Many domestic researchers believe that it was the heroic defense of Voronezh in July 1942 that saved Stalingrad from the threat of capture on the move, since the reserve 62nd Army was able to start advancing to the Don, to the distant approaches to Stalingrad, towards the forward detachments of Paulus' 6th Army only by July 11, 1942, at the end of the defensive battle for Voronezh. Of course, the fate of Stalingrad was decided, first of all, in the battles of its own defenders with the enemy in the Don steppes and on the banks of the Volga. But a number of leading Russian military historians believe that there are grounds for the modern definition of the place of the Voronezh battle as the beginning of the battle for Stalingrad. " http://bvf.ru/forum/showthread.php?t\u003d472073&page\u003d28
Interesting figures were given in his article by historian V.V. Gagin, figures that once again indicate the scale of the Voronezh battles:
“Compare: according to their own data, the Stalingrad operation lasted 76 days and with a front width of 850 km, the depth of advance of Soviet troops reached 150-200 km; near Voronezh in 50 days with the same front width, the depth of advance of the Red Army troops was 300-400 km! That is, modern military historians from the official position, unfortunately, continue to fail to see the brilliant offensive of the Voronezh Front and units of the troops of its neighbors in December 1942 - January 1943: when in a period of one and a half times less results were achieved, twice exceeding the Stalingrad ones. " http://voronezh1000let.ru/tank1942.htm
The city of Voronezh itself was the third, after Leningrad and Sevastopol, in terms of the duration of being on the front line, 212 days and nights, the front line passed directly through the city. During the entire war there were only two cities - Stalingrad and Voronezh, where the front line passed through the city itself. Voronezh was one of the 12 cities in Europe that suffered the most in World War II and one of the 15 cities of the USSR requiring immediate restoration; in total, up to 95% of all buildings in the city were destroyed.
Voronezh was also remembered for a long time by our enemies, especially the Hungarians, near Voronezh they practically lost their entire most efficient army, and in total, 26 German divisions, the 2nd Hungarian (completely) and 8th Italian army, as well as Romanian units were destroyed in the Voronezh direction. ... The number of prisoners was greater than at Stalingrad, the total number of captured enemy soldiers taken in the Voronezh front area was about 75,000 soldiers and officers.
At the same time, according to various sources, the losses of the German troops and their allies amounted to 320 thousand soldiers and officers. Our army lost even more, about 400,000 Soviet soldiers died in the battles on the Voronezh land.
In the years when the country began to celebrate its cities with the special title "Hero City", the then Voronezh leaders presented documents for conferring this honorary title on Voronezh. But, unfortunately, this initiative from the place of the Moscow leaders did not find a response at that time, they confined themselves to awarding the city with the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree.
On February 16, 2008, for the heroism shown by the defenders of the city during the occupation by German troops, which did not allow them to completely seize one of the main centers of the country, the city was awarded the honorary title of the Russian Federation "City of Military Glory", and Voronezh stands modestly among the cities of military glory, the city never became a Hero City.
It is now known for certain that during the Second World War, Anglo-American aircraft deliberately bombed peaceful German cities. The statistics of the consequences of the “air war” provide the following data: in all age groups, losses among women exceed those among men by about 40%, the number of children killed is also very high - 20% of all losses, losses among older age groups are 22%. Of course, these figures do not mean that only the Germans were the victims of the war. The world remembers Auschwitz, Majdanek, Buchenwald, Mauthausen and 1,650 more concentration camps and ghettos, the world remembers Khatyn and Babi Yar ... It's about something else. How did the Anglo-American methods of waging war differ from the German ones, if they also led to the mass death of civilians?
Churchill's go-ahead
If we compare the images of the lunar landscape with photographs of the space that remained from the German city of Wesel after the bombing of 1945, it will be difficult to distinguish them. The mountains of heaving earth, interspersed with thousands of huge bomb craters, are very reminiscent of lunar craters. It is impossible to believe that people lived here. Wesel became one of 80 German target cities subjected to total bombing by Anglo-American aircraft between 1940 and 1945. How did this "air" war begin - in fact, a war with the population?
Let us turn to the previous documents and separate “programmatic” statements of the top officials of the states that participated in the Second World War.
At the time of the German invasion of Poland - September 1, 1939 - the entire world community knew the document "Rules of War", developed by the participants of the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Arms in 1922. It literally states: “Aerial bombardment for the purpose of terrorizing civilians, or destroying and damaging private property of a non-military nature, or causing harm to persons not taking part in hostilities, is prohibited” (Article 22, Part II).
Moreover, on September 2, 1939, the British, French and German governments announced that the bombing would be "strictly military objectives in the narrowest sense of the word."
Six months after the outbreak of the war, speaking in the House of Commons on February 15, 1940, the British Prime Minister Chamberlain confirmed the earlier statement: “No matter what others do, our government will never despicably attack women and other civilians just to to terrorize them. "
As a result, the humane concept of the British leadership existed only until May 10, 1940 - the day Winston Churchill came to the post of Prime Minister after Chamberlain's death. The next day, on his signal, the British pilots began to bomb Freiburg. JM Speight, Assistant Secretary of the Air, commented on the event as follows: “We (the British) began bombing targets in Germany before the Germans began bombing targets in the British Isles. This is a historical fact that has been publicly acknowledged ... But since we doubted the psychological impact that the propaganda distortion of the truth that it was we who launched a strategic offensive could have, we did not have the courage to publicize our great decision made in May 1940. We should have made it public, but of course we made a mistake. This is a great solution. " According to the famous British historian and military theorist John Fuller, then "it was at the hands of Mr. Churchill that the detonator went off, which caused an explosion - a war of devastation and terror, unprecedented since the time of the Seljuk invasion."
