Talk:Aerial bombing of cities

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

should this be merged with strategic bombing? - Omegatron 18:25, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think so. Strategic bombing mostly refers to level bombing of industrial and military facilities, even if the civilian part of the story is more discussed recently. Bombing of cities is exactly what it says: bombing of civilian targets on purpose. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 21:59, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Death toll for Dresden? 2 Some questions 3 Area bombardment 4 Is Aerial Bombardment state Terrorism 5 Expansion on section Inter war years (1919–1938) request 6 Merging of Aerial bombing of cities and Terror bombing 7 The German view 8 photo caption 9 Hugo Sperrle

[edit] Death toll for Dresden?

Some anon said: The death toll for Dresden is vastly too high.

Estimates vary. See

• http://web.bryant.edu/~history/h364material/chronologies/wwii-bom_3.htm quotes figures from 35,000 to 135,000
• Bombing of Dresden in World War II says "Estimates vary from 25,000 to more than 135,000 dead"

The 135,000 figure seems to be a German estimate; the 35,000 figure the Allied estimate after the war. Many dodgy revisionist sites quote the 135,000 figure. See Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II for a lengthy argument on the merits and legitimacy of various figures. -- The Anome 12:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The Bombing of Dresden in World War II#Impact of the attack now says: "Earlier reputable estimates varied from 25,000 to more than 60,000, but historians now view around 25,000-35,000 as the likely range" and reference it with: The Bombing of Dresden in 1945:Falsification of Statistics, by Richard J. Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:52, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Some questions

Interesting article, I just have a couple of quesstions. Should the World War I zeppelin raids on London be counted or were they strategic raids? Could someone translate the writing in the picture for us non-German speakers? Lisiate 21:47, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

And both have been answered in a few days. Many thanks to the contributors. Lisiate 20:02, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Area bombardment

SOMEONE CHALLENGE THE NEUTRALITY OF THIS ARTICLE PLEASE!!! Iraqi civilians were killed by "aerial bombardment of cites"?!? Would whoever posted this please look up the definition of bombardment?? Nothing but super-precise, laser-guided Tomahawk missiles were used in Iraq--to pinpoint SPECIFIC targets (the OPPOSITE of bombardment). Also, the 10,000 figure is total B.S. That's almost half the number killed in Hamburg during WWII (which actually WAS bombarded, with the express purpose of killing as many civilians as possible).

I removed the above recent addition because the author seems confused between "Aerial bombing of cities" and "Aerial Area bombardment" of cities.

• I agree that the 10,000 figure needs a source.
• But Hamburg was not bombed with the "express purpose of killing as many civilians as possible". It was that "Operations should now be focussed on the morale of the enemy civilian population and in particular, the industrial workers" Air Ministry directive issued to RAF Bomber Command on 14th February 1942 Philip Baird Shearer 12:17, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I think you are a little bit "blue-eyed" - the consequence out of: "Operations should now be focussed on the morale of the enemy civilian population and in particular, the industrial workers" was to attack the residential areas of Hammerbrook, Hamm, Eilbek etc. etc. to destroy their homes, but these houses were occuppied by civilians - therefore the task was to kill as many civilians as possible - I invite you to show you around here in Hamburg - which areas had been bombed.

Citius Altius Fortius 08:26, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is Aerial Bombardment state Terrorism

In paragraph two of this section, it is quoted as saying "The minutes of the meetings of the Target Committee responsible for proposing locations for the are available." This part does not seem to make sense "the are available", but I can't be sure what it should say. --Jack Quack 05:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion on section Inter war years (1919–1938) request

I would like to ask for an expansion on this section. There were more wars than just the Spanish Civil War and more bombarments than just Guernika. --Francisco Valverde 16:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

See the article#section Terror bombing#Inter war years -- There was bombing of villages and towns in colonial :"pasification campaigns" but was there "aerial bombing of cities" between the wars? --Philip Baird Shearer 17:42, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging of Aerial bombing of cities and Terror bombing

As the articles stand, I see them very similar although I understand there are some subtle differences. Perhaps they could both be merged...? --Francisco Valverde 20:31, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

There is a difference, because this article is about cities and the bombing of towns, villages, and the staffing of roads are excluded. But leaving that aside for the moment. I think this needs further discussion before any merge is done because there are about half a dozen articles all much to do with the same thing: See the dormant discussions under Talk:Strategic bombing during World War II#Title and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 18#Aerial bombing.

