The Allies in World War II: The Anglo-American Bombardment of German Cities
Eric Langenbacher
One of the most serious ethical dilemmas in modern warfare is the tension between jus ad bellum (just war) and jus in bello (justice in war) (Walzer, 1977: 21). Are any means justified in fighting a just war? What are legitimate targets in total or unconventional wars, where the distinction between combatant and civilian is blurred and where the entire economy and social life of an enemy power support its ability to fight and perpetrate crimes? Although such questions arise repeatedly in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, they continue to be posed most clearly in the bloodiest war of human history, World War II.
At a general level, however, there are no such dilemmas. In the European theater of that conflagration, the Nazi regime in Germany was a severe threat to all of the values democracies hold dear. It began the hostilities through naked aggression and conducted the war with unprecedented viciousness. Numerous soldiers, members of the party and its affiliated organizations (such as the SS and Gestapo), and many ordinary Germans planned and committed crimes against peace, war crimes and, above all, crimes against humanity, epitomized by the Holocaust (Bartov, 1991). Since the cessation of hostilities, the criminal nature of the regime, its wars, and the genocide it perpetrated have been assiduously documented, and unprecedented efforts were made to hold the criminals responsible, most notably at the Nuremberg Trials (Marrus, 1997). In the face of the Nazi evil, the justice of the Allied side in the struggle against the Third Reich and the necessity of defeating Nazism were and are beyond dispute: this was a quintessentially just war. The difficulty of the military effort is also undeniable, given the resources and power of the enemy and the brutality of the Nazi conduct of this ‘total’ war.
Given the overwhelming justice of the Allied side, relatively little attention has been devoted to the conduct and the actions of the Allies during the hostilities – that is, whether the means used to defeat Hitler’s Germany were also just. A review of the historical record shows that neither the actual combat practice of the Western Allies in battle against the Wehrmacht, nor their treatment of prisoners of war, was questionable. Moreover, the Western occupation regime after 1945 was a paragon of restraint, generosity, and wisdom. What remains very much open to question, however, are the actions undertaken against German civilians during the war itself, specifically the aerial bombardment of Germany by the American (AAF) and British (RAF) Air Forces.1
This chapter explores the campaign of strategic, area, carpet or terror bombing against German cities and civilians between 1942 and 1945, with the intention of determining whether these actions were crimes of war. Such an assessment illuminates the fundamental questions of whether any means, even unjust ones, are acceptable in pursuit of a just end. I argue that these questions are still of utmost importance, because the very values and laws so central to the self-image of democracies, and which the West successfully defended against the Nazi threat, can be undermined and delegitimized if unethical or illegal acts are left unstudied, unacknowledged, and unpunished. I conclude by showing that many in the West acknowledged that excesses had been committed, and that the generous postwar policies toward Germany can be partly explained as an informal way to provide a form of redress and to make amends.
Effects and effectiveness
To examine whether the aerial bombardment of cities was a crime of war, the material effects of the actions need to be investigated, as well as their intent, the questionable legal/ethical nature of the deeds, and knowledge of the consequences on the part of the relevant actors.2
The effects are clear and undisputed. By the end of the war in 1945, every large and medium-sized German city, as well as many smaller ones, had been destroyed or badly damaged by the Allied strategic-bombing offensive. Overall, 2.7 million tons of bombs were dropped, destroying 3.6 million homes (20 per cent of the country’s total), leaving 7.5 million homeless (Kurowski, 1977: 356; USSBS, 1945: 1). Altogether, about 43 per cent of housing in the 61 cities with over 100,000 inhabitants (comprising 25 million people, or 32 per cent of the total population) and 50 per cent of the built-up area were completely destroyed. A further significant proportion of housing was damaged to various degrees (Kurowski, 1995: 204; USSBS, 1945: 72).