After eight British raids on German cities, the Luftwaffe bombed London in September 1940, and Coventry on November 14. According to the author of the book "Air War in Germany", Major General Hans Rumpf, this raid on the center of the British aircraft engine industry is considered to be the beginning of an all-out air war. Then, in addition to the plant, half of the city buildings were destroyed to the ground, several hundred civilians died. Official German propaganda called this raid "a gigantic aerial bombardment", which greatly helped the official British propaganda, which accused the Luftwaffe of "barbarism". After that, the German bombing was somewhat suspended, and the British until the beginning of 1942 were engaged in the so-called "precision" bombing, carried out mainly at night. The impact of these raids on the German economy was extremely small - the production of weapons not only did not decrease, but also steadily increased.
British bomber aviation was in a clear crisis. In August 1941, Cabinet Secretary D. Butt presented a report that proved the absolute ineffectiveness of the bombing raids that year. In November, Churchill was even forced to order Bomber Commander Sir Richard Percy to limit the number of raids as much as possible until the concept of using heavy bombers was developed.
Obsessed debut
That all changed on February 21, 1942, when Air Marshal Arthur Harris became the new RAF Bomber Commander. A lover of figurative expressions, he immediately promised to "knock out" Germany from the war. Harris proposed abandoning the practice of destroying specific targets and bombing city squares. In his opinion, the destruction of cities should undoubtedly undermine the spirit of the civilian population, and above all the workers of industrial enterprises.
Thus, there was a complete revolution in the use of bombers. Now they have become an independent instrument of war, which does not need to interact with anyone. Harris, with all his indomitable energy, began to transform bomber aircraft into a huge machine of destruction. He quickly established an iron discipline and demanded the unquestioning and prompt execution of all his orders. Few people liked “tightening the screws,” but that worried Harris least of all — he felt the strong support of Prime Minister Churchill. The new commander categorically demanded that the government provide him with 4 thousand heavy four-engine bombers and 1 thousand high-speed fighter-bombers of the Mosquito type. This would enable him to keep up to 1,000 aircraft over Germany every night. The ministers of the "economic" bloc with great difficulty managed to prove to the frantic marshal the absurdity of his demands. The British industry simply could not cope with their implementation in the foreseeable future, if only because of the lack of raw materials.
So, in the first "raid of a thousand bombers", which took place on the night of May 30-31, 1942, Harris sent everything that he had: not only a few Lancasters, but also Halifaxes, Stirlings, Blenheims. , Wellingtons, Hempdens and Whitley. In total, the diverse armada consisted of 1,047 vehicles. At the end of the raid, 41 aircraft (3.9% of the total number) did not return to the bases. Such a level of losses then alerted many, but not Harris. Subsequently, among the British Air Force, bomber losses were always the greatest.
The first "thousandth raids" did not lead to noticeable practical results, and this was not required. The raids were of a "combat training" nature: according to Marshal Harris, it was necessary to create the necessary theoretical basis for bombing and back it up with flight practice.
The whole year 1942 passed in such "practical" lessons. In addition to German cities, the British bombed several times the industrial facilities of the Ruhr, targets in Italy - Milan, Turin and La Spezia, as well as German submarine bases in France.
Winston Churchill assessed this period of time as follows: "Although we gradually achieved the much needed precision of hitting in the night conditions, the military industry of Germany and the moral strength of resistance of its civilians were not broken by the bombing of 1942."
As for the public and political resonance in England regarding the first bombings, for example, Lord Salisbury and Bishop George Bell of Chichester have repeatedly condemned this strategy. They expressed their opinions in the House of Lords and in the press, focusing the attention of the military leadership and society in general on the fact that strategic bombing of cities cannot be justified from a moral point of view or according to the laws of war. But such departures nevertheless continued.
In the same year, the first formations of American heavy bombers Boeing B-17 and Flying Fortress arrived in England. At that time, these were the best strategic bombers in the world, both in speed and altitude, and in armament. The 12 large-caliber Browning machine guns gave the Fortress crew a good chance to fight off German fighters. Unlike the British, the American command relied on targeted bombing in daylight. It was assumed that the powerful barrage of hundreds of "B-17" flying in close formation, no one could break through. The reality turned out to be different. Already in the first "training" raids on France, the Fortresses squadrons suffered significant losses. It became clear that the result could not be achieved without strong cover for the fighters. But the Allies could not yet produce long-range fighters in sufficient numbers, so that the crews of the bombers had to rely mainly on themselves. In this way, aviation operated until January 1943, when the Allied conference was held in Casablanca, where the main points of strategic interaction were determined: to military resistance. "
On June 2, speaking in the House of Commons, Churchill said: "I can report that this year German cities, harbors and centers of the military industry will be subjected to such a huge, continuous and brutal test that no other country has experienced." The commander of the British Bomber Aviation was instructed: "To begin the most intensive bombing of industrial facilities in Germany." Subsequently, Harris wrote about it this way: "In fact, I got the freedom to bomb any German city with a population of 100 thousand people or more." Without putting the matter on the back burner, the British marshal planned a joint air operation with the Americans against Hamburg, Germany's second most populous city. This operation was named "Gomorrah". Her goal was the complete destruction of the city and turning it to dust.
Monuments to barbarism
In late July - early August 1943, 4 night and 3 day massive raids were carried out on Hamburg. In total, about 3 thousand Allied heavy bombers took part in them. During the first raid on 27 July, from 1 am, 10,000 tons of explosives, mainly incendiary and high-explosive bombs, were dropped on densely populated areas of the city. A fire storm raged in Hamburg for several days, and the plume of smoke reached a height of 4 km. Even the pilots felt the smoke of the burning city; it penetrated the cockpits of the aircraft. According to eyewitnesses, asphalt and sugar stored in warehouses boiled in the city, glass melted in trams. Civilians were burned alive, turning to ash, or suffocated from poisonous gases in the basements of their homes, trying to hide from the bombing. Or they were buried under the ruins. In the diary of the German Friedrich Reck, who was sent to Dachau by the Nazis, there are stories about people who fled from Hamburg in nothing but pajamas, lost their memory or became distraught with horror.
