Baedeker Blitz

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Baedeker Blitz (also Baedeker raids ; dt. Baedeker attacks ) is the term used in the English language for the World War II carried out retaliatory attacks of the German Air Force . After the air raid by the Royal Air Force on the historic city center of Lübeck on the night of March 28th to 29th, 1942 and the “four-day bombardment” of Rostock from April 23rd to 27th, 1942, German attacks on culturally important cities in England followed.

execution

Baedeker attacks

The Baedeker attacks were carried out by Luftflotte 3 in two waves in April and early May 1942 and in late May and early June 1942. The targets were militarily insignificant cities in England that had important historical buildings.

Exeter

Even before April 1942, bombs had occasionally fallen on the city of Exeter . The first bombing occurred on the night of 7/8 August 1940, when a single German bomber dropped five bombs. On the morning of August 9, 1940, a local newspaper reported that the first victims of German attacks on Exeter were "a canary and some chickens". This attack, like almost all of the 19 bombs dropped on Exeter during the war, was not viewed as a targeted attack, but rather as the dropping of unused bombs on the flight home from the actual targets, British industrial centers in the north of the country.

The first of the “Baedeker attacks”, however, had Exeter as its target on the night of April 23rd to 24th, 1942. 25 German bombers were directed to their target for the first time with radar beams. The attack, which went without any loss to the Air Force, left about 70 dead in Exeter. The following day, at a press conference by the Foreign Office in Berlin, the statement was made that linked this and the attacks that followed later to the Baedeker travel guide. On the night of May 4, 1942, Exeter was again targeted. 40 bombers dropped 75 tons of high-explosive bombs and around 10,000 incendiary bombs over the city within an hour and a half, leaving 161 dead and 476 injured.

Bath

On April 25th and 26th, the historic city of Bath was targeted by German attacks for two consecutive nights. The two attacks, carried out with a total of 100 bombers, killed 417 people, injured 900, destroyed around 1,000 buildings in the city and damaged nearly 2,000 more.

Norwich

Bomb damage in Norwich, the man in the center of the picture looks into a makeshift bunker

Norwich was bombed on April 27 and 29, causing more than 200 fires and injuring or killing more than 900 residents. Thousands of houses were damaged or destroyed.

York

The attack on York began around midnight on the night of April 28th to 29th, 1942, resulting in 300 deaths and injuries and several thousand destroyed or badly damaged houses.

Canterbury

The second wave of Baedeker attacks followed the 1000 bomber attack on Cologne on the night of May 30th to May 31st, 1942. The attack on Canterbury on June 1st, 1942, which the German press explicitly called retaliation 140 inhabitants were killed and the medieval city center was devastated. Smaller attacks followed in the next few days, up to June 6, 1942.

Overall balance

A total of 1637 civilians were killed and 1760 injured in the five cities. More than 50,000 buildings were destroyed or badly damaged. Well-known buildings were the Guildhall in York and the Assembly Rooms in Bath.

Various statements are made about the losses of the German Air Force. Some reports state that the undefended cities were easy targets and there were hardly any kills or other losses, others describe the losses as "heavy". The attacks on poorly defended small towns were taken as a sign that the German Air Force was no longer capable of large-scale attacks on important targets such as London. On the one hand, British propaganda celebrated the great success of its attacks on Lübeck and Rostock, especially with regard to the shattered morale of the population, but on the other hand emphasized that the German Baedeker attacks had no such effect and only increased the perseverance of their own population. German propaganda took the opposite position.

In addition to these actual Baedeker attacks, other, later bombings are sometimes referred to as Baedeker attacks. The destinations were all in East England, the towns of Bury St Edmunds , Cambridge , Yarmouth and Ipswich . In these attacks, comparatively few aircraft were used and bombs were dropped, so that historians do not count these attacks among the Baedeker attacks.