Personally I think that the "Terror bombing" article should be gutted and an explanation put in that it was a propaganda term popularised by Joseph Goebbels when Germany started to loose the air war. I think that the term inevitably leads to the negative POV that aerial bombing is bad, which is precisely why Goebbels used it. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:35, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm removing the proposal tag from the article due to lack of any support for several months (incidentally I oppose the merge FWIW). Tempshill 00:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The German view

Copied from the article page:

The following sites concerns respectable information from scientific institutions in Germany. They are not "linkspam"!

• Bombenkrieg at Historicum.Net Extensive site with large content, maintained by the University of Cologne. (mainly in German)
• Air Battle of the Ruhr 1939-1945 History of the most important industrial area in Germany in World War II, maintained by the Historisches Centrum Hagen. (mainly in German, with pictures)
• Hagen 1939-1945 Example for a heavy bombed German town, maintained by the Historisches Centrum Hagen. (mainly in German, with pictures)
• Mission 854, 28/2/1945 Air raid of the 8th USAAF on the railroad yards in Hagen, 28. February 1945. (in Germyn, with pictures)

Personally I see no point in having these links on the article page, as they are not used in citations and are only background reading and they are in German. If they should go anywhere it is on a German page like de:Flächenbombardement, about this subject which would then be crossed linked in the usual way --Philip Baird Shearer 18:08, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

These sites are non-specific and have been inserted in multiple articles by an IP. Overlooking them, only the first (bombenkrieg.historicum.net) meets scientific criterias. As far as I could see none of the rest offers further reading. All of them are in German and there are enough English links, so I think we should avoid them. --jergen 19:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

User:84.187.111.99 and User:145.254.97.88 inserted this non-specific link into about 20 articles. As far as I see it, this is no recommendation for this website. --jergen 08:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that the VL Zeitgeschichte is the main source for WW II in Germany. "The Virtual Library Contemporary History is part of the History Network at the European University Institute in Florenz. The contents of the catalogue are concentrated on the history of Germany (1890-1949). The Virtual Library History is the oldest catalog in the Internet, founded in March 1993 by Lynn Nelson at the University of Kansas, USA. Since September 1993 this catalog is part of the WWW Virtual Library. The VL Contemparary History is maintained by Ralf Blank at the Historisches Centrum Hagen, Germany." http://www.vl-zeitgeschichte.de Even if the linking a little professionally took place should the VL contemporary history under Web on the left of remain. The publishers can do finally nothing for it if people her here left. --Scholl 20:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC) --Scholl 21:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The links are specific, but you are not able to read German and your horizon is too small ;-) Most of Germans are able to read English. We have no problem with foreign languages. This fact is very interest. Are the Americans ungebildetet and more superficial than the Germans? Apology, but if I read your statements and evaluations, this statement forces itself upon me. --Scholl 10:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Was steht auf der Seite von "jergen": Deutsch als Muttersprache. Ich denke mal, jergen hat hinsichtlich der Sprachen etwas mehr auf dem Kasten als Du denkst ... --Scholl 10:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] photo caption

I know this is nitpicky, but there is a photo with the following slightly erroneous caption:

"The remains of German town of Wesel after intensive allied area bombing in 1945 (destruction rate 97% of all buildings)"

97% is the level of destruction, but it's not a rate. From the wiki article on "rate":

"A rate is a special kind of ratio, indicating a relationship between two measurements with different units, such as miles to gallons or cents to pounds."

[edit] Hugo Sperrle

An article called "Bomber Boys: Good men doing an ugly job" by Patrick Bishop, in BBC History magazine Vol 8 no 3, March 2007 page 17 first paragraph, states that:

Hugo Sperrle, commander of the German Air Fleet Three, was not charged at the Nuremberg trials with war crimes relating to the Blitz, for fear of drawing attention to the damage done to German Cities.

Patrick Bishop who writes in the Daily Telegraph has written a book called "Bomber Boys: Fighting back 1940-45" that is scheduled to be published in April 2007. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)