measures to increase production efficiency, coupled with the conquest of a number of countries and trade with other pro-Nazi states, made it possible to delay serious supply disruptions until mid-1944.
Fuel
The weakest point of the German military machine.
Imports before the war were 4.4 million tons, mostly by sea. After the outbreak of the war, the only significant external source of oil and petroleum products was Romania, which by 1941 exported 2,114 thousand tons of oil and petroleum products per year to Germany. Plus, something came from Hungary and Poland (approximately 500 thousand tons of oil), plus the USSR supplied the Germans with 617 thousand tons of oil in 1940.
Also, the Germans developed domestic production to the best of their ability: 2 million of oil was produced in Austrian oil fields, plus synthetic fuel plants steadily increased production, from 1.6 million tons in 1938 to 6 million in early 1944. It should be noted that according to the 1938 plan, by 1944 11 million tons were supposed to be mined, but as mentioned above, confidence in the quick end of the war, plus the machinations of industrialists, prevented it.
Sources of German oil, 38-43 (in thousands of tons):
Sources of German petroleum products (gasoline), first quarter of 1944 (in thousands of tons):
For comparison, the USSR at that time was producing 29 million tons of oil per year; USA - 168 million tons.
Impact of raids
Strategic raids on synthetic gasoline plants began in May 1944. Consequences:
Aviation gasoline production
Red curve. Start level 1944 == 100
Production, consumption and stocks of aviation gasoline
From top to bottom:
Stocks -- stocks (the left side of the chart is at the end of the year, the right side is at the end of the month)
Consumption
Production -- production (including import)
Since May, 350,000 workers have been repairing synthetic fuel plants and building new, underground plants.
A little later, raids on Ploiesti began. In June, Romanian exports of petroleum products amounted to only 25% of the monthly average in the first half of the year; in July, exports stopped altogether. The oil fields were captured by Soviet troops on August 22.
As a result, by September 1944 the Luftwaffe was forced to reduce fuel consumption by 2/3 compared to June. Those. here is a reduction in the number of sorties, and a drop in the level of German pilots (due to the lack of gasoline for training) - and this despite the fact that just at this time record numbers of fighters were coming off the assembly lines that simply could not take to the skies.
On the ground, the shortage of fuel was also very acute. For example, this episode, told by both Speer and Jodl: in February 45, after Soviet troops crossed the Vistula, the Wehrmacht assembled about 1200-1500 tanks to attack Upper Silesia. However, the fuel necessary for the counteroffensive was simply not found.
Rubber
There were practically no direct raids on synthetic rubber factories. However, since in the process of its production German factories used gas and hydrogen that came from synthetic fuel production plants, it is quite natural that rubber production dropped very significantly.
Rubber production (thousand tons)
The dotted line is planned production.
Four colors - different rubber factories
There is no evidence that the rubber shortage had a significant impact on the German war machine. However, had the war lasted longer, it is more than likely that rubber shortages would have seriously affected German arms production.
Nitrogen
Nitrogen is a necessary ingredient for the production of explosives. Like rubber, nitrogen was never a priority target for Allied bombers. However, the two largest nitrogen plants were part of synthetic fuel complexes. Since nitrogen and synthetic fuel use the same low-pressure tanks, the damage from the bombing was compounded by the fact that part of the capacity for producing nitrogen began to be transferred to gasoline.
Monthly production of nitrogen and explosives (thousand tons):
Black curve - nitrogen
Different colors - different types of explosives
Steel
Air raids on the Ruhr - last quarter 44. Production fell from 2 million tons in September (including occupied territories) to 1 million in December, 80% of the fall was due to air raids.
Steel production (million tons):
From top to bottom:
Losses due to other reasons
Losses due to lack of gas, electricity, energy, natural resources, labor
Losses due to damage from strategic bombing
Losses due to air raids
Electricity
Electrical capacity (GW)
As we can see, by the end of 1944, 15.5% of the capacities were disabled by raids.
The effect on the economy is difficult to isolate, but it is quite obvious that it was great: electricity was Germany’s weak point almost throughout the war; restrictions on use began as early as October 41. By 43-44 the situation had become so serious that supply to aluminum and nitrogen plants was periodically cut off - despite their importance to the German war machine.
It should be noted that bombing power plants was never a priority goal for the Allies, because they (wrongly) believed that the Germans had enough spare power.
Transport
Along with an attack on fuel, one of the most effective targets of strategic bombers.
They decided to test full-scale raids on the transport network in anticipation of the landing in France. Beginning in March 1944, Allied strategic bombers began systematically destroying the transport network in Western Europe. Plus, 800 Spitfires, Thunderbolts and Typhoons between 20 and 28 May destroyed or damaged 500 locomotives. By July, traffic on French railways was only 10% of January levels. See the following charts:
The upper curve is general transport, the lower curve is military transport. Vertical lines - bomb attacks
Using the example of a specific railway (direction Valenton-Juvisi):
The upper curve is general transport, the lower curve is military transport. Vertical lines - bomb attacks
In the second half of 1944, the already tested technique was used in Germany itself. The consequences are on the next two graphs.
Number of loaded wagons
Number of ton-kilometers
The collapse of the transport system was a very significant reason for the very rapid disintegration of the German military industry in late 1944 - early 1945. Additional difficulties were created by the fact that many production facilities were dispersed in order to minimize damage from bombing, and therefore required a fairly well-functioning system of cargo transportation.
What do we know about the war in the West? And on the Pacific Ocean? Was there a war in Africa? Who bombed Australia? We are laymen in these matters. We know quite well about the ancient Romans. We know the Egyptian pyramids like the back of our hands. And here it’s as if a history textbook was torn in half. I became fixated on the Great Patriotic War. And World War II never happened. The Soviet ideological machine passed these events by. There are no books or films. Historians have not even written dissertations on these topics. We did not participate there, which means there is no need to talk about it. The states have lost memory of the Union's participation in the war. Well, in retaliation, we remain silent about any war other than our own, the Soviet-German one.
Erasing the blank spots in the history of World War II, we will talk about one of its stages - the blitz bombing of Great Britain.
The bombing of the Island was carried out by Germany from September 7, 1940 to May 10, 1941, as part of the Battle of Britain. Although the Blitz targeted many cities across the country, it began with the bombing of London and continued for 57 consecutive nights. By the end of May 1941, more than 43,000 civilians had died as a result of the bombing, half of them in London. A large number of houses in London were destroyed or damaged. 1,400 thousand people lost their housing. The largest bombing of London occurred on September 7, when more than 300 bombers attacked the city in the evening and another 250 at night. Large-caliber bombs caused significant damage to dams and other hydraulic structures protecting the Thames. More than a hundred significant damages were noted, threatening to flood low-lying parts of London. To prevent a disaster, city utilities carried out regular restoration work. To avoid panic among the population, the work was carried out in strict secrecy.
Despite the fact that the London authorities had been preparing air-raid shelters since 1938, there were still not enough of them, and most of them turned out to be simply “dummies”. About 180 thousand Londoners fled the bombings in the subway. And although the government initially did not welcome this decision, people simply bought tickets and waited out the raids there. Photos of cheerful people singing and dancing in the subway, which censorship allowed to be published, cannot tell about the stuffiness, rats and lice that one had to encounter there. And even metro stations were not guaranteed against a direct bomb hit, as happened at the Bank station, when more than a hundred people died. So most Londoners simply crawled under the covers at home and prayed.
On May 10, 1941, London suffered its last major air raid. 550 Luftwaffe bombers dropped about 100 thousand incendiary and hundreds of conventional bombs on the city within a few hours. More than 2 thousand fires broke out, 150 water mains and five docks were destroyed, 3 thousand people died. During this raid, the Parliament building was heavily damaged.
London was not the only city to suffer during the air raids. Other important military and industrial centers such as Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Clydebank, Coventry, Exeter, Greenock, Sheffield, Swansea, Liverpool, Hull, Manchester, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Nottingham, Brighton, Eastbourne, Sunderland, and Southampton survived heavy air raids and suffered large numbers of casualties.
The raids were carried out by forces of 100 to 150 medium bombers. In September 1940 alone, 7,320 tons of bombs were dropped on southern England, including 6,224 tons on London.
By the early summer of 1940, British authorities decided to evacuate children from large cities as potential targets for bombing into the countryside. In a year and a half, two million children were taken from the cities. Children of Londoners were settled in estates, country houses, and sanatoriums. Many of them remained away from London throughout the war.
The British Army is helping to clear the city.
Firefighting after an air raid. Manchester. 1940
Meanwhile, Stalin and Hitler were dividing Europe. The USSR and Germany put into practice the agreements of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Without a minute of failure, exactly according to schedule, dozens of trains with grain, metal, oil, gasoline, cotton, and so on, went into the millstones of the Nazis. It was from our metal that the bombs that fell on Britain were cast, it was our bread that the German aces ate before flying to the island. This is our fuel that was poured into the tanks of Luftwaffe bombers. But we were silent about it then, and we remain silent today.
Of course, the British, together with their allies, took revenge on the Nazis, and very brutally. Carpet bombings of German cities still cause horror with their consequences. Our next article is about this.
On the night of August 25, 1940, ten German The planes went off course and mistakenly dropped bombs on the outskirts of London. The British responded promptly. The first air raid on Berlin took place on the night of August 25-26, 1940. 22 tons of bombs were dropped on the city. Until September 7, only seven raids were carried out on the German capital. Each of those night raids was reflected in the official reports of the Wehrmacht High Command. German medium bomber Ju-88.