Naming

Baedeker travel guide to Great Britain from 1937

The Führer order, which historians regard as the order for the Baedeker attacks, dates from April 14, 1942, and it makes no reference to the destruction of cultural property. Only the intensification of attacks and "terrorist attacks" on cities other than London are ordered, with the aim of causing the most sensitive disruption of public life possible. On the morning of April 24, 1942, the day after the first attack on Exeter, Legation Councilor Gustaf Braun von Stumm said during a press conference at the Foreign Office that the German Air Force would now bomb every building in Great Britain with three stars in the “Baedeker” .

The term Baedeker raids quickly became common in the media of the Western Allies . An article appeared in the British “ The Times ” on April 29, 1942, in which, citing “correspondents of neutral newspapers”, an unnamed German official said, “Now the Luftwaffe will go for every building which is marked with three stars in Baedeker "(" Now the air force will attack every building with three stars in Baedeker ") is quoted. In the later press reports of German attacks on Exeter, Norwich and York, these air strikes were then referred to as "Baedeker raids" .

Von Stumm's statement was wrong in the matter, as the award of three stars in Baedeker travel guides did not even appear, not even in the last edition of the travel guide for Great Britain before 1945 published in 1937. Tourist and artistically important sights could receive a star. Two stars were only given to a few outstanding destinations. Exeter, Bath and Norwich were just as excluded from this category as Bury St. Edmunds , Great Yarmouth and Ipswich . According to his diary entry of May 2, 1942, the German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels is said to have been extremely angry about the Stumm'sche word coining and to have "sharply reprimanded" those responsible.

Military historical background

General military and political situation

After Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, Stalin's side , but also the military and political leadership of the other Allies, repeatedly called for a “second front” in Europe, a major military intervention by the Western Allies in north-western Europe for withdrawal to force German forces from the Eastern Front. There were concerns that the alliance would lose the war against Hitler Germany by defeat in the east as a whole. In the spring of 1942 Franklin D. Roosevelt promised the Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov a second front. The term “second front” appeared again and again in the Allied media from 1942, in political reporting as well as in numerous caricatures. There the specter of the “second front” was depicted again and again, which robbed Hitler of sleep.

At the same time, Churchill told the Air Force Chief of Staff that bombing was not critical, but better than doing nothing. The sinking of Allied merchant ships by German submarines in the Atlantic increased dramatically until they reached their peak in June 1942, and the German Africa Corps had again been a threat to the strategically important Suez Canal since early 1942 . The upgrading of the British Bomber Command and the intended expansion of the bombing war by the British were first visible in the attacks on Lübeck and Rostock, which were answered with the "Baedeker attacks".

Bombing Civilian Targets as a Strategy

As early as 1893, more than ten years before the Wright brothers' first motorized flights , the British Major JD Fullerton described the influence of aviation on the art of war as just as important as the invention of gunpowder in a lecture to American colleagues . Future wars could begin with a major air battle, and the appearance of the air fleet over the enemy capital would likely end a campaign. The control of the airspace is a prerequisite for every land and air war in the future. The British author Frederick W. Lanchester took a similar view in the foreword to his book “Aeronautics”, published in 1907: “(...) in the near future, the control of the air space must be just as important for the future of the Empire as our continued superiority on the seas. "

In 1917 a British government report said “(…) the day may not be far off when aerial operations with their devastation of enemy lands and destruction of industrial and populous centers on a vast scale may become the principal operations of war, to which the older forms of military and naval operations may become secondary and subordinate ”(“ (..) the day cannot be far when air strikes, with their devastation of enemy territories and the destruction of centers of industry and population on a massive scale, will be the essential acts of war against which the older forms of land and sea war are secondary and of subordinate importance ”). The treatise “Dominio dell'Aria” (“ Air Dominion”) by the Italian General Giulio Douhet , published in 1921, was an essential step on the way to aerial warfare. In his book he explains that aerial warfare can break the will of a people by destroying their vital centers. The targets of the air war are the industry, the transport infrastructure, communication facilities, the government and "the will of the people". Douhet's views were accepted among supporters of the bombing war around the world, but his influence in the British military leadership remained small, and comparable positions were developed independently of Douhet. This was due to the fact that the first English translation of his book did not appear until 1943.