The most notable individual raids started with the ‘Thousand Bomber Raid’ against Cologne in 1942 that, in combination with other raids, destroyed 69.9 per cent of that city’s housing (Sorge, 1986: 90). ‘Operation Gomorrah’ obliterated Hamburg in 1943, burning out 6 square miles of the city’s core, destroying 49.2 per cent of housing, and damaging a further 30 per cent (Rumpf, 1963: 81; Diedendorf, 1993: 11; Markusen and Kopf, 1995: 158). Countless attacks on Berlin, the heaviest of which were the Battle of Berlin between November 1943 and March 1944 and ‘Operation Thunderclap’ in February 1945, annihilated 6,300 acres of the built-up area with 45,000 tons of bombs (Crane, 1993: 106–7; Rumpf, 1963: 125). Berlin lost about 40 per cent of its housing and the center of the city was over 70 per cent destroyed. The last great raid was the firebombing of Dresden in February 1945, which has become emblematic in postwar historical consciousness of the strategic-bombing offensive and the horrors of war (Schaffer, 1985: 97; see also Kurowski, 1995; Markusen and Kopf, 1995; Naumann, 1998). In other large cities, the percentage of housing completely lost ranged from 66 per cent in Dortmund and 50 per cent in Hanover to about 30 per cent in Munich (Kurowski, 1995: 204). Smaller cities were similarly affected, with overall destruction amounting to 89 per cent in Würzburg, 75 per cent in Wuppertal, and 83 per cent in Remscheid.3 The loss of life was substantial. Estimates of deaths range from about 300,000 (USSBS, 1945: 1, 72) to 600,000 (Levine, 1992: 190; Rumpf, 1963: 162–4), and of injuries from 600,000 to over a million (Diedendorf, 1993: 11). The most lethal single raids were Hamburg and Dresden, with about 35,000 deaths each, and the ‘Thunderclap’ raid of 3 February 1945 on Berlin, which caused 25,000 deaths.4
Several other characteristics of the raids stand out. First, most of the destruction of German cities was to the central core, the most highly built-up areas and densely populated residential districts. Almost all historic buildings, including churches, former palaces, city halls and opera houses, and much of the social infrastructure like schools, universities, hospitals and stores were destroyed or greatly damaged.5 Suburban and industrial areas were not as comprehensively damaged. The postwar United States Strategic Bombing Survey substantiates this, noting that 24 per cent of the total tonnage of bombs was dropped on residential or commercial parts of cities, ‘almost twice the weight of bombs launched against all manufacturing targets together’ (USSBS, 1945: 71). On the British side, approximately 75 per cent of the bombs dropped between early 1942 and 1945 were dropped in area raids (Garrett, 1993: 11–12). Second, most of the civilian victims were women, infants, and elderly people. Rumpf shows that for every 100 male casualties, there were 160 female casualties in Hamburg, 181 in Darmstadt, 136 in Kassel and 122 in Nuremberg (1963: 160). About 19 per cent of the victims were children under the age of 16, 5 per cent of whom were babies and children below school age, and about 20 per cent of the casualties were over the age of 60 (Rumpf, 1963: 161).6 These groups suffered disproportionately because most adult males were away serving with the armed services or Nazi party organizations, and many adult women were working in factories (well defended and often not the main targets of attack). Adolescents and young adults were largely evacuated to rural or ‘safe’ urban areas, constituting a large portion of the approximately 6 million urban dwellers relocated as a response to the bombing campaign (Groehler, 1988: 292). Third, despite the destructive raids on Cologne and Hamburg earlier in the war, the vast majority of damage was inflicted at the very end of the conflict. Some 72 per cent of American bombs were dropped in the last ten months of the war (after 1 July 1944), that is to say, after the Luftwaffe was defeated (April 1944) and as the German armies were collapsing on all fronts (Werrell, 1986: 711).7
Already during the war, and continuing ever since, there has been intense debate over whether bombing was effective in weakening the Nazi German ability to fight and thus hastening the end of the war. Speaking for most scholars, Werrell (1986: 712) notes that ‘it neither broke German morale nor deprived the German military of needed weapons.’ Such sober views were shared by the official assessments of the Western Allies themselves. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey shows that German losses as a percentage of annual production were 2.5 per cent in 1942, 9 per cent in 1943, 17 per cent in 1944 and 19.5 per cent (at an annualized rate) in 1945 (USSBS, 1945: 74). However, total production increased until and peaked in 1944, revealing an underestimation of the German war economy’s ability to increase production and divert resources from other non-essential areas.8 Interestingly, ‘throughout the period the losses inflicted by area attacks fell mostly on industries relatively unessential to the war effort’ (74), mainly the consumer goods sector.9 Moreover, civilian morale was not greatly affected. Instead of producing resistance to Hitler or a desire for peace, the most the bombing did was to destroy active enthusiasm for the regime and create apathetic, but not necessarily unproductive, workers (95–8). The amount of bombs dropped, and the extent of damage, actually produced diminishing returns, with inhabitants of the most bombed cities proving the least willing to surrender (96).