August 26, 1940: “Enemy planes appeared over Berlin for the first time last night. Bombs were dropped on the suburbs." August 29, 1940: “Last night British planes systematically attacked residential areas of the Reich capital... High explosive and incendiary bombs were dropped. Many civilians died. There have been fires and material damage has been caused.” August 31, 1940: “British planes continued their attacks on Berlin and other targets in the Reich during the night. Several bombs fell in the city center and in working-class neighborhoods.” September 1, 1940: “Last night British aircraft attacked the Ruhr area and Berlin. Bombs were dropped. The damage caused is not significant; none of the military installations were damaged.” September 2, 1940: “Last night enemy aircraft again attempted to attack Berlin.” September 5, 1940: “Last night British planes again invaded Reich territory. An attempt to attack the capital of the Reich was repelled by dense anti-aircraft artillery fire. The enemy managed to drop bombs on the city in only two areas.” September 7, 1940: “Last night, enemy planes again attacked the capital of the Reich. Massive bombing was carried out on non-military targets in the city center, which led to civilian casualties and property damage. Luftwaffe aircraft also began raids on London in large forces. Last night the docks in East London were attacked with high explosive and incendiary bombs. Fires started. Fire was observed in the docks and also in the area of the oil storage facility in Thameshaven.” After this, the bomb war against the capitals of the warring parties began to gain momentum. Now it was carried out on its own. "Blitz" to London was declared an act of retaliation for the raids on Berlin. It began on the night of September 6–7, 1940, that is, five months after the start of the unrestricted bombing war and two weeks after the first bombs were dropped on Berlin. The raids continued continuously until November 13, 1940, with a force of 100 to 150 medium bombers. The largest bombing of London took place on September 7, when more than 300 bombers attacked in the evening and another 250 at night. By the morning of September 8, 430 Londoners had been killed, and the Luftwaffe issued a press release stating that over a thousand tons of bombs had been dropped on London within 24 hours. 
The intact dome of St Paul's Cathedral is seen billowing from smoke and fire from surrounding buildings during the German bombing of London on December 29, 1940. (AP Photo/U.S. Office of War Information) This photograph is sometimes called a symbol of London's resistance - London survived.
In fact, both sides were not ready to carry out strategic bombing. When the war began in 1939, the Royal Air Force had only 488 bombers of all types, mostly obsolete, of which only about 60 were new Vickers: most of the rest did not have sufficient range to strike even the Ruhr (let alone Berlin), had insignificant weapons, and could not carry a significant bomb load. There were no effective bombing sights, very few bombs that could cause significant damage to the enemy, and even such obvious things as maps of Europe to determine the course to the target and back were in great short supply. Moreover, the difficulty of targeting bombers at long ranges at night to accurately attack small targets was greatly underestimated.
The Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engine bomber that was used extensively in the first two years of the war.
Germany had by that time abandoned plans to produce strategic bombers. Given that German technical resources were already largely deployed to meet other needs, Luftwaffe doctrine assumed active support for the army, and taking into account the practical experience of Spain, the German command concentrated on the use of tactical bombers as aerial artillery in support of army operations, and fighters as a means of protecting bombers from enemy fighters. Before the start of strategic bombing, no one thought about creating a long-range fighter that could cover bombers on their raids deep into enemy territory.
German Heinkel He 111 bomber over the London docks.
According to British data, the first raid on Berlin was carried out by 3 high-speed bombers in the daytime. However, there is no official report on the results of the raid. According to rumors, his goal was to mock Goering, who at that time was supposed to make an address to a mass audience. Due to the raid, Goering's speech was delayed by one hour. Until the end of 1940, another 27 night raids on Berlin were carried out. The largest of them took place in September, when 656 British bombers headed for Berlin, although, of course, not all of them reached their target. After this, there was a tendency to reduce the number of bombers involved in such raids. In December, only 289 aircraft took part in the attacks on Berlin, then there was a pause in British air raids. The air raids on the German capital involved mainly Wellington and Hampden type aircraft, the maximum range of which only allowed them to fly to Berlin and back. With a strong headwind, the planes could not reach the target, and they had to go back on course. If the pilots made mistakes in their calculations, they were sometimes forced to land their cars in the sea. Since at that time there was no reliable aiming device for bombers that would allow them to confidently hit an individual target in the dark, the number of hits compared to misses was insignificant. The main targets of the British planes were the building of the Imperial Ministry of Aviation, as well as railway stations. Despite all the efforts of the Royal Air Force pilots, the results of the raids were meager. In September 1940, 7,320 tons of bombs were dropped on southern England, including 6,224 tons on London. At the same time, only 390 tons of bombs fell on German territory, including Berlin. The so-called retaliation raid on Berlin on the night of September 23-24, 1940, carried out by 199 bombers, turned out to be more effective than usual, although, as a result of poor weather conditions, only 84 aircraft reached the target. From that time on, the inhabitants of Berlin began to feel a constant threat over them. Due to the fact that at that time there were a large number of diplomatic visits to the German capital, the raids were carried out mainly at night. From the memoirs of Spanish Foreign Minister Serano Suñer, we know that during his visit to Berlin he had to spend almost every night in the basement of the Adlon Hotel. It seems that this unpleasant circumstance greatly influenced subsequent political decisions. Sunyer writes: “Civil defense in the rear was established as clearly as air defense at the front. Thanks to this, the German people were unlikely to realize how terrible the war was. The organization clearly made it possible to prevent the threat. The bomb war in those days was fought with almost no casualties, but this milder form made it more difficult for the civilian population to withstand subsequent events.”
Meeting Molotov at the train station in Berlin, November 1940.
The German Foreign Minister was also quite annoyed that he had to conduct important political negotiations with his foreign counterpart in an environment where the conversation was interrupted by deafening bomb explosions. Irritation also grew because only recently he had confidently proclaimed that the war was almost won. During Molotov's negotiations in Berlin, he did not fail to confront his German colleague about the British bombings that took place during official conversations. Official reports for the period from September 1, 1939 to September 30, 1940 give this picture of the casualties and damage caused to Berlin: 515 dead and about twice as many wounded, 1,617 buildings completely destroyed and 11,477 seriously damaged. According to the British Bomber Command's winter directive, issued at the end of October 1940, Berlin was the fifth main target for the Royal Air Force, just behind fuel plants, shipbuilding facilities, transport network facilities and mine laying. It also said that when carrying out attacks on cities, one should look for targets as close as possible to residential areas in order to cause maximum material damage to the enemy and at the same time demonstrate to the enemy the power of the Royal Air Force. In January 1941, only 195 aircraft took part in the raids on Berlin, and after that the bombing attacks on the two enemy capitals ceased for a while. In January-February 1941 the weather was very bad for flying. In March, activity increased and the main targets were now ports and harbors. Then came the last and most difficult stage of the night bombing. In April and May Coventry was again raided, then Portsmouth and Liverpool. And the peace of London was also disturbed. Then the final terrible chord of the grim symphony sounded: on May 10, the anniversary of the German offensive in the West, London was subjected to a powerful raid. 2,000 fires started and 150 water mains were destroyed. Five docks were severely damaged and 3,000 people were killed or injured. During this raid, the House of Commons (the lower house of the British Parliament) was hit and severely damaged. A London street destroyed by air bombing.
In fact, this was the end, then London became quiet and the sirens no longer tore the night apart with their screams. However, it was an ominous silence and many in England feared that it indicated some new diabolical scheme. They were right, but this time it was not directed against England. During the year of the air war, Great Britain lost 43 thousand people killed and 50 thousand seriously wounded during bombing. But after this, the tasks of the Royal Air Force changed radically - British aviation switched from defense to attack. Only two Luftwaffe fighter squadrons remained on the banks of the English Channel; most fighters and bombers were concentrated in the East. Raids on Berlin became more frequent in the second half of 1941.
From August 8 to early September, the bombing of Berlin was carried out by Soviet long-range aviation. On July 27, 1941, Stalin’s personal order was given to the 1st mine-torpedo aviation regiment of the 8th air brigade of the Baltic Fleet Air Force under the command of Colonel E.N. Preobrazhensky: to carry out a bomb attack on Berlin and its military-industrial facilities. The command of the operation was entrusted to S. F. Zhavoronkov, N. G. Kuznetsov was appointed responsible for the outcome.
To carry out the strike, it was planned to use long-range bombers DB-3, DB-ZF (Il-4), as well as the new TB-7 and Er-2 Air Force and Navy Air Force, which, taking into account the maximum radius of action, could reach Berlin and return back. Considering the flight range (about 900 km in one direction, 1,765 km in both directions, of which 1,400 km are over the sea) and powerful enemy air defense, the success of the operation was possible only if several conditions were met: the flight had to be carried out at high altitude, and return along direct course and have on board only one 500 kg bomb or two 250 kg bombs. On August 2, a sea caravan consisting of minesweepers and self-propelled barges with a supply of bombs and aviation fuel, steel plates for extending the runway, two tractors, a bulldozer, a compacting asphalt roller, a galley and beds for the flight and technical personnel of the special strike group. Having passed through the mined Gulf of Finland and entering Tallinn, already besieged by the Germans, on the morning of August 3, the caravan approached the piers of the island of Ezel and unloaded its cargo.
Pe-8 (TB-7) - Soviet bomber.
On the night of August 3, a test flight was carried out from the Cahul airfield - several crews, having a supply of fuel to Berlin and full ammunition, flew to reconnaissance the weather and dropped bombs on Swinemünde.