The theory of strategic bombing was initially geared towards the protection of human life against the background of the experiences with the warfare of the First World War . The destruction of enemy production facilities and means of transport was intended to limit the enemy's ability to conduct war and, after a short time, lead to the surrender of the military units that lacked supplies. Only when this ideal process could not be realized should attacks on civilian targets, for example the housing development in large cities, break the will of the population and thus lead to surrender. As early as 1924, the staff of the British Air Force had spoken out in favor of bombing military targets in inhabited areas from the start of a war, with the intention of bringing about a decision through the demoralizing effect of such attacks and the serious disruption of normal living conditions.

Immediately before the beginning and in the first years of the Second World War, there was a tendency, both in connection with efforts to achieve effective air defense and in the discussion about the justifiability of attacks on the civilian population, to clearly overestimate the consequences of air attacks. A British study from 1938 named a number of up to 150,000 fatalities within the first week in the event of a German air offensive directed against British cities. Apparently, the information on the victims of the German air attack on Gernika during the Spanish Civil War had been converted to “dead per ton of bombs”; in fact, only Japan suffered such heavy losses in the attacks on Tokyo in March 1945 and in the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki .

Immediately after the beginning of the war in September 1939, the British government had drastically restricted the scope of action of the Bomber Command , and attacks on targets that could lead to civilian casualties were expressly prohibited. Until the German invasion of France, Belgium and the Netherlands in May 1940, the Royal Air Force was largely limited to dropping leaflets at night . Thereafter, the restrictions placed on it were relaxed. Nevertheless, in the period from May 1940 to early 1942, mainly industrial targets such as oil refineries, aluminum and aircraft plants and transport routes were attacked. The impact of these attacks was limited.

The Area Bombing Directive ("General Directive No. 5 (S.46368 / DCAS)") was issued on February 14, 1942 by the British Ministry of Aviation. It authorized Air Marshal Arthur Harris, who was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force (RAF) a week later, to use his armed forces with immediate effect: "You are accordingly authorized to use your forces without restriction [...]". In addition, Harris was informed that the operations should be focused on the morale of the enemy civil population - especially those of the industrial workers: “It has been decided that the primary objective of your operations should be focused on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular the industrial workers ".

Already in the first weeks of Harris' service as head of Bomber Command, a comparison of the damage caused by bombers in Germany and Great Britain showed that the German attacks caused much greater destruction. The reason was the greater proportion of incendiary bombs in the bomb load dropped by the Germans, and the British attacks were not concentrated enough to cause severe fires and to overwhelm the fire brigade in fighting the fire. The attacks on Lübeck and Rostock, which were carried out a little later, showed that the Royal Air Force had reacted quickly to these findings.

The effectiveness of the bombing was controversial. An investigation in 1941 found that significantly fewer aircraft than according to the crews reached their intended destination. The proportion of those who hit the target with their bombs was even lower and precision drops could not be achieved at all. In August 1941, an analysis of aerial photographs found that only a third of the bombs dropped fell less than 5 miles from the intended target, with deviations from the target of up to 100 miles, and only about 30% hit at least partially built-up areas. The proportion rose to up to 40% on nights of the full moon, but a strong anti-aircraft defense system like the one on the Ruhr reduced the hit rate to 10%. The effects of the disruptions and work interruptions and the fatalities were assessed as more serious than the direct damage to facilities essential to the war effort. The attacks on the Renault plant near Paris, Lübeck and Rostock in March and April 1942 were the first attempts to increase the ineffectiveness of the bombing by using incendiary bombs as target markings and for setting fire.

Previous bombing of civilian targets

Italo-Turkish War

An incident from the Italo-Turkish War is considered to be the first bombing carried out by an airplane in military history . On November 1, 1911, the Italian lieutenant Giulio Gavotti threw three explosive devices weighing about 1.5 kilograms from his monoplane Etrich Taube at the Ain Zara oasis and a fourth at another oasis near Tripoli. Nothing is known about the victims, but the bombing was reported in the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter the next day .