Others like Overy (1986) disagree, asserting that air power was a major component of the overall Allied strategy and success, and that it was more effective than is usually thought.10 By 1944, the Germans were forced to divert substantial resources to fight the bombing, including 2 million soldiers and civilians engaged in air defense, 30 per cent of total gun output, and 20 per cent of heavy ammunition (122). Furthermore, despite the increase in production until 1944,
Bombing placed a ceiling on German war production … the amount of war material that Germany might have been able to produce for the crucial battles of 1944 and 1945 without bombing would have meant a longer and far more costly battle for the final defeat of fascism, and might have made necessary the use of atomic weapons in Europe as well. (123, 125)
However, he concludes that overall:
Bombing was much more successful in interrupting production and bringing the military machine to a halt than in carrying out those tasks of terror and intimidation so publicized in the prewar period…. Despite the horror of bombing and the way in which it imposed a widespread and direct involvement in the war, the ordeal remained subsidiary to the contest over economic and military power with which the air war was primarily concerned. In terms of the effects of bomb destruction on the course of the war, it was the destruction of industrial resources, including labor, that determined a country’s ability to continue the war, not the dislocation of community life itself … such destruction (in Germany) became in Portal’s unfortunate phrase, ‘incidental.’ (208)
John Keegan, referring to the campaign as terror bombing (as did Churchill shortly after the Dresden raid), concludes simply: ‘it did not work’ (Keegan, 1995: 27; see also Messerschmidt, 1988: 300).11 In fact, most authors argue that precision attacks against military transportation or communication targets were much more important in weakening and defeating the enemy. More specifically, the campaign against German oil supplies and refineries (possible in late 1944, but not pursued until early 1945) is singled out as the crucial factor in shortening the war (Werrell, 1986; Levine, 1992).12 Some authors go further, arguing that these policies, especially when continued after technological advances made alternatives possible, actually prolonged the war.13 Levine (1992: 195) suggests that the British ‘obsession with area attacks let oil production recover in the fall (of 1944) and probably prolonged the war into 1945.’ He forcefully concludes that the air war did not ‘measurably reduce the time it took to defeat the German armies in Europe’ (192). Even the USSBS admits that the bombing produced highly effective fodder for Nazi propaganda, and may have actually created a greater sense of solidarity and desire to fight until the end.14 Finally, many have speculated about the possible result if the massive resources devoted to indiscriminate strategic bombing had been invested elsewhere, such as in developing an effective fighter plane that could have accompanied precision-bombing missions much earlier in the war. Thus, it is questionable whether this lethal means actually shortened the war or decisively weakened the Nazi German war effort.
Intent, international law and recognition
Even though the amount of destruction and number of civilian victims indicate explicit targeting, it remains possible that this was simply ‘collateral damage’ as a result of the bombing of legitimate military and economic targets.15 This was not the case, particularly on the British side. The RAF started the war espousing a doctrine of precision attacks against military targets and for several years largely followed it. However, as a consequence of the ‘erosion of mutual restraint’ (Markusen and Kopf, 1995: 153),16 in response to German attacks on Britain (the Battle of Britain, the London Blitz), as well as the heavy losses the air force encountered when attacking German targets, the policy was reappraised. By February 1942,17 military and political leaders adopted a policy of area attacks conducted at night, and the shift was formalized by the appointment of Sir Arthur (‘Bomber’) Harris as head of the RAF Bomber Command. At the time, Churchill stated: ‘the civilian population around the target areas must be made to feel the weight of war,’ and even earlier, he thought defeating Hitler was possible only through ‘an absolutely devastating, exterminating attack … upon the Nazi homeland’ (Garrett, 1993: 11). Sir Charles Portal, the Chief of Air Staff, provided detailed instructions regarding the new emphasis on targeting civilian morale and ‘dehousing’ German workers: ‘the aiming points are to be built-up areas, not, for instance the dockyards or aircraft factories’ (Garrett, 1993; see also Markusen and Kopf, 1995: 156).18 Harris, who vehemently pursued area bombing until the very end of the war, deemed the latter to be ‘panacea targets’ and directed his crews to avoid them, even when ordered to attack them. The tactics employed included the use of incendiary bombs to create unmanageable fires (Hamburg, Dresden); waves of raids explicitly aimed at hitting fire and rescue crews responding to the first attacks; and later, when possible, low-level flights to strafe survivors and rescue crews. In late 1943, Harris summarized the aim of the campaign as ‘the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers and the disruption of civilized life throughout Germany’ (Garrett, 1993: 33).