The city was half destroyed, more than 50 thousand of its inhabitants died, over 200 thousand were injured, burned and maimed.
To his old nickname "bomber" Harris added another - "Nelson Air". So he was now called in the English press. But nothing pleased the marshal - the destruction of Hamburg could not bring the final defeat of the enemy in a decisive way. Harris estimated that at least six of the largest German cities needed to be destroyed simultaneously. And for this there was not enough strength. Justifying his "slow victories", he said: "I can no longer hope that we will be able to inflict an air defeat on the largest industrial power in Europe, if only 600-700 heavy bombers are at my disposal for this."
British industry could not make up for the losses of such aircraft as quickly as Harris desired. Indeed, in each raid, the British lost an average of 3.5% of the total number of bombers involved. At first glance, it looks like a little, but after all, each crew had to make 30 sorties! If this number is multiplied by the average percentage of losses, then you get already 105% of losses. Truly killer math for pilots, bombers, navigators and gunners. Few of them survived the fall of 1943
And here is the other side of the barricades. The famous German fighter pilot Hans Philippe described his feelings in battle as follows: “It was a joy to fight with two dozen Russian fighters or English Spitfires. And no one thought about the meaning of life. But when seventy huge "Flying Fortresses" fly at you, all your previous sins arise before your eyes. And even if the lead pilot was able to muster up his courage, how much pain and nerves it took to make every pilot in the squadron, down to the very newcomers, cope with it. " In October 1943, during one of these attacks, Hans Philippe was shot down and killed. His lot was shared by many.
Meanwhile, the Americans focused their main efforts on the destruction of important industrial facilities of the Third Reich. On August 17, 1943, 363 heavy bombers attempted to destroy the ball bearing factories in the Schweinfurt area. But since there were no escort fighters, the losses during the operation were very serious - 60 "Fortresses". Further bombing of the area was postponed by 4 months, during which the Germans were able to rebuild their factories. Such raids finally convinced the American command that it was no longer possible to send bombers without cover.
And three months after the allies' failures - November 18, 1943 - Arthur Harris began the "Battle of Berlin". On this occasion, he said: "I want to incinerate this nightmare city from end to end." The battle continued until March 1944. On the capital of the Third Reich, 16 massive raids were made, during which 50 thousand tons of bombs were dropped. Almost half of the city turned into ruins, tens of thousands of Berliners died. “For fifty, one hundred, and perhaps more years, the destroyed cities of Germany will stand as monuments to the barbarism of its victors,” wrote Major General John Fuller.
One German fighter pilot recalled: “I once saw a night raid from the ground. I stood in a crowd of other people in an underground metro station, the ground shook with every explosion of bombs, women and children screamed, clouds of smoke and dust penetrated through the mines. Anyone who did not experience fear and horror should have had a heart of stone. " At that time, there was a popular anecdote: who can be considered a coward? Answer: a Berliner who volunteered for the front
But still it was not possible to completely destroy the city, and the "Nelson Air" was born with a proposal: "We can completely demolish Berlin if the American Air Force takes part. It will cost us 400-500 aircraft. The Germans will pay with defeat in the war. " However, the American colleagues did not share Harris's optimism.
In the meantime, dissatisfaction with the bomber commander was growing in the British leadership. Harris's appetites increased so much that in March 1944, Minister of War J. Grigg, presenting the draft budget of the army to parliament, said: “I take the liberty of saying that the production of heavy bombers alone employs as many workers as the implementation of the plan of the entire army ". At that time, 40-50% of British military production worked for one aircraft, and to satisfy the ever-growing demands of the main bombardier meant to bleed the land forces and the navy. Because of this, the admirals and generals, to put it mildly, did not treat Harris very well, but he was still obsessed with the idea of \u200b\u200b"knocking out" Germany from the war. But with this just nothing worked. In addition, in terms of losses, the spring of 1944 was the most difficult period for British bomber aviation: on average, losses per flight reached 6%. On March 30, 1944, during a raid on Nuremberg, German night fighters and anti-aircraft gunners shot down 96 of 786 aircraft. It was a truly black night for the RAF.
The raids of the British could not break the spirit of resistance of the population, and the raids of the Americans decisively reduce the production of German military products. All sorts of businesses were dispersed, and strategically important factories were hidden underground. In February 1944, within a few days, half of the German aircraft factories were subjected to air raids. Some were destroyed to the ground, but very quickly the production was restored, and the factory equipment was moved to other areas. Aircraft production increased steadily and peaked in the summer of 1944.
In this regard, it is worth noting that in the post-war report of the American Office for the Study of the Results of Strategic Bombings, there is an amazing fact: it turns out that there was only one dibromoethane production plant in Germany - for ethyl liquid. The fact is that without this component, which is necessary for the production of aviation gasoline, not a single German aircraft would fly. But, oddly enough, this plant has never been bombed, just no one thought about it. But destroy it, the German aircraft factories could not have been touched at all. They could produce thousands of planes that could only be rolled on the ground. Here is how John Fuller wrote about this: "If in our technical age, soldiers and pilots do not think technically, they do more harm than good."