First World War

London, damage after a zeppelin attack in 1916

From January 1915, targets in Great Britain were bombed by German airships . It turned out that the ordered targeted attacks on military installations were not feasible, and the lack of precision in the bombing resulted in casualties among the civilian population. The main effect of the attacks was the panic and general feeling of insecurity among the population, reinforced by the press and carried across the country. The missions of the zeppelins were soon extremely dangerous because of the rapidly developed defensive measures of the British, 53 of 73 airships of the Navy were lost.

From March 1917 heavy Gotha G. V bombers were used, the first daytime raid on London on June 13, 1917 claimed 162 lives. Among the dead were 18 elementary school students whose school was hit by a bomb. Nonetheless, the material damage, including to facilities essential to the war effort, was minor. The attacks were quickly recognized as militarily insignificant on both sides, and on the German side the morale of the British population became a declared target. In retrospect, a British historian compared the property damage of 3 million British pounds caused by 27 heavy bombing attacks with the damage amount of 70 million pounds, which at the time was caused annually by rats in Great Britain.

Spanish Civil War

From March 31, 1937, German aircraft of the Condor Legion , accompanied by some Italian aircraft, repeatedly dropped bombs on the Basque city of Durango over several days. However, one month later, on April 26, 1937, the city of Gernika was bombed by 21 aircraft from the Condor Legion and three Italian bombers. In the attack, 40.5 tons of bombs were dropped on the city, which is inhabited by 7,000 people, and up to 1,650 people died. These air strikes were the first violations of the German Air Force against international law. In addition, Gernika was attacked primarily because of its importance as the cultural capital of the Basque Country .

Another attack by Italian bombers in March 1938 killed more than 3,000 people in Barcelona when 42 tons of bombs were dropped. The bombings of the Japanese air forces on Chinese cities in the Sino- Japanese War from the end of 1937 also showed that strategic bombing would not prevent the immeasurable loss of life in the trench warfare , as had been hoped for in previous decades. Rather, most of the victims were no longer members of the fighting troops, but civilians.

World War II: Stages of Escalation

From the early morning of September 1, 1939, German bombers and fighters flew heavy attacks on targets in Poland. The bombing of Wieluń began on September 1, 1939 at 4.40 a.m., five minutes before the bombardment of the Westerplatte , which is usually considered to be the beginning of the Second World War. The city center was 90% destroyed, although there were no significant military targets in the city or its surroundings. About 1,300 civilians were killed.

A German plane drops bombs over Warsaw

Warsaw was 10% destroyed by targeted bombing between September 24 and 27, 1939; 782 of 987 historic buildings in the old town were the victims of these first attacks. After the failure of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, orders were issued to level Warsaw. Buildings, libraries, museums and archives were destroyed; what was left was transported to Germany in trains at the end of 1944.

Freiburg im Breisgau was accidentally bombed on May 10, 1940 by German planes from Kampfgeschwader 51 ; the majority of the bombs hit the local airport or fell nearby. Large numbers of civilians were among the 57 dead, including several children. The air force leadership and National Socialist propaganda initially blamed the bombing on French airmen and then, until the end of the war, on the Royal Air Force. In the Völkischer Beobachter , Munich edition, it was said on the following day: “In retaliation for this illegal act, the German Air Force will respond in the same way. From now on, every further planned enemy bombing raid on the German population will be reciprocated by five times the number of German aircraft on an English or French city. ”In the months and years after the incident, the accident of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels was in their speeches repeatedly addressed as the alleged beginning of the British air war against the German population.

Immediately after the German invasion of the Netherlands, Mönchengladbach was attacked by the Royal Air Force with 35 bombers on the night of May 11th, 1940. The attack was directed against road and rail links running through the city, killing four civilians.

Rotterdam was attacked by German bombers from Kampfgeschwader 54 on May 14, 1940, a few days after the start of the western campaign . As a result of poor communication between the German troops in front of Rotterdam and their higher-level agencies, the attack was carried out, although the surrender of the city was imminent. The attack killed 814 civilians, left 80,000 homeless and destroyed the entire old town of Rotterdam. That same evening the Dutch government declared surrender.