On August 4, a special strike group flew to the Cahul airfield located on the island. From August 4 to 7, preparations were made for the flight, the household equipment of the flight and technical personnel, and the lengthening of the runway.
On the night of August 6, 5 crews went on a reconnaissance flight to Berlin. It was established: the anti-aircraft defense is located in a ring around the city within a radius of 100 km and has many searchlights capable of operating at a distance of up to 6,000 m. In the evening of August 6, the crews of the first group of bombers received a combat mission. At 21.00 on August 7, a special one took off from the Cahul airfield on the island of Ezel a strike group of 15 DB-3 bombers of the Baltic Fleet Air Force under the command of the regiment commander, Colonel E. N. Preobrazhensky, loaded with FAB-100 bombs and leaflets. The flights were commanded by captains Grechishnikov V.A. and Efremov A.Ya., Khokhlov P.I. flew as a navigator. The flight took place over the sea at an altitude of 7,000 m along the route: Ezel Island (Saaremaa) - Swinemünde - Stettin - Berlin). The temperature outside reached -35 - -40 °C, which caused the glass of airplane cabins and headset glasses to freeze. In addition, the pilots had to work all these hours wearing oxygen masks. To maintain secrecy throughout the flight, radio broadcasting was strictly prohibited.
After three hours of flight we reached the northern border of Germany. When flying over its territory, the planes were repeatedly detected from German observation posts, but, mistaking them for their own, the German air defense did not open fire. Over Stettin, the Germans, believing that the lost Luftwaffe planes were returning from a mission, used searchlights to invite the crews of Soviet planes to land at the nearest airfield.
At 1.30 on August 8, five planes dropped bombs on well-lit Berlin, the rest bombed the Berlin suburbs and Stettin. The Germans did not expect an air raid so much that they turned on the blackout only 40 seconds after the first bombs fell on the city. The pilots were not allowed to check the results of the raid by German air defense, whose activity became so great that it forced radio operator Vasily Krotenko to interrupt the radio silence and report on the completion of the mission on the radio: “My place is Berlin! The task was completed. Let's return to base!" At 4 am on August 8, after a 7-hour flight, the crews returned to the airfield without losses.
In total, until September 5, Soviet pilots carried out nine raids on Berlin, making a total of 86 sorties. 33 planes bombed Berlin, dropping 21 tons of bombs on it and causing 32 fires in the city. 37 planes were unable to reach the German capital and attacked other cities. A total of 311 high-explosive and incendiary bombs were used, weighing a total of 36,050 kg. 34 propaganda bombs containing leaflets were dropped. For various reasons, 16 aircraft were forced to abort the flight and return to the airfield. During the raids, 17 aircraft and 7 crews were lost, and 2 aircraft and 1 crew died at the airfield when they tried to take off with a 1000-kg and two 500-kg bombs on external slings.
On August 29, 1942, the most massive raid of Soviet bomber aircraft on Berlin was carried out during all the years of the Great Patriotic War. 100 Pe-8, Il-4 and DB bombers took part in it. On the way back, 7 Pe-8s also dropped bombs on Koenigsberg. This raid was the final chord in a series of bombings by Soviet aircraft of large German cities and industrial centers in August 1942 and a prelude to the September raids on German satellite countries.
On November 7, 160 RAF aircraft bombed Berlin; 20 of them were shot down. In 1942, the air raid warning was announced in Berlin only 9 times. This year, the British Air Force solved problems related to the survival of England, namely, all efforts were directed against submarines and against the shipyards that produced these boats. Battle for Berlin. November 1943 - March 1944. Great Britain had the opportunity to launch massive attacks on Berlin only in the second half of 1943. The prelude to the air attack on Berlin was two air raids on January 30, 1943. On this day, Goering and Goebbels gave big speeches. The air raids were timed exactly to coincide with the beginning of both performances. This had a great propaganda effect, although the material losses of the Germans were insignificant. On April 20, the British congratulated Hitler on his birthday in a raid on Berlin. Avro 683 Lancaster is a British heavy four-engine bomber.
"Battle for Berlin" began with a raid on the night of November 18-19, 1943. The raid involved 440 Lancasters, accompanied by several Mosquitoes. The heaviest damage to Berlin occurred on the night of November 22-23. Dry weather caused severe fire damage to many buildings, including foreign embassies. The largest raid took place on the night of February 15-16. The raids continued until March 1944. The total losses in Berlin amounted to almost 4,000 people killed, 10,000 wounded and 450 thousand people left homeless. 16 raids on Berlin cost England more than 500 lost aircraft. Bomber Aviation lost 2,690 pilots over Berlin and almost 1,000 became prisoners of war. In England it is generally accepted that the Battle of Berlin was a failure for the RAF, but many British historians argue that "in an operational sense, the Battle of Berlin was more than a failure, it was a defeat." Beginning on March 4, the United States began an air war of attrition in anticipation of the landings in France. Believing that the Luftwaffe would not be able to avoid fighting in defense of the capital, the Americans organized a series of devastating bombings of Berlin. Losses were heavy on both sides, with the US losing 69 B-17 Flying Fortresses and the Luftwaffe 160 aircraft. But the United States could make up for the losses, but Germany could no longer do so.
Berlin, autumn 1944, victims of the bombing.
Then, until the beginning of 1945, Allied air power switched to supporting the landing troops in France. And a new major raid on Berlin took place only on February 3, 1945. Nearly 1,000 Eighth Air Force B-17 bombers, covered by long-range Mustang fighters, bombed the Berlin railroad system. According to intelligence data, the German Sixth Panzer Army was being transferred through Berlin to the eastern front. This was one of the few times when the US Air Force carried out a massive attack on the city center. James Doolittle, commander of the Eighth Air Force, objected. But Eisenhower insisted, since the attack on Berlin was given great political significance in that the raid was carried out to help the Soviet advance on the Oder, east of Berlin, and was important for Allied unity. The bombing caused great destruction and fires, which continued for four days. The boundaries of the fire were localized only by water barriers and green areas of parks. German air defense by this time was very weakened, so that out of 1,600 aircraft that took part in the raid, only 36 were shot down. A large number of architectural monuments were destroyed. Government buildings were also damaged, including the Reich Chancellery, the NSDAP office, the Gestapo headquarters and the building of the so-called "People's Court". Among the dead was the notorious Ronald Freisler, head of the "People's Court". The central streets: Unter den Linden, Wilhelmstrasse and Friedrichstrasse were turned into piles of ruins. The death toll was 2,894, the number of injured reached 20,000 and 120,000 lost their homes. Strategic bomber B-17, "Flying Fortress".
Another major raid on February 26, 1945 left 80,000 people homeless. Anglo-American air raids on Berlin continued until April, while the Red Army was outside the city. In the last days of the war, the Soviet Air Force also bombed Berlin, including with the help of Il-2 attack aircraft. By this time, the city's air defense, infrastructure and civil defense were on the verge of collapse. Later, statisticians calculated that there were almost thirty-nine cubic meters of rubble for every Berlin resident. Until the end of March 1945 there had been a total of 314 air raids on Berlin, 85 of them in the last twelve months. Half of all houses were damaged and about a third were uninhabitable; as much as 16 km² of the city were just piles of rubble. Estimates of the total number of deaths in Berlin from air raids range from 20,000 to 50,000. For comparison, the death toll in one attack on Dresden on February 14, 1945 and on Hamburg in one raid in 1943 were approximately 30,000 and 40,000 people, respectively. The relatively low number of casualties in Berlin indicates excellent air defense and good bomb shelters.
Air defense tower "Zoo", April 1942.
The Nazi regime was well aware of the political need to protect the Reich's capital from airborne destruction. Even before the war, work had begun to create an extensive system of public air-raid shelters, but by 1939 only 15% of the planned 2,000 shelters had been built. By 1941, however, five huge government air-raid shelters were completely ready and could accommodate up to 65,000 people. Other shelters were built under government buildings, the most famous being the so-called bunker under the Imperial Chancellery. In addition, many metro stations were used as bomb shelters. The rest of the population was forced to take refuge in their basements. In 1943, the Germans decided to evacuate people whose presence in Berlin was not dictated by the needs of the war. By 1944, 1.2 million people, 790,000 of them women and children, about a quarter of the city's population, were evacuated to rural areas. An attempt was made to evacuate all children from Berlin, but this was met with resistance from parents and many evacuees soon returned to the city (as was the case in London in 1940-41). Growing labor shortages meant that women's labor was important to retain for Berlin's industry, so the evacuation of all women and children failed. At the end of 1944, the city's population began to grow again, due to refugees fleeing the Red Army. Although the refugees were officially denied permission to stay in Berlin for more than two days, at least 50,000 managed to stay in Berlin. By January 1945 the population was about 2.9 million, although the German military's requirements were limited to only 100 thousand men aged 18-30. The other 100,000 needed to clear the city were mainly French "fremdarbeiter" ("foreign workers") and Russian "ostarbeiter" ("eastern workers"). The key to Berlin's air defense were three huge towers , on which contained searchlights and 128mm anti-aircraft guns, as well as a shelter system for civilians. These towers were in the Berlin Zoo in Tiergarten, in Humboldtshain and Friedrichshain. The towers were increasingly staffed by teenagers from the Hitler Youth, as older men were called up to the front.
Ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin; destroyed by Allied bombing and preserved as a monument.
June 13, 1944 - the first combat use of German V-1 cruise missiles struck London.