The curtain
At the beginning of 1944, the main problem of the Allied Air Force was solved: Fortresses and Liberators defended excellent Thunderbolt and Mustang fighters in large numbers. From that time on, the losses of the Reich air defense fighter squadrons began to increase. There were fewer and fewer Ases, and there was no one to replace them - the level of training of young pilots compared to the beginning of the war was depressingly low. This fact could not but reassure the allies. And nevertheless, it became more and more difficult for them to prove the expediency of their "strategic" bombing: in 1944, the gross industrial output in Germany steadily increased. A new approach was needed. And he was found: the commander of the US Strategic Air Force, General Karl Spaats, suggested focusing on the destruction of synthetic fuel factories, and the Chief Marshal of the British Air Force, Tedder, insisted on the destruction of German railways. He argued that the bombing of a transport is the most real opportunity to quickly disorganize the enemy.
As a result, it was decided to bomb the transport system first and the fuel factories second. From April 1944, the Allied bombing did indeed briefly become strategic. And against their background, the tragedy in the small town of Essen, located in East Frisia, passed unnoticed. On the last day of September 1944, due to bad weather, American aircraft were unable to reach one military plant. On the way back through a gap in the clouds, the pilots saw a small city and, in order not to return home with a full load, they decided to free themselves from it. The bombs hit the school, burying 120 children under the rubble. It was half of the children in the city. A small episode of the great air war ... By the end of 1944, the railway transport in Germany was practically paralyzed. Synthetic fuel production fell from 316 thousand tons in May 1944 to 17 thousand tons in September. As a result, there was not enough fuel for either the aircraft or the tank divisions. The desperate German counter-offensive in the Ardennes in December of that year collapsed largely due to the fact that they failed to seize the fuel reserves of the Allies. The German tanks just stopped.
Slaughter from friends in arms
In the fall of 1944, the Allies faced an unexpected problem: there were so many heavy bombers and cover fighters that there were not enough industrial targets for them: not to sit idle. And to the complete satisfaction of Arthur Harris, not only the British, but also the Americans began to consistently destroy German cities. Berlin, Stuttgart, Darmstadt, Freiburg, Heilbronn were subjected to the strongest raids. The apogee of the massacre was the destruction of Dresden in mid-February 1945. At this time, the city was literally inundated with tens of thousands of refugees from the eastern regions of Germany. The massacre began with 800 British bombers on the night of 13-14 February. 650 thousand incendiary and high-explosive bombs were dropped on the city center. During the day, Dresden was bombed by 1,350 American bombers, the next day - by 1,100. The city center was literally razed to the ground. In total, 27 thousand residential and 7 thousand public buildings were destroyed.
How many citizens and refugees died is still unknown. Immediately after the war, the US State Department reported 250,000 deaths. Nowadays the generally accepted figure is ten times less - 25 thousand, although there are other figures - 60 and 100 thousand people. In any case, Dresden and Hamburg can be put on a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki: “When the fire from burning buildings burst through the roofs, a column of hot air about six kilometers high and three kilometers in diameter rose above them ... Soon the air was heated to the limit, and all that could ignite, was engulfed in fire. Everything burned to the ground, that is, there were no traces of combustible materials, only two days later the temperature of the conflagration dropped so much that one could at least get closer to the burnt area, ”an eyewitness testifies.
After Dresden, the British managed to bomb Würzburg, Bayreuth, Zoest, Ulm and Rothenburg - cities that have survived from the late Middle Ages. Only in one town of Pforzheim with a population of 60 thousand people during one air raid on February 22, 1945, a third of its inhabitants died. Klein Festung recalled that, being imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, he saw the reflections of the Pforzheim fire from the window of his cell - 70 kilometers away. Chaos settled on the streets of ruined German cities. The Germans, who love order and cleanliness, lived like cave dwellers, hiding in ruins. Disgusting rats scurried about and fat flies circled.
In early March, Churchill urged Harris to end the "area" bombing. He literally said the following: “It seems to me that we need to stop bombing German cities. Otherwise, we will take control of an absolutely destroyed country. " The Marshal was forced to obey.
Peace "guarantee"
In addition to eyewitness accounts, the catastrophic consequences of such raids are confirmed by many documents, including the conclusion of a special commission of the victorious powers, which immediately after the surrender of Germany examined the results of the bombing on the spot. With industrial and military facilities, everything was clear - no one expected another outcome. But the fate of German cities and villages shocked the members of the commission. Then, almost immediately after the end of the war, the results of the "area" bombing could not be hidden from the "general public". In England, a real wave of indignation has risen against the recent "hero-bombers", the protesters have repeatedly demanded to bring them to justice. In the United States, they reacted to everything calmly enough. And such information did not reach the broad masses of the Soviet Union, and it is unlikely that it would have become timely and understandable. There were so many ruins of their own and their own grief that before the alien, before the "fascist" - "so that they all were empty there!" - there was neither strength nor time.
How merciless this time is ... Literally a few months after the war, nobody needed her victims. In any case, the top officials of the powers that defeated fascism were so concerned about the division of the victory banner that, for example, Sir Winston Churchill hastened to officially disown responsibility for the same Dresden, for dozens of other German cities wiped out from the face of the earth. As if nothing had happened and it was not he who personally made the decisions about the bombing. As if, when choosing the next victim city at the end of the war, the Anglo-American command was not guided by the criteria of "no military facilities" - "lack of air defense systems." The generals of the allied armies took care of their pilots and planes: why send them where there is an air defense ring.
As for the war hero, and later the disgraced Marshal Arthur Harris, he immediately after the military battle began to write the book "Strategic Bombings." It came out already in 1947 and sold in a fairly large print run. Many were wondering how the "main scorer" would be justified. The author did not do this. On the contrary, he made it clear that he would not allow the entire responsibility to be passed on. He did not regret anything and did not regret anything. This is how he understood his main task as commander of bomber aviation: “The main objects of the military industry should be sought where they are in any country in the world, that is, in the cities themselves. It should be especially emphasized that, except in Essen, we have never targeted any particular plant. We have always considered the destroyed enterprise in the city as an additional luck. Our main goal has always been the city center. All the old German cities are most densely built up towards the center, and their outskirts are always more or less free of buildings. Therefore, the central part of cities is especially sensitive to incendiary bombs. "
Air Force General Frederick Anderson explained the concept of all-out raids: “Memories of the destruction of Germany will be passed on from father to son, from son to grandson. This is the best guarantee that Germany will never again unleash new wars. " There have been many such statements, and they all seem even more cynical after reading the official American Strategic Bombing Report of September 30, 1945. This document, based on research conducted at the time, says that the citizens of German cities lost their faith in future victory, in their leaders, in the promises and propaganda to which they were subjected. Most of all they wanted the war to end.