On August 24, 1940, two or three German planes dropped their bombs on London, contrary to Hitler's express orders; a different target was actually planned. The very next day, 80 British bombers attacked Berlin, and further attacks followed over the following four nights. The minor damage to the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag were portrayed by German propaganda as targeted attacks on German national symbols. Hitler revoked his order not to attack London on August 30th and ordered Hermann Göring , Commander in Chief of the Air Force, to bomb British cities day and night. On September 5, 1940, Göring publicly promised retaliation, and from September 7, several daytime attacks were carried out on London. From mid-September to May 16, 1941, there was a series of predominantly night German attacks on London, which are referred to as " The Blitz ".

From the beginning of November 1940, the British Air Force attacked a number of major German cities with area bombing. The Bomber Command was assigned to focus on two goals: the oil industry as far as visibility allowed, or the morale of the population. At that time, the German Air Force had already started launching incendiary bombs to mark the dropping points for subsequent bombers. Bomber Command was empowered to do the same.

Coventry, downtown after the bombing

The British industrial city of Coventry was the target of a major German bomber raid on November 14, 1940 . The attack was primarily directed against local industries, which played a significant role in British arms production, but considerable damage to residential buildings, civil facilities and cultural assets was accepted. The German propaganda then coined the term "coventrieren" as a term for the destruction of a city. From November 16, 1940, British area bombing of German cities began, starting with an attack with 127 bombers on Hamburg, as an immediate reaction to the destruction of Coventry. Initially, primarily workers' settlements and neighboring industrial plants, and only rarely dams, military headquarters and Gestapo prisons were attacked.

After the War Cabinet in London decided on December 13, 1940 a targeted, heavy retaliatory strike in response to the destruction of Coventry, Mannheim was the target of a British bombing raid on December 16, 1940. First of all, selected bomber crews threw incendiary bombs into the city center, which were used as drop marks for the bombers that followed. The declared aim of the attack was to burn down the city center.

From February 1942 the Bomber Command was allowed to bomb industrial targets in occupied France that were working for German armaments. On the night of March 3rd to 4th, 1942, the Royal Air Force attacked the Renault plant in Billancourt near Paris, where up to 18,000 trucks were produced annually for the Wehrmacht . The attack also hit the workers' quarters right next to the plant, killing 367 French people and leaving almost 10,000 homeless. The death toll exceeded the number of German civilians killed by British bombing up to that point.

Lübeck, the destroyed merchant quarter west of the Marienkirche

On the night of March 28-29, 1942, 234 British bombers attacked Lübeck , a city that, in the words of the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, was built “more like a lighter than a human settlement”. The 304 tons of bombs, half incendiary bombs and half high explosive bombs, hit Lübeck's old town badly, 320 residents died, 785 were injured, more than 15,000 were left homeless and up to 3,400 houses were badly damaged or destroyed. The German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels wrote a diary note in which he complained about the destruction of works of art by the “barbarians”.

Rostock was already a target of British air raids in 1940, but these targeted the industrial facilities of the Rostock armaments center. In the nights from April 23 to 27, 1942, the city was subjected to a “four-day bombardment” in which the nearby Heinkel aircraft works, other armaments factories and the historic old town were the target of a total of more than 500 bombers, carrying more than 800 tons of bombs , 40% incendiary bombs. 204 fatalities and 89 injured were to be mourned, at that time Rostock was the hardest hit city in Germany with a 70% destroyed city center.