For the first time in history, the Germans began air bombing, and they were the first to launch rocket attacks on cities. In total, about 30,000 devices were manufactured. By 29 March 1945, approximately 10,000 had been launched across England; 3,200 fell on her territory, of which 2,419 reached London, causing losses of 6,184 killed and 17,981 wounded. Londoners called the V-1 "flying bombs" and also "buzz bombs" because of the characteristic sound made by the pulsating air-breathing engine.
About 20% of the missiles failed at launch, 25% were destroyed by British aircraft, 17% were shot down by anti-aircraft guns, 7% were destroyed when colliding with barrage balloons. The engines often failed before reaching the target and also engine vibration often disabled the rocket, so that about 20% of the V-1s fell into the sea. A British report published after the war showed that 7,547 V-1s were launched into England. The report states that of these, 1,847 were destroyed by fighter aircraft, 1,866 were destroyed by anti-aircraft artillery, 232 were destroyed by barrage balloons and 12 by artillery from Royal Navy ships.
A breakthrough in military electronics (the development of radio fuses for anti-aircraft shells - shells with such fuses turned out to be three times more effective even when compared with the latest radar fire control for that time) led to the fact that the losses of German shell aircraft in raids on England increased from 24% up to 79%, as a result of which the effectiveness (and intensity) of such raids was significantly reduced.
Memorial plaque on Grove Road, Mile End in London commemorating the site of the first V-1 shell falling on 13 June 1944, which killed 11 Londoners
In late December 1944, General Clayton Bissell presented a report indicating significant advantages of the V1 over traditional aerial bombing.
They prepared the following table:
| Blitz | V1 | |
| 1. Cost for Germany | ||
| Departures | 90 000 | 8025 |
| Bomb weight, tons | 61 149 | 14 600 |
| Fuel consumed, tons | 71 700 | 4681 |
| Aircraft lost | 3075 | 0 |
| Lost crew | 7690 | 0 |
| 2. Results | ||
| Structures destroyed/damaged | 1 150 000 | 1 127 000 |
| Population losses | 92 566 | 22 892 |
| Ratio of losses to bomb consumption | 1,6 | 4,2 |
| 3. Cost for England Air Force efforts. |
||
| Departures | 86 800 | 44 770 |
| Aircraft lost | 1260 | 351 |
| Lost man | 2233 | 805 |
V-1 on the launch catapult.
On September 8, 1944, the first combat launch of a V-2 rocket was made against London. The number of missile combat launches was 3,225. The missiles hit mostly civilians (about 2,700 people died). Hitler was haunted by the idea of producing a heavy missile that would bring retribution to England. By his personal order, from the end of July 1943, huge production potential was directed to create a rocket, which later received the propaganda name “V-2”.
The Minister of Armaments of the Third Reich, Albert Speer, later wrote in his memoirs:
A ridiculous idea. In 1944, for several months, armadas of enemy bombers dropped an average of 300 tons of bombs per day, and Hitler could have rained down on England three dozen missiles with a total yield of 24 tons per day, the equivalent of the bomb load of only a dozen Flying Fortresses. I not only agreed with this decision of Hitler, but also supported him, making one of my most serious mistakes. It would be much more productive to concentrate our efforts on the production of defensive surface-to-air missiles. Such a rocket was developed back in 1942 under the code name “Wasserfall” (Waterfall).
The first missile with a combat charge was fired at Paris. The next day they began shelling London. The British knew about the existence of the German rocket, but at first they did not understand anything and thought (when at 18:43 on September 8 there was a strong explosion in the Chiswick area) that the gas main had exploded (since there was no air raid warning). After repeated explosions, it became clear that the gas lines had nothing to do with it. And only when, near one of the craters, an air defense officer picked up a piece of pipe frozen with liquid oxygen, it became clear that this was a new Nazi weapon (they called it a “weapon of retaliation” - German Vergeltungswaffe). The effectiveness of the combat use of the V-2 was extremely low: the missiles had low hit accuracy (only 50% of the launched missiles hit a circle with a diameter of 10 km) and low reliability (out of 4,300 launched missiles, more than 2,000 exploded on the ground or in the air during launch, or failed in flight). Data on the number of missiles launched and reaching targets vary. According to various sources, the launch of 2,000 missiles sent over seven months to destroy London resulted in the deaths of over 2,700 people (each missile killed one or two people).
To drop the same amount of explosives as was dropped by the Americans using the four-engine B-17 (Flying Fortress) bombers, 66,000 V-2s would have to be used, which would have taken 6 years to produce.
The German government announced that London was being attacked by rockets only on November 8th. And on November 10, Churchill, speaking in the House of Commons, told parliament and the world that London had been subject to missile attacks over the past few weeks. According to British estimates, 2,754 civilians were killed and 6,523 wounded by V-2 rockets in London. The accuracy of hits increased during the war years and missile strikes sometimes caused significant destruction, accompanied by many deaths. So on November 25, 1944, a department store in southeast London was destroyed. 160 people were killed and 108 were seriously injured. After such devastating strikes, British intelligence organized a “leak” of falsified information that the missiles were flying 10 - 20 km over London. This tactic worked and most of the rockets began to fall in Kent without causing much damage.
The last two rockets exploded on March 27, 1945. One of them killed Mrs Ivy Millichamp, 34, in her home in Kent.
And this is a V-2 victim in Antwerp, Belgium, 1944.
I shared with you the information that I “dug up” and systematized. At the same time, he is not at all impoverished and is ready to share further, at least twice a week. If you find errors or inaccuracies in the article, please let us know. My e-mail address: [email protected]. I will be very grateful.
Consequences of the Allied bombing of Germany. Photo by US National Archives and Records Administration
“We will take revenge on the Russians for Hiroshima!” Journalists often heard this phrase from Japanese schoolchildren. Indeed, a significant part of schoolchildren and students in the Land of the Rising Sun do not know who dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
At all times, wars were fought by men. They killed their male enemies, and their wives and children became their subjects or slaves. However, at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, England, France and the USA needed territories without population. Thus, in the USA and Canada, 95 of the 111 million Indians - the indigenous inhabitants of the North American continent - were destroyed.
When the British arrived in Australia, the local population ranged from 500 thousand to 1 million people; in 1921, no more than 60 thousand remained. There were only 5 thousand Aboriginal people on the island of Tasmania; by 1935, every single one of them had been killed. Let me note that the island of Tasmania is twice the size of Belgium.
Lieutenant Boris Aprelev’s story about the British order in Africa, which he observed during the passage of the cruiser “Varyag” from Japan to Murmansk in 1915, is interesting: “Another interesting find for us on the island of Mahe (Seychelles. - A.Sh.) was who lived there the king of the black tribe of cannibals, the Ashantis, is captured by the British. This king and several of his generals were the only surviving specimens of these gourmets of the human race.
The English, with their characteristic determination, sent troops against this tribe, who without regret destroyed the entire tribe, with the exception of the king and several of his associates.”
In fact, the Ashanti were not cannibals at all; they had a relatively large state that existed in the 17th–19th centuries on the territory of what is now Ghana, then called the Gold Coast. This name is the essence of the conflict between the British and the Ashanti. The British regularly demanded tribute in gold. Moreover, the British governor of the Gold Coast, Frederick Mitchell Hodgson, demanded the golden throne from the Ashanti king, which was a symbol of power in the Ashanti state. Naturally, the enlightened sailors preferred to keep silent about gold, but they recorded all Ashanti as cannibals.
It is not surprising that the illiterate Aprelev believed the British fairy tale. What’s worse is that he spoke with delight about British practice and dreamed of applying it in Russia.
The creation of long-range bomber aircraft in England and the United States was perceived as an ideal means for exterminating enemy civilians. However, at the beginning of World War II, London decided to pretend to be white and fluffy. On September 14, 1939, 11 days after the outbreak of World War II, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, speaking in the House of Commons, solemnly declared: “No matter how far others may be willing to go, His Majesty’s Government will never deliberately attack women.” , children and other civilians with the intent to intimidate them.”
Six months after the start of the war, on February 15, 1940, speaking in the House of Commons, the British Prime Minister Chamberlain confirmed an earlier statement: “No matter what others do, our government will never vilely attack women and other civilians for the sole purpose of to terrorize them."
But on the night of May 12, 1940, 36 British Whitley and Hampdam bombers bombed the city of Mönchengladbach. Some of the bombs fell in the city center. Four civilians were killed, including an English citizen. Well, after this, until May 9, 1945, British and then American bombers were engaged in the total extermination of the civilian population of Germany. The Allies bombed 80 German cities. Among those killed, there were 6.5 times more women than men, and the number of children and old people was slightly less than half.
From 1940 to 1945, the British and Americans dropped 2.028 million tons of bombs on Europe. Of these: 50% went to Germany; 22% - France; 14% - Italy; 7% – Yugoslavia and Greece; 7% – Belgium and the Netherlands.
Germany's losses from these bombings ranged (according to various estimates) from 500 thousand to 1.5 million civilians. For comparison: 60.5 thousand people died from German air raids in England. In France, from 49 to 65 thousand civilians became victims of allied air raids.
The most disgusting thing is that the Americans justified the most barbaric bombing of European cities with requests from the Soviet government. Thus, the most brutal bombing of Berlin was justified by the fact that a tank division was being transferred through the city to the Eastern Front. And, they say, the Russians asked... The division was indeed transferred, but 200 km to the south, and no one asked the Yankees to bomb Berlin.