They increasingly resorted to listening to "black radio", to discussing rumors, and in fact found themselves in opposition to the regime. As a result of this situation, the dissident movement began to grow in the cities: in 1944, one in every thousand Germans was arrested for political crimes. If German citizens had freedom of choice, they would have stopped participating in the war long ago. However, under the conditions of a tough police regime, any manifestation of discontent meant: prison or death. Nevertheless, a study of official records and individual opinions shows that during the last period of the war, absenteeism increased and production declined, although large enterprises continued to work. Thus, as much as the people of Germany were dissatisfied with the war, "they did not have the opportunity to openly express it," the American report emphasizes.
Thus, the massive bombing raids on Germany were generally not strategic. They were so only a few times. The military industry of the Third Reich was paralyzed only at the end of 1944, when the Americans bombed 12 factories that produced synthetic fuel and disabled the road network. By this time, almost all major German cities had been aimlessly destroyed. According to Hans Rumpf, they bore the brunt of the air raids and thus defended industrial enterprises until the very end of the war. “The strategic bombing was aimed mainly at destroying women, children and the elderly,” the Major General emphasizes. Of the total of 955,044 thousand bombs dropped by the British on Germany, 430,747 tons fell on cities.
As for Churchill's decision on the moral terror of the German population, it was truly fatal: such raids not only did not contribute to victory, but also pushed it back.
However, for a long time after the war, many well-known participants continued to justify their actions. So, already in 1964, retired US Air Force Lieutenant General Ira Iker expressed the following: “I find it difficult to understand the British or Americans who weep over the killed civilians and did not shed a tear over our valiant soldiers who died in battles with a cruel enemy. I deeply regret that the bomber aircraft of Great Britain and the United States killed 135 thousand inhabitants of Dresden in the raid, but I do not forget who started the war, and I am even more sorry that more than 5 million lives were sacrificed by the Anglo-American armed forces in a bitter struggle for complete destruction of fascism ".
British Air Marshal Robert Sondby was not so categorical: “No one will deny that the bombing of Dresden was a great tragedy. It was a terrible misfortune that sometimes happens in wartime, caused by a cruel coincidence. Those who sanctioned this raid did not act out of malice, not out of cruelty, although it is likely that they were too far from the harsh reality of hostilities to fully comprehend the monstrous destructive power of the aerial bombardment of the spring of 1945. Was the British Air Marshal so naive as to justify the total destruction of German cities in this way? After all, it is "cities, not heaps of ruins, that are the basis of civilization," wrote the English historian John Fuller after the war.
Better about the bombing, perhaps, and you can not say.
The origin of the doctrine
The very use of the aircraft as a means of warfare was at the beginning of the 20th century a truly revolutionary step. The first bombers were clumsy and fragile-looking structures, and it was not an easy task for the pilots to fly to the target even with a minimum bomb load. There was no need to talk about the accuracy of hits. In the First World War, bombers did not gain much fame, unlike fighters or ground-based "wonder weapons" - tanks. Nevertheless, the "heavy" aviation had supporters and even apologists. Between the two world wars, perhaps the most famous of these was the Italian general Giulio Douai.
In his writings, Douet tirelessly argued that the war can be won by one aircraft. The ground forces and the navy must play a subordinate role in relation to it. The army holds the front line and the navy defends the coast while the air force gains victory. Bombing should be primarily cities, not factories and military facilities, which are relatively easy to relocate. Moreover, it is advisable to destroy the cities in one raid so that the civilian population does not have time to take out material values \u200b\u200band hide. It is necessary not so much to destroy as many people as possible, but to sow panic among them, to break them morally. Under these conditions, enemy soldiers at the front will not think about victory, but about the fate of their loved ones, which will undoubtedly affect their morale. To do this, it is necessary to develop precisely bomber aviation, and not fighter, naval or any other. Well-armed bombers themselves are able to fend off enemy aircraft and deliver a decisive blow. Whoever has more powerful aviation will win.
Very few shared the "radical" views of the Italian theoretician. Most military experts believed that General Douay overdid it, making the role of military aviation absolute. And calls for the destruction of the civilian population in the 20s of the last century were considered frank bad manners. But, be that as it may, it was Giulio Douet who was among the first to understand that aviation gave war a third dimension. With his "light hand", the idea of \u200b\u200bunlimited air war has firmly settled in the minds of some politicians and military leaders.
Losses in numbers
In Germany, bombing killed, according to various estimates, from 300 thousand to 1.5 million civilians. In France - 59 thousand killed and wounded, mainly from Allied raids, in England - 60.5 thousand, including victims from the actions of rockets "Fau".
The list of cities in which the area of \u200b\u200bdestruction was 50% or more of the total area of \u200b\u200bbuildings (oddly enough, only 40% fell to Dresden):
50% Ludwigshafen, Worms
51% - Bremen, Hannover, Nuremberg, Remscheid, Bochum
52% - Essen, Darmstadt
53% - Cochem
54% - Hamburg, Mainz
55% Neckarsulm, Zoest
56% - Aachen, Muenster, Heilbronn
60% - Erkelenz
63% Wilhelmshaven, Koblenz
64% Bingerbruck, Cologne, Pforzheim
65% Dortmund
66% Crailsheim
67% - Giessen
68% - Hanau, Kassel
69% Duren
70% Altenkirchen, Bruchsal
72% Geilenkirchen
74% Donauworth
75% Remagen, Würzburg
78% - Emden
80% Prum, Wesel
85% - Xanten, Zulpich
91% - Emmerich
97% - Julich
The total volume of the ruins was 400 million cubic meters. 495 architectural monuments were completely destroyed, 620 were damaged so that their restoration was either impossible or questionable.
