Economic aspects of the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II

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The strategic bombing of the German Reich during the Second World War 1939–45 represents a controversial military measure by the United Kingdom and the USA in the last few decades . The military attack on numerous German locations by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces from the air by means of widespread bombing had both a military and a political and economic perspective.

Military, political and economic perspective

The military aim of the air raids was primarily to destroy German defenses as quickly as possible, as well as heavy industry and weapons production. In this way, a time-consuming and costly invasion by the Allies with a presumably high number of war victims was to be avoided. Especially after the massive bombing of the United Kingdom by planes of the Reich German Air Force, President Churchill reacted from a political perspective with a retaliatory strike in the form of counter-bombing by the Royal Air Force. Churchill was of the opinion that he could only defeat Nazi Germany and carry the war out of his own country through sustained air strikes.

From an economic perspective, reducing the possibilities of warfare by the German Reich through the bombing was also a priority. The German economy was to be permanently damaged by the destruction. The attack on economically important locations such as arms factories and other core industries aimed to destabilize German domestic production. Means of production such as physical capital (factories, buildings, etc.) but also human capital (workers) and the inner-German infrastructure (roads, bridges, rails, etc.) were primary goals.

Critics of the British air strikes on the German Reich continue to argue that the strategic bombing cannot be morally justified due to the high number of civilian casualties in the population. In addition, from an economic perspective, the military strikes were a “massive waste of resources”. Proponents of the air strikes, on the other hand, argue that the damage to the German war industry had a decisive influence on the outcome of the war.

Cost-benefit analysis of air strikes

The air strikes on industrial plants did not bring the Allies much strategic advantage. Although there was impressive damage to buildings, it was easy to repair. However, the machines were so well protected against the effects of bombs that only a direct hit could damage them. Raw materials and components were mainly stored outside the factory premises. For example, a lot of effort has been made. to hit the ball bearing factories in Schweinfurt, but production could not be stopped because less sensitive machines were used for production here, which were also difficult to hit from the air. It was different with the factories that produced synthetic oil, which could be more easily damaged by air raids. But also during the air raids on the Leunawerke it turned out that the plant could be made ready for production again within 6-8 weeks, despite massive destruction, so that only repeated air raids had a lasting effect. The Allied aerial warfare strategy tended towards area bombing , which could cause greater damage overall than attacks on individual objects. However, the area bombing caused damage to residential buildings and less to industrial plants. Overall, neither the bombing of England nor the bombing of the German Reich "broke the morale of the population". The economic historian Alan Milward comes to the conclusion that the bombings were essentially the result of the idea of ​​retaliation, but were more of a mistake in a strictly economic cost-benefit analysis . The economist Keith Hartley estimates the costs of the British air strikes on the German Reich (in 2009 prices) at 167 to 440 billion pounds, the benefits in the form of estimated losses for the German Reich in arms production at at least 161 billion pounds and in civilian production 44 billion pounds. From his point of view, the air strikes by the Royal Air Force made economic sense, even if some of the bombings towards the end of the war were excessive and uneconomical. From the end of 1944, the Allied air sovereignty led to major damage to the transport infrastructure and power lines, as well as to not inconsiderable damage to individual industrial facilities. According to the United States Strategic Bombing Survey , German economic production was affected to a greater extent by the strategic air raids from this point on, in particular because coal, by far the most important energy source, could no longer be transported from the mines to the industrial plants, resulting in production stoppages in the Industry came. However, the military situation of the German Reich was already hopeless at this point. According to estimates by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, German industrial production was reduced by 2.5% in the air raids in 1942, 9% in 1943, 17% in 1944 and 6.5% in 1945. However, the historian Start Halsey Ross points out that, despite the massive air raids, German war production in 1944 was much higher than in previous years. Overall, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey also comes to the conclusion that the air strikes did not have a decisive influence on war production and the outcome of the war. Although the population lost faith in victory, they continued to work effectively. John Kenneth Galbraith , one of the directors of the Strategic Bombing Survey, even described the strategic bombing as a disastrous failure because the costs were much higher than the benefits. You could only afford that because the US economy was much larger than that of the German Reich.

literature

  • Keith Hartley: The strategic bombing of Germany in the Second World War - an economic perspective, in: Handbook on the economics of conflict, pp. 453-478, 2011, ISBN 978-1-84844-649-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Keith Hartley: The strategic bombing of Germany in the Second World War: an economic perspective . 2011, p. 453 .
  2. ^ Keith Hartley: The strategic bombing of Germany in the Second World War: an economic perspective . 2011, p. 453-454 .
  3. ^ Alan Milward, War, Economy and Society 1939-1945, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-03942-4 , pp. 300-302, 315
  4. ^ Keith Hartley: The strategic bombing of Germany in the Second World War: an economic perspective . 2011, p. 475-476 .
  5. ^ Derek L. Braddon, Keith Hartley, Handbook on the Economics of Conflict , Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011, ISBN 9780857930347 , p. 475
  6. ^ Raymond G. Stokes: Technology and the West German Wirtschaftswunder . In: Technology and Culture . tape 32 , no. 1 , January 1991, pp. 1-22 , JSTOR : 3106006 .
  7. ^ Alan Milward: The German War Economy 1939-1945. 2010, ISBN 978-3-486-70370-2 , pp. 91-92.
  8. ↑ Stewart Halsey Ross, Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War II: The Myths and the Facts , McFarland, 2002. ISBN 9780786414123 , pp. 197-199