American policy and intent were more complicated. Until the end of the war, the official bombing doctrine espoused precision bombing, by day and at lower altitudes, of legitimate military targets. ‘The primary purpose of American air power would be to disintegrate the enemy society by striking the most vital points in the web, such as oil refineries and power stations’ (Schaffer, 1980: 320). Actual practice for most of the war corresponded to this rhetoric; what Werrell calls a surgical method stood in contrast to the British sledgehammer policy (705). Indeed, the AAF successfully resisted British pressure to shift to a coordinated policy of area attacks, notably at the Casablanca Conference of January 1943. American pressure led to the resulting ‘Combined Bomber Offensive,’ mandating ‘the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened’ (Levine, 1992: 77). At the time, AAF General Arnold called this ‘a major victory, for we would bomb in accordance with American principles using methods for which our planes were designed’ (Schaffer, 1985: 38).
Nevertheless, the precision-bombing doctrine eroded precipitously, and reality moved much closer to the British practice towards the end of the war. For example, in late 1943 the AAF began ‘blind bombing’ using radar to find targets. These inexact methods accounted for 80 per cent of American raids by the end of 1944, and ‘depended for effectiveness upon drenching an area with bombs’ (Markusen and Kopf, 1995: 167). Moreover, in the last months of the war, civilian morale was explicitly targeted, especially in the Clarion campaign against small towns and rural areas – even if only transportation facilities were officially targeted (Schaffer, 1980: 327). Finally, the famous Thunderclap operation explicitly attacked the working-class residential districts of Kreuzberg and Wedding in Berlin. Many argue that by this stage of the war there was little concern about the ethics of bombing. ‘As their willingness to consider Thunderclap suggests, the Americans did not always inflexibly oppose area attacks, or bombing to undermine civilian morale, or even operations specifically aimed at killing civilians outright’ (Levine, 1992: 176).19 Schaffer concludes that there was a major difference between on-the-record policy, meant for domestic audiences (who presumably would have recoiled from indiscriminate bombing) and for posterity, and actual understanding and practice. Moreover, ‘whatever restraints there were did not arise out of the consciences of the men who ran the AAF, for the record provides no indication that they objected on moral grounds … they were expressing not personal repugnance to the bombing of non-combatants, but apprehension over the way others would regard the actions of the AAF’ (Schaffer, 1980: 333).20
It is clear that civilians and cities were explicitly targeted, but was this acceptable conduct of war, given the international laws and conventions in force at the time? Again, experts are divided, given the novelty of the technology and the problematic status of civilians as non-combatants in modern wars. Groehler, for one, writes: ‘the fact that strategic air raids were contrary to international law of the time is undisputed, and was also not denied in legal expert opinions sought internationally by the Royal Air Force, whose leadership, therefore, went to great lengths until late 1945 to conceal the true nature of the bombing campaign’ (1992: 292). Messerschmidt notes that there was no specific ban, but argues that other conventions and agreements defined the practice as clearly unethical and illegal. In addition to certain relevant provisions in the Geneva Conventions of 1864, 1906, and 1929, banning (for example) attacks on enemy medical facilities or personnel engaged in search and rescue (Pictet, 1952: 14–15),21 the most pertinent precedents include Articles 23 and 25 of the Hague Rules of Air Warfare from 1907. Article 23 states: ‘aerial bombardment for the purpose of terrorizing the civilian population or destroying or damaging private property not of a military character, or of injuring non-combatants is prohibited’ (Messerschmidt, 1992: 300). Article 25 proclaims: ‘the attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited’ (324–5). The 1907 rules were never ratified, and other efforts in the 1920s and 1930s came to naught.22 When war broke out in 1939, a murky legal situation pertained. Nevertheless,