The German fascist invaders and their accomplices burned and destroyed 1,710 cities and towns, more than 70,000 villages, 1.5 million buildings and structures were completely or partially destroyed. About 25 million people lost their homes.
Also destroyed and destroyed 31850 industrial enterprises (Of these, machine-building and metallurgical enterprises played a particularly important role, giving up to 60% of the gross pre-war product), not counting small enterprises and workshops, 1,876 state farms, 2,890 machine and tractor stations, 98,000 collective farms, 216,700 shops, canteens, restaurants and other commercial enterprises, 4,100 railway stations, 36,000 post and telegraph offices, telephone exchanges, radio stations and other communication enterprises, 6,000 hospitals, 33,000 polyclinics, dispensaries and outpatient clinics, 976 sanatoriums and 656 rest homes, 82,000 primary and secondary schools, 1,520 specialized educational institutions - technical schools, 334 higher educational institutions, 605 research institutes and other scientific institutions, 427 museums, 43,000 public libraries and 167 theaters.
Destroyed, annihilated or kidnapped by the German occupiers and their accomplices on the territory of the USSR, which was subjected to occupation, 175 thousand metal-cutting machines, 34 thousand hammers and presses, 2,700 cutting machines, 15 thousand jackhammers, 5 million kettle of power plants, 62 blast furnaces, 213 open-hearth furnaces, 45 thousand looms and 3 million spinning spindles. Material damage was inflicted on the most valuable fixed industrial assets of the USSR.
Of the 122 thousand km of railway track that existed before the war on the territory of the USSR, which was subjected to occupation, destroyed and plundered by the invaders 65 thousand km of railway track. 15800 steam locomotives and 428 000 cars were damaged. The invaders destroyed, drowned and captured 4280 passenger, cargo and tugboats river transport and vessels of the technical auxiliary fleet and 4,029 non-self-propelled vessels. Out of 26 thousand railway bridges, 13 thousand were destroyed. All 2,078 thousand km of wires for telegraph and telephone communication lines available in the occupied regions of the USSR were destroyed or stolen by the German invaders.
Was subjected to barbaric destruction by explosions and arson housing stock of the population of the USSR.
Out of 2,567 thousand residential buildings in the cities of the USSR subjected to occupation, destroyed and 1 209 thousand houses were destroyed, moreover, in terms of the size of the residential area, this number of houses accounted for over 50% of the entire urban residential area of \u200b\u200bthese cities. Out of 12 million residential buildings of the rural population areas of the USSR subjected to occupation, destroyed and 3.5 million residential buildings were destroyed by the German invaders.
5 cities destroyed by WWII bombing
The total air raids of the Second World War convincingly demonstrated the uncompromising nature of the means of the participants in the conflict. Massive bombing strikes on cities destroyed communications and factories, leading to the deaths of thousands of innocent people.
Stalingrad
The bombing of Stalingrad began on 23 August 1942. It was attended by up to a thousand Luftwaffe aircraft, which made from one and a half to two thousand sorties. By the time the air raids began, more than 100 thousand people had been evacuated from the city, but most of the residents were unable to evacuate.
As a result of the bombing, according to the most rough estimates, more than 40 thousand people, mostly civilians, were killed. First, the bombardment was carried out with high-explosive shells, then with incendiary bombs, which caused the effect of a fiery tornado that destroyed all living things. Despite significant destruction and a huge number of victims, many historians believe that the Germans did not achieve their original goals. Historian Alexei Isaev commented on the Stalingrad bombing in the following way: “Everything did not go according to plan. After the bombing, the planned development of events did not follow - the encirclement of Soviet troops to the west of Stalingrad and the occupation of the city. As a result, the bombing looked like such a terrorist act, even if everything had developed according to written plan, it would seem logical. "
It must be said that the "world community" responded to the bombing of Stalingrad. Residents of Coventry, destroyed by the Germans in the fall of 1940, showed particular interest. The women of this city sent a message of support to the women of Stalingrad, in which they wrote: "From a city torn to pieces by the main enemy of world civilization, our hearts are drawn to you, those who are dying and suffering much more than ours."
In England, the "Committee of Anglo-Soviet Unity" was created, which organized various events and collected money to be sent to the USSR. In 1944, Coventry and Stalingrad became sister cities.
Coventry
The bombing of the English city of Coventry is still one of the most talked about events of the Second World War. There is a point of view, expressed, among other things, by the British writer Robert Harris in the book "Enigma", that Churchill knew about the planned bombing of Coventry, but did not strengthen the air defense, because he feared that the Germans would realize that their codes had been solved.
However, today we can already say that Churchill really knew about the planned operation, but did not know that the target would be the city of Coventry. The British government knew on November 11, 1940 that the Germans were planning a major operation called the Moonlight Sonata, and it would be undertaken on the next full moon, November 15. The British did not know about the goal of the Germans. Even if the goals were known, they would hardly have been able to take appropriate action. In addition, the government relied on electronic countermeasures (Cold Water) for air defense, which, as we know, did not work.
The bombing of Coventry began on November 14, 1940. Up to 437 aircraft took part in the air raid, the bombing lasted more than 11 hours, during which 56 tons of incendiary bombs, 394 tons of high-explosive bombs and 127 parachute mines were dropped on the city. In Coventry, more than 1,200 people died in total. In the city, water and gas supply was actually disabled, the railway and 12 aircraft factories were destroyed, which affected the defense of Great Britain in the most negative way - the productivity of aircraft construction decreased by 20%.