Notwithstanding the destruction, the attacks on Lübeck and Rostock were so insignificant from a military point of view that the Wehrmacht High Command only mentioned them in passing in its reports. British evaluations also showed that the damage to industrial production was minimal and could be repaired within a few days. In contrast to this, the Allied public reporting emphasized the “important” role of Lübeck and Rostock as sea ports and as a focus of the armaments industry.

aftermath

Military response

The chronological sequence of mutual bombing of symbolic targets by the warring parties gives the impression that it is a series of successive strikes with immediate retaliation. That is how it was presented by the propaganda, and the allegations cannot be completely dismissed, especially for the German side. Nevertheless, the British attacks on Lübeck and Rostock were part of a military strategy that had been developed over a long period of time , such as the subsequent Operation Millennium and the area bombing by British and American bombers in the following war years. The "Baedeker attacks" were seen in the overall context only a marginal note in the history of the Second World War, militarily insignificant, with comparatively little damage, and - apart perhaps from the attacks on Rostock in April 1942 - without consequences that can be directly attributed to this series of attacks would be.

The bomb load dropped on the German enemy increased dramatically as a result, between 1939 and 1942 just under 90,000 tons of bombs were dropped over Germany, and between 1943 and 1945 it was almost 1.5 million tons. For the entire duration of the war, the bomb load dumped over Great Britain by the Luftwaffe was only three percent of what was dropped by British and American bombers over Germany.

In the bombing war, the Royal Air Force lost 22,000 aircraft with almost 80,000 men, the American bomber fleet 18,000 aircraft with almost 80,000 men. The enormous number of Allied aircraft crews killed has contributed to a considerable extent to the fact that the bomber command was perceived positively on the part of the Allies in large parts of the public until recently. More than half a million civilians died in Germany, and the vast majority of the 57,000 German aircraft lost in the war fell victim to the bombing. In 1939 the German Air Force had an equal share of fighters and bombers; at the end of the war 90% fighters were compared to only 10% bombers. This change in numbers was forced by the need to fight the approaching Allied bombers. An indirect consequence was the reduced operational capability of the German air force in other theaters of war.

On the one hand, the bomber offensive is to be seen as the "second front" promised to the Soviet Union; its essential military benefit consisted in tying up resources with war opponent Germany. As far as the withdrawal of air force units was concerned, the Soviet Union in particular benefited from this from the end of 1943.

This form of warfare was impaired again and again by bad weather, technical advances in the German air defense, and relocation of task forces to other theaters of war. The immediate effect, in the sense of the destruction of important military targets, was only particularly great in those cases in which individual targets were repeatedly attacked. The effects on the morale of the population also fell short of expectations.

Bomber's Baedeker

In December 1940 and January 1941, Royal Air Force bombers targeted German refineries in order to limit the capacities for the production of fuels, especially those for aviation fuel. On December 28, 1940, the evaluation of photographs of the bombed facilities in Gelsenkirchen a few days earlier showed that no major damage had occurred. It was felt that successful attacks on the oil industry would have to be carried out with a precision that was not possible at the time. This form of bombing was discontinued for more than two years, although the dependence of the German war machine on the manufacture of refined products was known.

In November 1941 a plan was put forward in Great Britain under the code name "Unison" to use more incendiary bombs in bombing. The draft coincided with the decision to make the morale of the German population more the target of the attacks (see Area Bombing Directive). First, German cities were listed according to their susceptibility to fire. The main criteria for the selection were the distance from Great Britain and the easy identification of the targets. A major motive for the plan was the previous poor hit rate of British bombers. In the future, fires generated by incendiary bombs from the first bombers should serve as a target for subsequent aircraft. The plan was temporarily abandoned, but applied on the night of March 3rd to 4th, 1942, during the attack on the Renault works near Paris.

In January 1942, the Aviation Ministry examined which industries were particularly suitable targets for area bombing. Three criteria were essential: possible targets had to be large, reachable and vulnerable to the bombers. The Ministry of Economic Warfare produced a detailed report that highlighted the accessibility, vulnerability and concentration of individual industries. Six suitable industries were named: power supply, rubber production, armaments factories including aircraft construction, oil and other fuels, aluminum industry, and soda production. The report indicated that three cities, Schweinfurt, Jena and Stuttgart, would suffer major collateral damage in the event of area bombing .