If it is possible to summarize the law of war as it existed at that time it could be reduced to two principles: a) indiscriminate (intentional) attack on the civilian population as such was prohibited; b) a legitimate military objective could be attacked wherever located so long as ordinary care was exercised in its attack … collateral civilian casualties were not the concern of the attacker, but by state practice were regarded as an inevitable consequence of bombardment and a legitimate way to destroy an enemy’s will to resist. (339)
What did leaders of belligerent nations think at the time? Messerschmidt shows (1992: 301) that ‘the most important air powers in the European theatre of the Second World War assumed that there was a binding code for the conduct of the air war.’ Both the British and American governments admitted as much at the outbreak of hostilities. In 1939, Chamberlain suggested three rules to govern bombing: that it was against international law to bomb civilians, that targets must be legitimate military targets, and that they must be capable of identification. These propositions were issued as guidelines to Bomber Command in 1938, and were even adopted as a non-binding League of Nations resolution (Garrett, 1993: 28–9; Hays Parks, 1992: 345). On the American side, Roosevelt proclaimed on 1 September 1939:
I am … addressing this urgent brief to every government which may be engaged in hostilities publicly to affirm its determination that its armed forces shall in no event, and under no circumstances, undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations or of unfortified cities. (Hays Parks, 1992: 345)
Garret (1993: 28) agrees that there was no formal ban on area bombing, but contends that a war convention was in effect that ‘the British government prior to World War Two seemed clearly to accept.’ Hays Parks concludes that a legal vacuum existed, which was, however, not total: ‘all nations agreed for humanitarian and utilitarian purposes that indiscriminate bombardment … was prohibited’ (Hays Parks, 1992: 352). In sum, explicit international laws were somewhat vague, but the ‘war convention’ (Walzer, 1977) clearly outlawed such practices, a position that almost all of the relevant military and political leaders – even Hitler – accepted.
Ethics, conscience and recognition
It is already clear that the questionable legal and ethical nature of the bombing campaign against German cities was recognized by wartime policymakers. The very fact that the RAF and AAF disagreed over the practices is further evidence that these leaders knew it was wrong. On the American side, ‘Spaatz (an AAF commander) repeatedly “raised the moral issue” involved in bombing enemy civilians,’ while another high-level leader, Eaker, went so far as to state that ‘we should never allow the history of this war to convict us of throwing the strategic bomber at the man in the street’ (Schaffer, 1980: 318). When precision-bombing doctrines were being jettisoned in early 1945, another general characterized the raids as ‘homicide and destruction’ (Shaffer, 1985: 100).
There was also intense disagreement and debate in Britain among branches of the armed forces, within the political establishment, and among the general public. The writer Vera Brittain compared the bombings to Nazi treatment of prisoners in concentration camps; her voice was an isolated one, but not unique. A Labour MP publicly acknowledged the policy, stating in the House of Commons that ‘no apologies are now offered for the indiscriminate bombing of women and children’ (Garrett, 1993: 117). Many religious leaders also voiced concern. The Bishop of Chichester, for example, noted that ‘the allies stand for something greater than power. The chief name inscribed on our banner is law’ (Garrett, 1993: 113). Even Liddell Hart, a military historian who had defended strategic bombing earlier, came to oppose it, proclaiming: ‘it will be ironical if the defenders of civilization depend for victory upon the most barbaric, and unskilled, way of winning a war’ (Garrett, 1993: 105). Churchill, too, was well aware of what was being done. In 1935, he wrote: ‘it is only in the 20th century that this hateful condition of inducing nations to surrender by massacring women and children has gained acceptance’ (quoted in Garrett, 1993: 44). Yet during the war, he argued: ‘it is absurd to consider morality on this topic … In the last war the bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women’ (Garrett, 1993: 45).23