It was the bombing of Coventry that opened a new era of total air raids, which would later be called "carpet bombing", and also served as a pretext for the retaliatory bombing of German cities at the end of the war.
The Germans did not leave Coventry after the first raid. In the summer of 1941, they carried out new bombings of the city. In total, the Germans bombed Coventry 41 times. The last bombing took place in August 1942.
Hamburg
For the troops of the anti-Hitler coalition, Hamburg was a strategic object, there were oil refineries, military-industrial plants, Hamburg was the largest port and transport hub. On May 27, 1943, RAF Commander Arthur Harris signed Bomber Command Order No. 173 about an operation codenamed "Gomorrah". This name was not chosen by chance, it referred to the biblical text "And the Lord shed sulfur and fire from the Lord on Sodom and Gomorrah from heaven". During the bombardment of Hamburg, British aviation for the first time used a new means of jamming German radars, called Window: strips of aluminum foil were dropped from aircraft.
Thanks to Window, the Allied forces were able to minimize the number of losses, the British aviation lost only 12 aircraft. Air raids on Hamburg continued from July 25 to August 3, 1943, about a million residents were forced to leave the city. The number of victims according to various sources varies, but amounts to at least 45,000 inhabitants. The highest death toll was on July 29th. Due to climatic conditions and massive bombardment, firestorms formed in the city, literally sucking people into the fire, asphalt burned, walls melted, houses burned like candles. For three days after the end of the air strikes, it was impossible to carry out rescue and recovery work. People waited for the wreckage, turned into coals, to cool.
Dresden
The bombing of Dresden is to this day one of the most controversial events of the Second World War. Historians have disputed the military necessity of the Allied air raids. The information about the bombing of the marshalling yard in Dresden was transmitted by the head of the aviation department of the American military mission in Moscow, Major General Hill, only on February 12, 1945. The document did not say a word about the bombing of the city itself.
Dresden was not one of the strategic goals, besides, by February 1945, the Third Reich was living out its last days. Thus, the bombing of Dresden was more of a demonstration of US and British air force. The officially declared target was German factories, but they practically did not suffer from the bombing, 50% of residential buildings were destroyed, in general, 80% of city buildings were destroyed.
Dresden was called "Florence on the Elbe", it was a city-museum. The destruction of the city caused irreparable damage to world culture. However, it must be said that most of the works of art from the Dresden gallery were taken to Moscow, thanks to which they survived. They were later returned to Germany. The exact number of victims is still disputed. In 2006, the historian Boris Sokolov noted that the death toll in the bombing of Dresden ranges from 25 to 250 thousand people. In the same year, the book of the Russian journalist Alyabyev named the amount of deaths from 60 to 245 thousand people.
Lubeck
The RAF bombing of Lubeck on March 28-29, 1942 was an operation in retaliation by the British for air raids on London, Coventry and other British cities. On the night of March 28-29, Palm Sunday, 234 British bombers dropped about 400 tons of bombs on Lubeck. The air raid took place according to the classical scheme: first, to destroy the roofs of houses, high-explosive bombs were dropped, then incendiary bombs. According to the British estimates, almost one and a half thousand buildings were destroyed, more than two thousand were seriously damaged, more than nine thousand were slightly damaged. As a result of the avalanche, more than three hundred people died, 15,000 were left homeless. The irreparable loss of the bombing of Lubeck was the loss of historical and artistic values.
The Second World War was the most destructive in the history of all conflicts. It has had the most money spent on it, damaged the most property, killed the most people, and caused the most profound change in any war in history.
1. The country with the greatest victims in the Second World War was Russia, more than 21 million people.
2. Out of every five German soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War, four died on the Eastern Front.
3. An estimated 1.5 million children died during the Holocaust. Approximately 1.2 million of them were Jews, and tens of thousands were Roma.
4. Eighty percent of Soviet men born in 1923 did not survive the Second World War.
5. Between 1939 and 1945, the Allies dropped 3.4 million tons of bombs, averaging up to 27,700 tons per month.
6. Russia and the Red Army have been charged with several war crimes, including systematic rape (over 2 million German women aged 13-70 were raped by the Red Army) and genocide.
7. Many historians believe that the Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943) is not only possibly the bloodiest battle in history (800,000-1,600,000 deaths), but also the turning point of World War II in Europe.
8. Many seriously ill concentration camp prisoners died after liberation, even after turning to the allies for help. In Bergen-Belsen, for example, 13,000 prisoners have died since release. Of the 33,000 survivors at Dachau, about 2,500 died within six weeks of liberation.
9. Max Heiliger was an assumed name. It was used by the SS to open bank accounts where money, gold and gems confiscated from Jews in Europe were kept.
10. The longest battle of the Second World War was the Battle of the Atlantic, which lasted from 1939 to 1945.
11. The original abbreviation of the National Socialist Party was called Nasos. The word "Nazi" comes from the Bavarian word and means "just thinking." It was first used as a mockery by journalist Konrad Heiden (1901-1966).
12. The swastika is an ancient religious symbol. It comes from the Sanskrit name, where the hooked cross was a symbol of good luck and fertility among ancient civilizations. It has been found on the ruins of Greece, Egypt, China, India and Hindu temples.
13. In 1935, British engineer Robert Watson-Watt was working on a "death ray" that could destroy enemy aircraft using radio waves. His "death ray" turned into radar and "radar".
14. Of the 40,000 people who served on submarines during World War II, only 10,000 returned.
15. The survivors of the atomic bombing in Japan are called "niji hibakusha", which literally means "people affected by the explosion."