The bombing of Dresden was to be carried out before the start of the Yalta Conference in order to scare Stalin. But the weather let us down. Nevertheless, the Americans announced that they carried out the destruction of the city at the request of the Soviets.
Small European countries were also affected. Thus, British bombers carried out the first raid on Czechoslovakia on April 29, 1942. Well, on the night of April 17, 1943, 600 Wellington, Sterling and Halifax strategic bombers bombed factories in the city of Pilsen, the fourth largest city in the Czech Republic. 37 bombers were shot down. The factories were on fire. One of the pilots boasted: “We all had the impression that hell was below us.”
The factories of the Skoda concern were not damaged. On the night of May 14, 1943, the British attacked them again: 141 bombers dropped 527 tons of bombs a few kilometers from the desired location. At the same time, the Allied losses amounted to nine aircraft.
The city of Brno was subjected to massive American air raids on August 25 and October 20, 1944. Of the city's 26,287 houses, 1,277 were destroyed and 13,723 were damaged during these raids. Over 1,500 civilians were killed.
On September 20, October 14 and December 6, 1944, American four-engine Liberator bombers carried out massive raids on Bratislava.
At noon on February 14, 1945, 60 American bombers raided Prague, where there were obviously no military installations. In just five minutes (from 12.35 to 12.40) the bombers flew over residential areas and dropped bombs on Smichov, Pankrac, Visegrad, Charles Square, Vinohrady and Vrsovice. During this time, more than 700 people died and 1,184 were injured. The bombing did not affect strategic objects. Stations, bridges and factories survived.
The greatest intensity of American air raids on Czechoslovak cities occurred in April-May 1945. I am sure that many readers will be indignant: the author is confusing something, because at that time the Red Army was literally nearby. That is why the Americans brutally bombed Czech factories and transport hubs. For them, the Second World War was already over, they were thinking about the third!
I will give just a few examples.
February 7 and March 26, 1945 - massive raids on Bratislava. April 25 – 307 flying fortresses bomb Pilsen. Six B-17s were shot down and four were damaged beyond repair.
The most curious thing is that the Allied bombings, which led to large casualties among civilians, had virtually no effect on the production of Czech factories. As an example, I will give data on the production of Hetzer anti-tank self-propelled guns at the Skoda plant for 1944–1945.
On February 17, 1945, the Americans dropped 55 tons of incendiary and 170 tons of high-explosive bombs on the resort town of Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary).
Intensive bombing of military factories in Czechoslovakia continued on May 1, 3, and even 9, 1945.
On April 6, 1941, British aircraft bombed Bulgarian cities without declaring war. Six Wellington bombers bombed Sofia. In the capital, 14 buildings were completely destroyed, 18 people were killed and 28 were injured. In addition, twin-engine Blenheim bombers attacked the cities of Petrich and Khotovo.
During the American bombing of Sofia in 1944, 4,208 civilians were killed and 4,749 wounded.
Over Bulgaria until August 26, 1944, 120 allied aircraft were shot down and another 71 damaged. The Allies lost 585 pilots and crew members in the skies of Bulgaria. Of these, 329 people were captured, 187 were killed and 69 died of wounds in hospitals.
Well, in the 21st century, black has become white, and vice versa. On October 4, 2010, in Sofia, in the presence of the American ambassador, a monument was inaugurated... to the American pilots who bombed the Bulgarian capital.
The Bulgarian rulers and the Yankees knew what they were doing. The monument was erected on the well-guarded territory of the US Embassy behind a high metal fence.
So, American pilots are knights without fear or reproach. Well, who are the villains? Naturally, Russians! They bombed all of Europe.
For example, the little-known Polish historian Timotheus Pawlowski burst out with the article “Stalin’s Falcons over Warsaw.” He states: “The Germans and Russians were equally responsible for the bombs dropped on the Polish capital during the Second World War.
Already on June 22, 1941, planes with red stars appeared over Polish cities. The first bloody air raid on Warsaw took place the next evening at 19.17. Several bombers attempted to destroy bridges across the Vistula. But they missed a little: the bombs hit the riverbed, the Bolshoi Theater building and a tram crowded with people returning from work. 34 Poles died."
During the war, Soviet aviation did not conduct strategic bombings, that is, special raids deep behind enemy lines with the aim of destroying large cities and killing civilians. Let me note that our Air Force did not have four-engine strategic bombers, except for the TB-7, of which less than 80 (!) were produced in total in the pre-war and war years.
For comparison, in 1941–1945 the production of four-engine bombers in England was: Stirling - 1631 units, Lancaster - 7300 units. In the USA: “Flying Fortresses” B-17-21 – 277 units, “Liberator” – 18,023 units.
It is curious that the well-known Viktor Suvorov, in his “bestseller” M-Day, reproaches Stalin for not producing enough TB-7, but instead throwing all his energy into the production of front-line aviation. As Rezun writes: “But let's look at Hitler. This is also an aggressor, and that is why it does not have strategic aviation.”
So, due to “its aggressiveness,” the USSR did not have strategic aviation and was physically unable to carry out the deliberate destruction of densely populated cities remote from the front line. The only exceptions were raids in which several dozen vehicles were involved and which pursued mainly propaganda purposes. For example, the raids on Berlin in the fall of 1941.
Warsaw was bombed sporadically, with small forces and exclusively against military targets. So, for example, the 212th DBAP, consisting of three flights of 8 (DB-3 type - A.Sh.) aircraft, in the period 19.00–20.00 on June 23, 1941, bombed the Prague railway junction, a cartridge and shell plant on the western outskirts Warsaw and Mokotov airfield. Here are the lines from the report:
“a) The first link of the 1st squadron, consisting of two aircraft, bombed the Prague railway junction from an altitude of 8000 m, dropping 20 FAB-100 bombs. The hit results are good. Some bombs fell on station buildings.
b) The first link of the 2nd squadron, consisting of three aircraft, bombed a cartridge and shell factory on the western outskirts of Warsaw from an altitude of 8000 m. 30 FAB-100 bombs were dropped, resulting in explosions and fire. In the area, targets were fired upon by anti-aircraft artillery fire.
c) The first link of the 3rd squadron, consisting of two aircraft, bombed the Mokotov airfield from an altitude of 7000 m, dropping 15 FAB-100 bombs. The hits are good. Senior Lieutenant Pozdnyakov dropped 5 of the 10 bombs on the plane, the rest were brought back due to Pozdnyakov’s lack of experience.”
I note that Prague and Mokotow are suburbs of Warsaw. Moreover, German aviation was based at the airfield in Mokotovo. And subsequently, small groups of long-range bombers carried out targeted strikes on military targets in Germany and in the General Government (as Poland was then called).
Well, who was the first to bomb European cities across squares? It’s very funny, but the Poles did it. Here is a note in the Polish newspaper “Minute” dated September 6 (!), 1939: “Raid of 30 Polish bombers on Berlin.”
On September 7, 1939, the German 4th Panzer Division began fighting on the outskirts of Warsaw. In a large city with difficult terrain, the Poles decided to hold out until the last. However, the Luftwaffe did not bomb them. From September 16 to 24, the Germans dropped several million leaflets over Warsaw calling on civilians to leave the city. And only on September 25, the Luftwaffe launched a massive attack on military installations in Warsaw. The latter was confirmed by a report to Paris from the French military attaché, General Armango.
One way or another, the bombing of Warsaw on September 25 cannot be called strategic. This is classic close air support for ground units located 2–12 km away.
Many previously non-existent countries, which, by the will of fate, gained independence in the 20th century, had to create their own mythologized history, which must have included genocide of their villainous neighbors. Thus, in Kyiv, the capture of the hetman’s capital Baturyn by Aleksashka Menshikov on November 2, 1708 was declared genocide. Now a memorial has been built in Baturyn in memory of the genocide of the Ukrainian people.
The Estonians decided not to be left behind and declared the Soviet bomber raid on Tallinn on the night of March 9-10, 1944 a genocide. In Tallinn, a corresponding memorial was also erected on Harju Street. The well-known Viktor Suvorov claims that 1,725 high-explosive and 1,300 incendiary bombs were dropped that night. The bombs allegedly killed 554 Estonian citizens, 50 German soldiers and 121 prisoners of war.
So, did the Germans commit a war crime and set up a prisoner of war camp next to a military facility in the center of Tallinn? Or are we talking about traitors who entered the service of the Germans?
Estonian media are outraged that the Niguliste Church and the city synagogue were destroyed. By the way, the Germans installed an air defense system sound trap on the bell tower of the Church of St. Nicholas. It is curious that back in January 1942, the Tallinn self-government proudly reported to Berlin that Estonia had now been turned into a Judenfrei - a zone free of Jews. That is, by January 1942, the good Estonians killed or sent all local Jews to German concentration camps.
So what happened in the synagogue that was hit by the raid? German military warehouse? When should you believe Viktor Suvorov? When does he write that Tallinn was a “completely undefended city”? Or a few lines later, where they talk about 25 shot down Soviet bombers? Who shot them down? In what cases does Rezun lie? Or both at once?
An interesting message was published on the official website of the American diplomatic mission in Estonia on the occasion of the anniversary of the March raid: “This air raid is notable both for the shocking number of casualties and for its ineffectiveness in military terms. As many as 300 Soviet bombers dropped more than 3 thousand high-explosive and incendiary bombs on Tallinn, wiping out one third of the city and causing devastating damage to the citizens and cultural sites of Tallinn.”