There are additional pieces of evidence. The Americans and especially the British deceived their publics about the true nature of the policy, instructing military and political authorities to publicly (and sometimes even privately) proclaim the precision-bombing doctrine, even when presented with evidence to the contrary. Churchill’s famous minute after the Dresden raid is illuminating: ‘It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed … the destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing’ (Walzer, 1977: 261). In fact, almost all defenses implicitly admit to the dubious legal and ethical nature of the policy. The ‘supreme emergency,’ which clearly obtained in 1940–41, had largely receded by 1944, when the bombing campaign peaked (261). This justification accepts the existence of rules, but argues that life-threatening circumstances warrant overriding them. Both the ‘sliding scale’ argument, ‘the more justice the more right’ (Walzer, 1977: 229), and what Markusen and Kopf call the ‘healing–killing paradox’ that ‘efficient brutality hastens the end’ (Markusen and Kopf, 1995: 201–90) assert that an unjust means is justified by the clear higher good of winning the just war. The injustice of the act used to achieve this end is admitted. Of course, as I argued above, whether the campaign hastened the end of the war is highly questionable, an issue raised by intelligence during the hostilities themselves (Webster and Frankland, 1961). Even the more general problematizing of the civilian-combatant distinction in modern total war revolves around how a civilian is to be defined, not the issue of whether persecuting or killing civilians is justified.24 ‘The just war tradition condemns indiscriminate bombing; the dilemma over the past century has been in identifying the line where military actions cease being permissible and become indiscriminate’ (Hays Parks, 1992: 313). But the line still exists. Finally, the argument that the bombing campaign saved Allied lives, deployed even more readily to justify the attacks on Japan, is unacceptable. ‘Neither the dropping of the atomic bombs nor the area bombardment of cities were a military necessity as defined in the rules of international law … the end result of this strategy is the large-scale killing of non-combatants to spare soldiers. None of the above mentioned rules and provisions of international law permit such actions’ (Messerschmidt, 1992: 306–7).
In retrospect, there was a rather clear, if unofficial, acknowledgment that the campaign was at least highly questionable. After issuing his minute on the firebombing of Dresden, Churchill, like other postwar leaders, consciously distanced himself from the strategic-bombing policy. It is germane that at the Nuremberg Trials, no Nazi or German was ever charged with crimes resulting from aerial bombardment. This was not because the Allies did not consider these acts to be crimes (see below), but because they did not want to attract criticism to their own policies.25 More generally, in a process that Walzer (1977: 323) calls ‘the dishonoring of Arthur Harris,’ the head of Bomber Command was not promptly honored along with other wartime leaders. He was granted a baronetcy (not a peerage) only in 1953, when Churchill returned to power. Later, a leading military journal refused to review his memoirs, and the official history, highly critical toward him, declined to interview him.26 Indeed, the history wrote that ‘there had never been anything like the destruction produced in Germany by the area offensive of this period. The bomber crews themselves could see the holocausts of fire’ (Webster and Frankland, 1961: 244). Westminster Abbey has no plaque to commemorate the casualties of Bomber Command (in contrast to the one for Fighter Command), and a statue to Harris was erected in London only in May 1992, by a private group of war veterans (the Bomber Command Association). That unveiling was highly contested at the time, with protests in Britain and Germany and highly critical coverage in the British press. The Guardian, for example, referred to the ceremony as ‘the most acute diplomatic embarrassment of the past 12 years of international commemoration of the second world war,’ and referred to the underlying issues as ‘the longest-running controversy since the war ended’ (Ezard, 1992). The mayor of Dresden spoke for most Germans when he stated that ‘Nobody in history has ever erected a memorial to a hangman’ (Weaver, 1992).