16. About 600,000 Jews served in the US military during World War II. More than 35,000 have been killed, injured, captured or missing. About 8,000 died in the battle. However, only two Jewish soldiers were awarded the Medal of Courage during the Great Patriotic War.
17. The Battle of the Bulge is the largest and most devastating battle for American forces. More than 80,000 American soldiers have died here.
18. Enola Gay (Boeing B-29 Superfortress) became famous after the explosion of the first atomic bombs (Hiroshima). But few people know that the same bomber, named Bockscar, which bombed Nagasaki, was named after the commander of a conventional plane, Frederic Bock.
19. During the blockade of Leningrad, more Russians (military and civilians) died than American and British soldiers during the entire period of World War II.
20. The Nazis killed about 12 million people, almost 6 million of them were Jews killed during the Holocaust.
21. During the Second World War, the Japanese made 9,000 "military aircraft" from paper and silk. The rubberized balloons were supposed to deliver incendiary and anti-personnel bombs to the United States. More than 1,000 balloons have reached Michigan. They killed six Americans (five children and a pregnant woman), who were at that time on a picnic in Oregon.
22. Japanese kamikaze ("divine wind") were proposed on October 19, 1944 by Vice Admiral Onishi, who tried to balance the technological advantage of the American forces. Although the numbers are disputed, some 2,800 kamikaze pilots were killed. They sunk 34 American ships, damaged 368, killed 4,900 sailors and wounded 4,800 people.
23. Many Jews have been subjected to terrible medical experiments. For example, doctors bombarded the testes of men and the ovaries of women with X-rays to see the effect of different doses on fertility. Nazi doctors broke bones several times to see how many times this could be done before the bones could not be healed. They beat people on the heads with hammers to determine the threshold for the strength of the skull. Experiments were also carried out to determine the effect of atmospheric pressure on the body. In addition, the prisoners were injected with various drugs and infectious agents, their limbs were amputated, and their muscles were excised for transplant research. Today, reference or use of Nazi experiments is considered unethical.
24. Dr. Josef Mengele ("Angel of Death"), used in his genetic experiments about 3,000 twins, mostly children of gypsies and Jews. Only about 200 survived. He experimented with an eyeball, when it was removed from one of the twins and attached to the back of the other, changed the color of the eyes in children by injecting a dye. In one case, two Gypsy twins were stitched together to try and create "Siamese twins."
25. In addition to Jews and Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses were also persecuted and killed in German concentration camps.
26. The decision to implement the "Final Solution" or Die Endlösung was taken at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin on January 20, 1942. Heinrich Himmler was its chief architect. The earliest use of the phrase "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" was actually used in 1899 in a memo by Russian Tsar Nicholas on Zionism.
27. The end of World War II occurred on September 2, 1945, when Japan signed a surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
28. Anne Frank and her sister died in the Bergen-Belsen camp in March 1945, one month before his liberation in April 1945. During its existence, about 50,000 people died here. After the camp was evacuated, British soldiers burned it down to prevent the spread of typhus.
29. In his book The Denial of the Jews, David Wyman (1929) argued that the refusal to bomb the concentration camps was the result of Allied indifference to the fate of the Jews, not the practical impossibility of carrying out the operation.
30. Despite the risk, thousands of Jews were saved. For example, in Denmark all their communities have survived. Personalities such as Raoul Wallenberg (1912-1947), Oskar Schindler (1908-1974), Tiune Sugihara (1900-1986) have saved thousands of lives.
31. During 1940-1945, the US defense budget increased from $ 1.9 billion to $ 59.8 billion.
32. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, 96 ships were at anchor. 18 were sunk or seriously damaged, including eight battleships. 2,402 American soldiers were killed and 1,280 wounded. Three hundred and fifty aircraft were destroyed or damaged.
33. The Air Force was part of the army in World War II and did not become a separate branch of the military after it.
34. In 1941, earnings were $ 21 per month. In 1942 - $ 50.
35. German submarines sank 2,000 Allied ships and lost 781 submarines.
36. During the Second World War, more than 650,000 jeeps were produced. American factories also produced 300,000 warplanes, 89,000 tanks, 3,000,000 machine guns and 7,000,000 rifles.
37. The Germans used the first jet fighters in World War II, including the Messerschmitt Me-262. However, they were developed too late to influence the course of hostilities.
38. The most powerful artillery installation ever created in the world was used in the Great Patriotic War. She was named "Karl" after her general designer Karl Becker. Used mainly against the Russians, the huge cannon could fire 2.5 tons of shells further than 5 km. They were 24 cm wide and could destroy concrete walls 2.5-3 meters thick.
39. During World War II, the English abbreviation BAM was used for female soldiers of the Marines, for men - HAM.
40. The SS made a brothel called "Salon Kitty" for foreign diplomats and other VIPs in Berlin. Everything was auditioned here, in addition, 20 prostitutes were selected, who underwent several weeks of intensive education and training. They were specially trained to gather information from clients through seemingly harmless conversations.
41. The Second World War led to the fall of Europe as the center of world power, which allowed the United States and Russia to obtain super powers. This became one of the conditions for the emergence of the Cold War and the onset of the nuclear age.
42. Most historians agree that World War II began after the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Others say it began when Japan invaded Manchuria on September 18, 1931. And some scholars have suggested that World War II is actually a continuation of World War I.
43. During World War II, burgers in the US were nicknamed "Liberty Steaks" to avoid the German-sounding name.
44. The Nazis used the Harvard "Fight Song" to make their "Sieg Hei" march.
45. Josef Kramer (1906-1945), head of the Bergen-Belsen camp, was known as the "Belsen Beast". When asked how he felt as he watched and participated in the deaths of thousands of men, women and children, Kramer said he felt nothing because he was following orders. He was later executed for crimes against humanity.