The Ministry for Economic Warfare dealt with the re-evaluation of previous reports and with a list of German cities that were of economic importance and in which key industries were located, the failure of which could cause supply bottlenecks and affect German warfare. Towards the end of 1942 the list was ready, the cities listed were assigned numerical values according to their economic importance in relation to their size (Key Point Ratio - KPR) and after an assessment of their economic importance (Key Point Factor - KPF) . This list was given to Bomber Command as an aid in selecting suitable targets. The Ministry of Economic Warfare, however, set different priorities than the Aviation Ministry and Bomber Command, especially in the sense of emphasizing the economic importance of possible targets. The Ministry of Aviation often did not follow the assessments of the vulnerability of industrial plants, which repeatedly led to tension between the ministries.

The "Enemy Department" of the Ministry of Economic Warfare issued a classified description of 392 German cities with more than 15,000 inhabitants on January 2, 1943, with which the British bomber units were supplied. The three-part work was intended to serve as an aid for area and precision attacks. For this purpose, cities were named in which German arms production could be hit particularly hard. In addition, important industrial facilities were specified that were assessed as vulnerable. This lineup became known as "The Bomber's Baedeker".

The listed industrial enterprises were assigned three priority levels, the subdivision concerned factories with a leading role in the German warfare, smaller plants in important branches of industry, and factories of little importance. The stated goals were divided into 14 different branches of industry, some of which seem to be of importance to the war effort, such as the aircraft industry. A separate category was e.g. B. the leather industry. In addition, information about the geographical location, the number of inhabitants, the distance from Great Britain and a general description were included for the locations.

The Bomber's Baedeker

In April 1944 a second edition appeared under the title “The Bomber's Baedeker. Guide to the Economic Importance of German Towns and Cities, 2nd (1944) Edition " . This edition comprised two volumes, Aachen to Küstrin and Lahr to Zwickau , and also contained small towns with less than 1000 inhabitants, provided they were locations of war-important industries. The prioritization of the objectives was now more differentiated, in addition to categories 1 to 3 there was a category 1+ for factories of extraordinary importance for German warfare, and a category without a priority number for insignificant factories or those for which the available information did not allow a classification.

In the period from the publication of the first to the second edition, the assessments were changed in many cases. The Hohenbudberg marshalling yard near Krefeld was assigned priority level 1 in 1943 because of its capacity of 6,700 wagons a day, so the chemical factories belonging to the IG Farben group were also previously. Hamlet - ter Meer in neighboring Uerdingen classified. In the following year, both properties were given the lower priority of level 2.

One can only speculate about the time and the reasons for the naming of the "Bomber's Baedeker". On the one hand, "Baedeker" was a common term for "travel guide" in the English-speaking world even before the Second World War and later, regardless of war events. On the other hand, after the German attacks "Baedeker Blitz", "Baedeker Bombing" and "Baedeker Raid" were frequently used terms in the media. It is likely that the title of the work was intended to allude to the German air raids.

Even today, the two editions of “Bomber's Baedeker” can play an important role in the search for non-detonated ordnance , along with other Allied target directories and their aerial photographs. When investigating a suspected area, the information can provide information on potential targets of attack that existed at the time and, in conjunction with other sources, on the types of bombs that were probably used.

Emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention

Protection of cultural assets in conflicts

The great esteem in Great Britain for architecturally and historically valuable buildings, especially in small and medium-sized cities, has its origin in its present form, at least in part, in the Baedeker attacks of 1942, in the other destruction of British cultural assets during the " London Blitz " and in the attack on Coventry. In addition, it is believed that the attacks only raised the cultural assets that were previously only locally important in the public consciousness to national importance.

The efforts of warring states to protect cultural assets in enemy territory also go back to the Second World War. In the United States, the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas was established as early as 1943 . The authority was founded in particular on the occasion of the systematically stolen art from war zones by the Germans, but was also active in relation to the situation in Germany as the war progressed. British and American troops had special units, such as the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section (MFAA), whose job was to secure threatened cultural assets.