Let's see what really happened again. In June and July 1941, German aircraft brutally bombed Tallinn. Most of the damage had not been repaired by September 1944. In 1942–1943, Soviet planes carried out only single raids on the port of Tallinn.
On January 4, 1944, 55 Soviet divisions, 18 brigades and five fortified areas went on the offensive and completely liberated Leningrad. Within 48 days, units of the Red Army advanced 220–280 km. However, on March 1, 1944, they were stopped by the Germans in the Narva area.
Why did our advance stop? The Germans managed to transfer a large group of troops to this area. How? By sea. The only port in the Gulf of Finland controlled by the Germans was Tallinn. I note that the construction of this port took many decades - from the time of Catherine II to Nicholas II. The last Russian emperor ordered Revel to be made the main base of the Baltic Fleet. Subsequently, Tallinn became not only the main transit point for German troops in the Baltic states, but also the base of German forces blocking the entrance to the Gulf of Finland.
In addition, 90% of German transit to Finland went through the port of Tallinn. In the winter of 1943–1944, the port of Tallinn did not freeze, but by March 15, all Soviet ports in the Baltic were covered with thick ice, that is, neither surface ships nor submarines could act against German convoys. All hope was placed on aviation.
At 6 o'clock in the morning on March 9, 1944, a Pe-2 reconnaissance aircraft passed over Tallinn. According to a secret report, he discovered six military transports and two Zibel landing ships in the port of Tallinn. And a few kilometers from the port there were two convoys, each of which had a transport escorted by two guards.
The Estonian media, describing the genocide of March 9–10, mutter something indistinctly about the actions of the underground, who blew up several objects in the center of Tallinn the day before. I note that a week before the raid, underground fighters blew up a workshop at the Luther plant. Rhetorical question: where is the destruction from the explosions of the underground and where is the destruction from the bombings?
In the raid on March 9–10 in Tallinn, the German naval arsenal was destroyed, a military train and a gas storage facility with a capacity of 586 thousand liters were burned, a chemical plant and the Gestapo building were destroyed, which, by the way, is now occupied by the Estonian Security Police.
According to the Long-Range Aviation Headquarters (LAA), in March 1944, Tallinn was covered by five 88-105 mm anti-aircraft batteries and four batteries with 20-37 mm machine guns. The city was patrolled by Me-109 day fighters and Me-110 night fighters.
How did the subsequent bombing of Tallinn go? Here is a typical example: a raid on the night of September 22, 1944 by the 44th ADD division consisting of 18 B-25 bombers.
The purpose of the raid was to destroy German transports in the port. The aiming point is an oil storage facility in the port. Flight altitude – 4500–4700 m. No losses. One bomber was damaged by anti-aircraft fire.
The fantastic success of Western propaganda in creating a “new” history of the Second World War that has nothing to do with the real one is largely explained by the toothlessness of Soviet and now Russian propaganda.
Why has there still not been an analysis of the actions of the strategic aviation of the United States and England? Why haven't the casualties and destruction in hundreds of cities across Europe been counted? Why has the effectiveness of strategic bombing not been determined?
Yes, several Russian historians are doing this on their own initiative. For example, in 2016 my monograph “Bombing Europe” was published. The circulation is funny - 1500 copies. There were no responses from military historical institutes, ministries of defense and culture.
What books has the Department of Defense published over 73 years about strategic bombing by the United States and England? In addition to translations from English, only the secret book “Air Defense of Berlin during the Second World War” (1947), and even then in a meager circulation.
Western media have long been assuring the world that Germany was defeated by US strategic aviation. Alas, the vast majority of Americans and the population of NATO countries believe in this myth. No one is interested in the fact that military production in Germany, despite all the raids of the Western Allies, grew steadily until the very end of 1944. And then a decline began due to the seizure of military factories and sources of raw materials by the Red Army.
The effectiveness of American bombing of Germany can be shown in comparison with the bombing of Vietnam in 1966-1975. The American Air Force dropped 20 times (!) more bombs on Vietnam than on Germany, Italy, and France combined in 1942–1945. As a result, the Americans suffered a shameful defeat in Vietnam and were forced to retreat.
|
|
1943 was the time when a massive air offensive against German cities began. At this stage, the power of bombing attacks increased; the bomb load on each aircraft increased first from one ton to more than two tons, and then to 3.5 tons. In addition, some specially built aircraft were capable of carrying up to 10 tons of bombs. By the end of the year, the British Royal Air Force had up to 717 heavy four-engine bombers at its disposal for long-range raids. In addition, by this time a group of American Air Forces of up to 100 four-engine bombers had been deployed in England.
The attacks became more massive and more destructive; Allied bombers penetrated further and further into German territory.
The rate of relative bomber losses was becoming lower and lower, although it was still at a high level. In 1942 the RAF was losing one bomber for every 40 tons of bomb load dropped. In 1943, the situation improved significantly: this figure became one bomber per 80 tons of bombs. During 1943, the size of the aircraft fleet of the British Bomber Command increased by 50%. Accordingly, until October the average number of vehicles participating in operations in Germany increased significantly.
During 1943, the British Air Force dropped 226,513 tons of bombs on the territory of Germany and the countries of Western Europe it occupied, including 135 thousand tons of bombs dropped on Germany itself. During the 30 most powerful raids, from 500 to a thousand tons of bombs were dropped on targets; in 16 operations - from a thousand to 1500 tons; in 9 - from 1500 to 2 thousand tons; in 3 - over 2 thousand tons of bombs.
Beginning with the raid on Lübeck during 1942–1943. 60% of all bombs dropped were in residential areas.
Since June 1943, US Air Force aircraft began to regularly carry out daytime strikes on the most important industrial facilities, primarily mechanical engineering and aviation industry enterprises. A related purpose of the American air raids was to challenge German fighters, since American bombers were also escorted by long-range fighters capable of reaching the Elbe. It was assumed that as a result of such battles of attrition, supremacy in the skies would eventually pass to Allied aircraft.
Despite energetic efforts and large expenditures of material and human resources, the British Bomber Command was unable to fulfill the dual task assigned to it by the Casablanca directive. As a result of the “air offensive,” not only was Germany’s military industry not destroyed, but its volumes were not even significantly reduced. Nor did it succeed in damaging the morale of the civilian population. From the point of view of achieving these goals, the battle for the Ruhr was lost, since, despite all the efforts of Bomber Command, despite all the losses, military production in the areas exposed to attacks continued to grow steadily. Massive bombing raids on cities in the interior regions of Germany, of course, caused great material damage, but in general they also had little effect on production. When carrying out massive raids on Berlin, the actions of the attacking aircraft were hampered from the very beginning by unfavorable weather conditions, which significantly reduced the effectiveness of the attacks.
Daytime raids by American bombers into the interior of Germany (at first they were carried out without effective fighter cover) cost the attacking side heavy losses, despite the well-armed Flying Fortress aircraft. However, these losses in equipment and people, no matter how high they were, could easily be made up for by the enormous resources of the United States. In the second half of the year, during daylight raids, 14 fighter aircraft factories located in various parts of Germany were attacked and suffered significant damage.
No matter how perfect and effective the German air defense system was, it was unable to repel Allied air attacks. However, these attacks did not have a significant impact on the state of the country's economy. The number of bombers shot down remained approximately the same, but the number of raids on German territory increased 4 times. This means that the country's fighter forces are constantly and increasingly dwindling. In 1943, the total number of German fighters shot down or seriously damaged in air battles was 10,660.
"Small Lightning"By the start of the fifth year of the war, Germany was increasingly suffering from intimidation raids deep into its territory, and the Luftwaffe now attempted a last-ditch attempt to retaliate into enemy territory and force the enemy to reduce the number of raids. For this retaliation operation, which was destined to go down in the history of the air war under the name “Little Lightning,” up to 550 aircraft were assembled from all fronts. The operation was supposed to involve everything that was capable of flying, including half-worn equipment, as well as a large number of fighter-bombers. This improvised air squadron, after a three-year break, resumed raids on England. From the end of January to the end of April 1944, 12 raids were carried out, during which 275 tons of bombs were dropped on London and 1,700 tons on other targets in southern England.
The stock had to be discontinued due to extremely high levels of losses, sometimes reaching almost 50%. And all this happened at a time when bombers were especially needed to prevent the landing of troops in Europe, which the Allies were preparing. During the operation, the British suffered losses and suffered damage, but this did not really affect the course of the war. It was impossible to get even one photo to assess the damage caused to London, since daytime flights over England were no longer possible. The Luftwaffe adopted the tactics of the British Air Force and switched to night raids. Target access areas were designated by missiles launched by target designation aircraft; most of the bomb load consisted of incendiary bombs. By dropping heavy mines and high-explosive bombs, the Germans hoped to interfere with the work of the firefighters and help the fire spread. Some of these raids resulted in between 150 and 600 fires, but thanks to the well-organized national fire service and the work of volunteer firefighting groups, fires rarely spread over large areas.
The “Little Lightning” strike, as representatives of the British administration put it, was short and intense. Casualties in southern England reached 2,673. In addition, it was noticeable that residents reacted to the raids more painfully than in 1940–1941. during the Germans' Operation Lightning (Blitz).
