Berlin im Bombenkrieg
World War II (1939-1945)
The city of Berlin was bombed more than 360 times during World War II (1939-1945). This personal blog tells the history of the German capital and its people before, during and after the Allied bombing campaign besides the war effort made by all those young British RAF and American USAAF crews sent to defeat Hitler through the ‘bombing war theory.’
Bremen, Hamburg, Vienna, Berlin… These names were the nightmare for thousands of British and Americans young men who daily had to overfly these cities to do their duty with their country. For millions of German civilians, the nightmare were, on the contrary, those airmen. Some would call them ‘Liberators’ but to others would be ‘Murderers’.
This page is about to research all those Allied air raids targeted to the German capital, the aircrews and the Berliners during WW2. We don’t look for any moment nor we have the objective to accusing its protagonists or any kind of revisionism of the past, only to expose the historical facts, relaying exclusively in primary sources and literature.
Air power has been the great weapon in the wars waged in the 20th Century, being World War Two the highest moment of its development and employment. For the first time in warfare, the exclusive use of aviation would be used to win battles; and it will be the skies of Occupied Europe, 25,000 feet high, scenario of the biggest aerial battle ever seen. No other campaign in this war has had such a wide resources (as well as number of people involved) nor as much controversy and doubts as the Bombing Offensive carried out by the Allies against the Third Reich. Bring that destruction to the heart of Germany and its people was a must for London and Washington, and of course, Moscow.
Around 26 million of German people lost their home during the war, just in Berlin 600,000 apartments were destroyed, half of all houses were damaged and around a third uninhabitable, as much as 16 km² of the city was simply rubble, consequence of the mixed effect of the Allied bombs and the Soviet 1945-final offensive. When the war came to an end, the ‘Big City’ had become a sea of destruction, death and debris. On the other hand, the Anglo-American bombing effort was not a costless operation: more than 55,000 Bomber Command and 25,000 US airmen were killed during the air campaign.
Pablo López Ruiz.