This lingering ‘bad conscience,’ and the desire to make amends, have been particularly evident in the postwar period in the case of the destruction of Dresden. Almost all discussions of the bombing campaign focus on the destruction of that city, which is widely recognized as a deplorable excess. ‘Should Britain apologize for Dresden? The answer has to be yes, simply because it happened’ (Guardian, 1995). The fiftieth anniversary of Dresden’s destruction, in 1995, was the occasion of much soul-searching, and of ecumenical services aimed at reconciliation and atonement. Private organizations like the Dresden Trust are devoted to rebuilding the city (Clayton and Russell, 1999), and the British government even donated a new orb and cross to crown the reconstructed Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) when it is completed in 2006. There has been less soul-searching on the American side, but then the allegations against the AAF were never as far-reaching as those leveled against the RAF, at least with regard to the bombing of Germany. Nevertheless, in his examination of the controversy over the Smithsonian’s Enola Gay exhibition in 1995, Kohn (1995) notes that air force veterans have felt slighted ever since the war, being incessantly criticized by ‘liberal’ pacifists. Like the British crews, they are also comparatively less well memorialized in Washington, DC. Finally, it can be argued that the generous postwar policies of the Western Allies, including the Marshall Plan and the rapid integration of the defeated enemy into West European and Atlanticist organizations, constituted a tacit recognition of the excesses that took place, and an indirect form of compensation and redress.
Conclusion: was it a war crime?
Article 6(c) of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg defines a war crime as
violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or illtreatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder or public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity. (United Nations, 1949, 93)
Was the Anglo-American bombing of Germany such a crime? The term is highly evocative, so a review of the facts is necessary before an assessment can be made. German cities were extensively destroyed during the war, and a minimum of 300,000 civilians, disproportionately women, children and the elderly, perished as a result of area bombing raids. Although most of these cities had some industry, the vast majority of destruction was to housing, historic buildings and social infrastructure. Such destruction was not ‘collateral damage,’ but was the result of explicit policies aimed at destroying civilian morale and lives, especially on the part of the British, but also by the Americans in the last months of the war. International law did not explicitly ban such policies, but many precedents and conventions pointed to the practice as being unacceptable. Moreover, numerous statements by Allied leaders revealed a clear recognition of the illegality of bombing civilians. Intensive efforts were made throughout the war to deceive the public (and other military leaders) regarding the true nature of the campaign. All of the possible attenuating circumstances that authors and policymakers cite in trying to justify the campaign implicitly admit to the illegality of the policy. It is also highly uncertain (and was at the time) that the policy hastened the end of the war. In the postwar period, recognition of excesses was apparent if unofficial, as exemplified by the treatment of Arthur Harris and a general guilty conscience, especially towards the destruction of Dresden.
Clearly, the aerial bombardment of German cities during World War II was a violation of international law, military ethics, and war convention. Walzer (1977: 261) concludes that ‘the greater number by far of the German civilians killed by terror bombing were killed without moral (and probably also without military) reason.’ Thus, especially on the British side, aerial bombardment was a crime of war, as defined above.27 The wartime British military leaders – Harris, Portal, and even Churchill – were clearly responsible for the policy, and a good case could have been made against these men in the postwar period, if the political will had existed to mount prosecutions. Of course, there are many good reasons why this political will was lacking: these men, had, after all contributed to the necessary and just defeat of Nazism.
If anything good resulted from the carnage of the Second World War, it was the reaffirmation of the values of human and civil rights, freedom, and the rule of law that are fundamental to democracies. Moreover, the development of a corpus of international law that defined war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that established procedures to hold those guilty responsible, was a major step towards internationalizing these fundamental values. These values are universal, and are underpinned by non-arbitrary, equal, and fair applicability and implementation; they are undermined whenever they are not applied in such a fashion. Even-handed fidelity to these principles is necessary if we are not to destroy the principles themselves. This is the biggest supporting argument for prosecuting, or at least denouncing, the men responsible for orchestrating the aerial bombardment of German cities.
Finally, to return to the more general issue I began with – the dilemma of unjust means being used for a just end – democracy’s representatives and defenders cannot advance such an argument if they truly seek to defend the values that define democracy. As the Marquess of Salisbury wrote during the war: ‘Of course the Germans began it, but we do not take the devil as our example’ (quoted in Ezard, 1992: 21). Lewis Mumford (1959: 39) was even clearer. He talked about the ‘moral debacle’ when
both the United States and Britain adopted what was politely called ‘obliteration bombing’ … these democratic governments sanctioned the dehumanized techniques of fascism. This was Nazidom’s firmest victory and democracy’s most servile surrender. That moral reversal undermined the eventual military triumph of the democracies.
Prosecuting the leaders who planned and implemented these policies over fifty years ago is impossible. Recognizing the crimes, and the need to prosecute their perpetrators, as fundamental to sustaining democratic values is not.
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