In Germany, the Luftwaffe command center created in 1941 was renamed the Reich Air Fleet. It was reorganized according to new tasks. Approximately one third of the Luftwaffe's forces were now occupied on the Eastern Front and another sixth in the Mediterranean area. The remaining aircraft were used on the Western Front and to defend German territory. The air defense forces consisted almost entirely of fighters. In constant battles with the Americans for supremacy in the sky, they were rapidly melting away. In January, the number of downed and damaged aircraft was 1,115 aircraft, in February - 1,118, in March - 1,217. The Germans had the opportunity to find replacements for the lost aircraft, but their reserves of trained flight personnel were exhausted. Thus, by the spring of 1944, the results of the battle for supremacy in the skies of Germany were practically a foregone conclusion, and the resistance of the daylight fighter forces was almost completely broken. As Churchill writes in the fifth volume of his memoirs, “this was the turning point of the air war.”
Anglo-American air forces involved in air strikes on German territory began to increasingly use “double strikes” tactics: the first raid was carried out in the afternoon, and the bombers participating in it returned to their bases in the evening under cover of darkness. At this time they were already being replaced by night bombers. They easily found targets by dropping bombs in areas of fires formed at the sites of daytime bombing.
The first daylight raid on Vienna took place in March 1944. The Allies were now able to carry out strategic bombing of Germany almost around the clock. Thus, at last, the goal was achieved, which Air Marshal Harris had so persistently striven for since he took command of Bomber Command in 1942.
At the end of March 1944, Bomber Command was reorganized in connection with the upcoming landing in Europe. For some time it lost its independence. Despite all the opposition of the Bomber Commander, the Royal Air Force was transferred to the subordination of the Supreme Commander of the invasion forces, General Eisenhower. After this, the massive air offensive against German cities, which had been going on for nine months, from June 10, 1943 to March 25, 1944, was temporarily suspended. German cities received a temporary respite. During the period two months before and two months after the start of the Normandy landings, there were no massive attacks on them.
At that time, the British Bomber Command had only 15% of its previous forces and assets at its disposal to conduct operations in its own interests. These greatly reduced resources were used to continue raids on German aviation industry enterprises, as well as strikes on cities in the eastern part of the country (Königsberg, Marienburg, Gdynia and Posen (Poznan). At the end of June 1944, after attacks on synthetic fuel plants in Cottbus American bombers landed on Soviet airfields in Poltava and Mirgorod. The next day they went from there to bomb oil fields in Galicia, and then on airfields in Italy. From Italy, American bombers returned to their bases in England, raiding railway junctions in Southern France.The total length of their route was 12 thousand kilometers.This was the beginning of a new tactic that no one had ever used before.
Second massive attack on German citiesNo sooner had British Bomber Command been relieved of the task of supporting the invasion of Europe following the Allied victory at Normandy than Marshal Harris once again concentrated the full might of his now even larger squadrons of day and night bombers on achieving his cherished goal: the devastation and destruction of the cities of Germany. And this goal was now much closer to realization, since allied aviation had complete control of the initiative in the sky. A new hail of bombs fell on the already dilapidated German cities. Since there was nothing left to burn there, high-explosive ammunition was now used primarily, the caliber and effectiveness of which had increased noticeably. The new purpose of the bombing was to force the population of cities, left without a roof over their heads, to leave the cities.
In August 1944, for the first time it was possible to say that the actions of Allied bomber aircraft were linked to combat operations on the ground. For example, the advance of American troops through Trier to Mannheim and further to Darmstadt seemed inevitable, since American aircraft raids on cities in southern Germany that lay on the path of the proposed advance of troops became more frequent. Further, during the attack on Aachen and beyond, cities that were in the path of the attackers, for example, Jülich and Düren, were also attacked. Jülich was 97% bombed, and Düren was practically wiped off the face of the earth: 5 thousand people were killed, only 6 buildings remained in the city.
At the start of this second air offensive, British Bomber Command received new instructions. At the end of September, the Joint Goal Planning Committee assigned tasks to him in order of priority:
1. Further carpet bombing with intensive day and night raids.
2. Regular targeted attacks on fuel production plants in Germany.
3. Destruction of the transport system of West Germany.
4. As auxiliary tasks - striking various major industrial facilities.
From this time on, the Royal Air Force began to conduct some operations during the day. Now they could afford it without putting the bomber crews at risk, since by that time the German fighters were practically swept out of the sky. And, despite the fact that warning radars continued to regularly report almost all raids, there were so many of them that ground-based air defense systems had even less ability to repel air strikes than before.
At the same time as terror raids continued on urban development areas, the Royal Air Force began conducting raids against selected industrial sites. During the last 18 months of the war, British aviation had at its disposal virtually all modern means of air warfare, such as radar and radio guidance and target designation devices, which significantly increased the accuracy of bombing even at night, although carpet bombing was still the favorite weapon of the British. The Americans also began to practice night flights, but their attacks were aimed primarily at industrial facilities. In October 1944, 42,246 tons of bombs were dropped on German cities, compared with 14,312 tons dropped on industrial plants.
During the last few months of the war, American and British air tactics, which had originally been different in theory and practice, became virtually identical. The often-held opinion that the British acted mainly against cities, and the Americans simply cleared the way for the advancing troops, is a clear simplification of the problem. Long painful experience had taught the inhabitants of German cities to consider the raids of the Royal Air Force of England a greater evil than the daylight raids of American bombers, but everyone soon realized that there was not much difference between them.
For a time, the directive adopted in Casablanca in 1943 established a certain division of labor: the US Air Force attacked industrial targets during the day, while the British Air Force destroyed cities and residential areas at night. However, closer to the end of the war, the tactics and goals of the Allies became similar; both sides, as it turned out, began to adhere to a single concept of using bomber aircraft. According to official data from the US Air Force, as a result of the actions of American aircraft under the cover of night or dense clouds, 80 thousand Germans were killed and about 13 thousand residential buildings in German settlements were destroyed.
Fuel delivery and military industryIn July 1944, 12 of Germany's largest synthetic fuel plants were each subjected to heavy air strikes at least once. As a result, production volumes, which usually amounted to 316 thousand tons per month, decreased to 107 thousand tons. The production of synthetic fuel continued to decline until in September 1944 this figure was only 17 thousand tons. Production of high-octane gasoline, the “blood that supplied the heart of the Luftwaffe,” fell from 175 thousand tons in April to 30 thousand tons in July and to 5 thousand tons in September.
Beginning in May 1944, needs significantly outpaced supply capabilities, and within six months all fuel reserves were exhausted. Luftwaffe planes could not take off due to lack of fuel. At the same time, the moving parts of the Wehrmacht also lost their mobility. The targets of air strikes were also factories for the production of artificial rubber "buna", as well as enterprises for the production of fixed nitrogen, necessary both for the production of weapons (explosives) and for agricultural needs. The main burden of the fight against fuel production plants (up to approximately 75%) was borne by the US Air Force, but the British Air Force was also involved in these tasks.
The second direction of aviation activity in suppressing the military and industrial power of Germany was the destruction of the transport network. Until September 1944, the German transport network did not experience significant difficulties from air attacks, so the efficiency of highways and railways remained at a fairly high level. However, by the end of October 1944, the weekly number of rolling stock had dropped from 900 thousand cars to 700 thousand, and by the end of the year it had fallen to 214 thousand cars. The damage caused to the country's water transport also began to make itself felt. This particularly concerned the possibility of delivering coal from the mines of the Ruhr Basin to industrial enterprises located in various regions of the country. At the end of October, the Dortmund-Ems canal, which was very important for the country, came under a powerful attack using special 5-ton bombs. As a result, it was incapacitated for more than 20 kilometers.
In August 1944, Allied aircraft began striking tank factories. By the fall of 1944, monthly production volumes at these enterprises fell from 1,616 to 1,552 tanks. However, the effect of these bombings was not long-lasting, and by the end of the year production had increased again to more than 1,854 tanks per month. Important targets were also large factories that produced engines for the needs of the Wehrmacht, such as Opel in Brandenburg, Ford in Cologne and Daimler-Benz in southern Germany.
Since November 1944, Allied aircraft attacked shipbuilding enterprises, primarily shipyards where the latest submarines were being built. Nevertheless, the Germans managed to produce approximately 120 such boats before the end of the war. (Apparently, this refers to the submarines of the XXI series (the head one is U-2501), the most advanced submarines of the Second World War. They had extremely powerful batteries and a high underwater speed (17.2 knots, that is, 31.9 km/h), displacement: 1621 tons surface and 1819 tons underwater, 6 torpedo tubes, 2 twin 20-mm cannons. - Ed.) From time to time, raids were carried out on power plants, factories for the production of optical instruments, engineering enterprises, as well as factories for the production of army uniforms.
Data for 1944In dividing tasks between Allied air units, the British Air Force continued the night carpet bombing that began in the spring of 1942. By the end of 1944, approximately four-fifths of German cities with a population of 100 thousand people or more were destroyed. As the end of the war approached, bombing areas moved further east. In total, 70 large cities were bombed, of which in 23 the percentage of destruction was 60%, and in the rest - “only” 50%.
In turn, the Americans continued daytime raids on the most important industrial facilities, while simultaneously joining the fight with the Luftwaffe for air supremacy. The rapid increase in the number of raids by heavy bombers indicated that the air offensive was gaining strength and becoming increasingly devastating. Beginning in February 1944, long-range fighters were able to accompany bombers on combat missions to almost any depth in German territory. At the same time, the average number of bombers participating in such raids increased from 400 to 900 vehicles, and their maximum number increased from 550 to 1200. During the year, 680 thousand tons of bombs were dropped on Germany.
In 1944, the average number of heavy bombers of the British Air Force operating against targets in Germany reached 1,120 aircraft, and light high-speed bombers - up to 100 aircraft.
