Comment on "What do you mean the Brits want revenge for us flattening London!?"
PugJesus@piefed.social 1 day ago
Explanation: Early in WW2, British bombing raids were little more than harassment and leaflet drops, in line with the general reluctance to repeat the destruction of WW1.
However, after Nazi Germany subjected Britain to intense bombing campaigns that flattened entire cities, especially London, the response of British bomber command became much more… aggressive. Counterproductively so, even - the strategy of “Terror Bombing” that was adopted was shown by postwar analysis to have been ineffective - targeting industry was useful, targeting population centers, near-useless; and the difference in strategy was a point of tension between American Bomber Command (in Europe, at least - in Japan, the US would eventually resort to terror bombing of the same ineffective kind) and British Bomber Command. But the British wanted revenge desperately after seeing their own civilians murdered by Nazi aerial bombardment, and they had revenge in spades, with concentrated firebombing campaigns wreaking havoc on Germany cities.
As “Bomber” Harris said, “The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”
“The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”
I am from Dresden and I support this message.
I am too. Fun fact (you probably know if you support that message, but for everyone else): Dresden’s destruction is just so well-known because it was abused by Nazi propaganda to “show how evil those allies are”. Other German cities, and of course cities which fell victim to the Luftwaffe, saw much worse destruction.
Fun fact: A good part of the relatively high casualty rate resulting from the raid on Dresden was caused by the utter lack of preparedness of Dresden’s administration. I think I vaguely recall some Nazi official preferring to use funds meant for building air raid shelters and other precautions to enhance his personal lifestyle, because his shining example of a Nazi model city surely wouldn’t be bombed, also who gives a fuck about the population anyway?
I mean, Dresden was one of the harder-hit cities, because it was a rare instance when American and British Bomber Command (and, while not participating directly, at the behest of the Soviet Union) agreed on a single target in the same time period. There were only a handful of other coordinated raids of that scale in the war.
Interestingly, the GDR continued to propagate the myth of “Innocent Dresden” (major logistics hub) to show how barbaric the imperialist West was.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
The “reap the whirlwind” line is actually quoting the old testament, which only makes that quote even more badass.