As for the Luftwaffe's capabilities to counter Allied aviation, the forces of the German side were dwindling every day. This happened not so much due to a lack of equipment, but because of exorbitant losses in trained flight personnel, as well as due to a shortage of high-octane aviation gasoline. In 1944, the average number of Luftwaffe officer and enlisted casualties per month was 1,472.
Every day the difficulties with the tactical deployment of German aviation forces became more and more significant. Of the approximately 700 fighters that could be used in the fight against US Air Force raiding aircraft, only about 30 aircraft could enter the battle. The anti-aircraft artillery batteries were gradually knocked out. Germany did not have the opportunity to replace outdated and worn-out guns, the firing range of which was insufficient to destroy aircraft at altitudes from 7.6 to more than 9 kilometers. By the beginning of September 1944, anti-aircraft batteries were armed with only 424 large-caliber anti-aircraft guns capable of firing to such a height. According to official data from the German side, in order to shoot down one heavy bomber, small-caliber anti-aircraft batteries had to spend an average of 4,940 shells costing 7.5 marks each and 3,343 shells of 88-mm anti-aircraft guns costing 80 marks per shell (that is, a total of 267,440 marks ).
Operation Little Lightning, carried out against England at the beginning of the year, was a last desperate attempt to loosen the stranglehold of the ongoing air offensive against German cities. But it didn't give any results. The total number of bombs dropped on England was only one-thirtieth of the bomb load dropped on German cities in 1944. The approximately five months of respite that Germany received during the Allied preparations for the invasion of Europe were spent largely trying to repair the damage suffered as a result of Allied bombing.
1945 Final defeatThe Luftwaffe's last major offensive operation was in support of the Ardennes offensive at the end of 1944. During this operation, Germany lost 320 combat aircraft out of 750 involved in the operation, or 43%, against vastly superior Allied air forces. And by the beginning of 1945, the German Air Force practically ceased to exist as a branch of the armed forces.
Masses of refugees from the East, fleeing the advancing Soviet troops, were now mixed with refugees from the West, trying to escape the advancing Allies. Both of them often mixed with army columns on the roads. In this case, civilians often became targets for attack by enemy aircraft, both from the East and the West, as German territory was rapidly shrinking from both directions.
On the Rhine, the Allied forces were preparing to deliver the final “blow of mercy” (as the blow used to finish off a mortally wounded man was called in the Middle Ages). They methodically built up their already superior forces, both on the ground and in the air. After 18 massive raids on cities lying in the path of the advancing armies, the Allies crossed the Rhine River in the Wesel area, losing only 36 people (March 24. Liddell Hart wrote about this: “... The crisis caused by the threat from the Russians forced the Germans to accept the fatal the decision to sacrifice the defense of the Rhine for the defense of the Oder in order to delay the Russians... The advancing Anglo-American troops were facilitated not only access to the Rhine, but also its crossing” ( Liddell Garth B. The Second World War. Per. from English M., 1976. P. 624). - Ed.).
East of the Rhine, the air confrontation reached its maximum tension, despite the disproportionate strength of the opposing sides and the hopeless situation in which one of them was located. One air strike after another, the planes methodically knocked out everything on the ground that still remained undestroyed, regardless of whether they were targets for attack or not. At the last stage, the air strikes seemed to get out of control, and the bombings took on an apocalyptic character. The latest blows, like a natural disaster, fell on the head of an already desperate population. F. Jünger wrote: “The road of destruction pointed to the path along which the victors walked. It was marked by the ruins of numerous cities and towns.” The incessant bombing was like the exercise of a hapless magician's apprentice who was unable to stop after trying his hand. It also resembled an uncontrollable flow, which there was nothing to stop or at least localize, and it rolled across the country with catastrophic speed, devastating it.
Obviously, one of the sides simply forgot about any borders, beyond which under no circumstances should one go, even when conducting hostilities. The people in command of the bombers seemed to feel omnipotent and not limited in resources. From their point of view, any form of destruction was justified and had no limits. Densely populated urban areas in Germany were completely plunged into this whirlwind of destruction. Even the smallest village became a military target. Small towns that had no significance from an economic or political point of view were destroyed in a row, without any military necessity. Except that sometimes there was a railway station there.
The British military historian Professor C. Falls said after the war: “Perhaps the shortest and most apt comment that could be made on the whole bomber policy would be that those who were supposed to control the activities of aviation, in fact They couldn’t even control themselves.”
The times when massive air strikes were at least countable, when every day another German city was subjected to a destructive raid, have sunk into oblivion. Now destruction and destruction have become a continuous process, powerful air strikes succeeded each other. People did not even have time to be horrified by the gloomy news, since they were immediately replaced by new ones.
And it seemed that this hell, in which death and destruction reigned, did not touch the hearts of the country’s leaders at all. The total war they had once boastfully proclaimed was now knocking on the door of their own home. And it was much more terrible than what they were able to imagine. The German people had to reap the harvest of the hatred that their leadership systematically sowed. Ordinary people, men and women, and their children had to pay the bills. And those who loved to swear on any occasion that all their actions were motivated by love for Germany, suddenly, throwing off their veils, appeared in all their disgusting selfishness. The war was lost, lost long ago, and they understood it. They could have stopped it with one word, thereby saving the German people from unnecessary suffering. But instead, they sought to ensure that as many innocent people as possible shared their now inevitable disastrous fate.
It was during this period that the most destructive of all incendiary bomb attacks occurred.
On February 14, 1945, the city of Dresden suffered a catastrophe of such horrifying proportions that its details will never be known. And on the night of March 17-18, the beautiful small city of Würzburg, built in the Baroque style, was destroyed as a result of a massive attack using incendiary bombs. The fire consumed everything and everyone. After the raid, Bishop Matthias Ehrenfried wrote a memorial address, or rather an epitaph. The city was in his diocese, and the bishop himself was struck to the heart by the thought of “the destruction of this beautiful splendor” and even more so by the fact that “many, many found their death here.”
On March 22, as a result of a powerful, truly devastating air strike carried out in the daytime, another ancient diocese was destroyed. The fire consumed the beautiful medieval town of Hildesheim with its four churches and priceless art collection.
In March alone, the Royal Air Force carried out 24 daytime and 9 nighttime airstrikes on German cities.
On the night of April 3–4, as a result of two powerful raids, the thousand-year-old city of Nordhausen in northern Thuringia was almost completely destroyed.
On April 14, Potsdam with its historical monuments and magnificent royal palace was reduced to ruins.
After the German group in the Ruhr was surrounded (April 1, capitulated on April 17–18), the Allies began new acts of terror. High-speed twin-engine fighter-bombers began raiding small towns, villages and even individual farms. Now it was unsafe even to work in the fields or move along the roads from one village to another: at any moment you could become the target of a surprise attack from the air. These individual lightning raids quickly became a kind of brutal sport. Everything that moved - farmers' carts, people - immediately became targets.
On April 6, Bomber Command received orders from now on to attack cities only in order to provide direct support for the advancing ground forces. Marshall Harris wrote on this occasion: “After the Allies crossed the Rhine and entered deep into German territory, we were ordered to stop all strategic bombing, since the end of the war was about to come. But we continued, day and night, to strike at strong points where our troops faced resistance, highways, and railway junctions, which could still be used against the actions of our advancing armies.”
Ancient small and medium-sized cities were turned into dust and ashes under the sole pretext of “more actively disorganizing the German rear.” As a rule, so much time passed between the destructive air strikes and the occupation that it would be ridiculous to try to explain these raids as military necessity, as numerous authors in the West try to do. For example, the city of Jülich was destroyed on November 16, 1944, but was not occupied until February 23, 1945. Freiburg was severely bombed on November 27, 1944, and Allied troops entered it only in early April 1945. Heilbronn was razed to the ground land on December 4, and was occupied by the Allies only in early April 1945.
Dresden was also subjected to severe air strikes on February 14, 1945, but was not occupied until April of that year. Ulm was destroyed on December 17, 1944, and occupied only on April 24, 1945. Würzburg was subjected to a devastating raid on March 16, occupied on April 1, Bayreuth was brutally bombed from March 5 to 10, and was occupied only on April 18, 1945.
On April 20, Hitler's birthday, one of the most powerful raids on Berlin took place, in which up to a thousand bombers took part. On 25 April, 318 four-engined Lancaster bombers, many of which had been converted to carry specially designed super-heavy 10-ton bombs, destroyed Hitler's official residence, sometimes used for government meetings, in the Obersalzberg area, near Berchtesgaden (in southern Bavaria). On the same day, US Air Force planes made their last daylight raid on Skoda factories in the Czech Republic.
On April 26, the British Bomber Command received instructions to stop strategic bombing. However, isolated attacks using bombers in small groups and especially fighter-bombers for tactical purposes continued until the day of Germany's surrender.
On the night of 2–3 May, Royal Air Force bombers carried out their last massive night raid on railway junctions in central Germany.
On May 3, as a result of a raid by Royal Air Force bombers on the bay of Lubeck, the ships Cap Arcona and Tilbeck were sunk, which led to the death of 7 thousand political prisoners from 24 countries on board.
The last bombs from that war fell on the island of Heligoland. Thus, a vicious circle was closed: after all, it was here that five and a half years ago, in September 1939, the history of the total bomb war began.
From January to the end of April 1945, 404 raids by heavy bombers were carried out on military and civilian targets in Germany. At the same time, 340 thousand tons of bombs were dropped. During the same period, another 148 thousand tons of bombs were dropped in support of ground forces on the battlefield.