The targeted attacks on cultural property carried out during the Second World War, not just the Baedeker attacks, are seen as the starting point for the international protection of cultural property during war, for example through the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflicts of 1954 or through the World Heritage Convention of 1972.

epilogue

Willi Schludecker attends Remembrance Day in Bath, England on April 25, 2008

The relative insignificance of the Baedeker attacks in military history contrasts with the perception of those directly affected. More than a thousand people died, thousands were injured, the number of their relatives and friends runs into the tens of thousands, the population of the cities as a whole was affected by the material damage, and the “Baedeker raids” are still present in the collective consciousness of the attacked cities . Even today, commemorations are held every year on the anniversaries of the attacks, especially on the "round" days when the events return. The return of a German bomber pilot to the place he had bombed decades earlier as part of the “Baedeker attacks” received special attention in the British media in 2008.

87-year-old former Air Force pilot Willi Schludecker visited the city of Bath to take part in the annual bombing commemoration celebrations on April 25, 2008. Schludecker had flown more than 120 sorties for the German Air Force during the Second World War, 32 of them against Great Britain, Bath was bombed by him twice. During a memorial service, he gave the reason for joining the Air Force that he just wanted to fly, and asked the people of Bath for forgiveness for "all the suffering and terrible damage" he had inflicted on the city in 1942.

Willi Schludecker died on June 17, 2010 at the age of 89 in Cologne.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Devon County Council (ed.): Exeter Blitz. Devon Libraries Factsheet 17. Devon County Council, Exeter n.d. (2009) Online PDF 262 kB, accessed September 7, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f without author: Blitzed by guidebook. BBC News, Wednesday March 27, 2002 Online , accessed September 6, 2013.
  3. ↑ Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery (ed.): The Exeter (Baedeker) Blitz of 4 May 1942. Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter undated (2012) Online PDF ( Memento of the original of September 27 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 709 kB, accessed on September 7, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rammuseum.org.uk
  4. ^ Niall Rothnie: The Bombing of Bath. Folly Books, Bradford-on-Avon 2010, ISBN 978-0-9564405-1-8 .
  5. ↑ without author: Bath blitz deaths remembered in service. BBC News, Wednesday April 28, 2008 Online , accessed September 6, 2013.
  6. ^ A b A. C. Grayling: Among the Dead Cities. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 2006, ISBN 0-7475-7671-8 , p. 52.
  7. ↑ a b The Open University (Ed.): Whose heritage? Stories of Britain's changing attitudes to heritage. The Open University, o. O. (London) 2009, pp. 4–5 Online PDF 1,255 kB, accessed on September 8, 2013.
  8. ^ A b c d e f Williamson Murray : Strategy for Defeat. The Luftwaffe 1933–1945. Third printing. Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base AL 2000, ISBN 1-58566-010-8 Online PDF 20.4 MB, accessed September 6, 2013.
  9. ↑ a b without author: Notes of the week. Second front in the air. In: The Economist, May 2, 1942, p. 598.
  10. ^ Basil Collier: Defense of the United Kingdom. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1957, p. 512 (Appendix XXXVI) Online
  11. ↑ CR Ames: Baedeker Raids. In: Notes and Queries, vol. 183, no. 3, ISSN  0029-3970 , p. 78 (edition of August 1, 1942, question about the first use of the term, originally printed in the American edition of June 1942) and anonymous (“AJH”): Baedeker Raids. In: Notes and Queries, vol. 183, no. 6, ISSN  0029-3970 , p. 173 (September 12, 1942 edition, answer).
  12. ↑ Elke Fröhlich (ed.) The diaries of Joseph Goebbels. KG Saur, Munich, Part II Dictations 1941–1945. 15 vols. 1993-1996, ISBN 3-598-21920-2 . Volume 4, p. 219 f. May 2, 1942 and p. 227, May 3, 1942.
  13. ^ A b c Roger Beaumont: The Bomber Offensive as a Second Front. In: Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 22, no. 1, 1987, doi: 10.1177 / 002200948702200101 , pp. 3-19.
  14. ↑ Peter William Gray: The strategic leadership and direction of the Royal Air Force Strategic air offensive against Germany from inception to 1945. Dissertation, University of Birmingham, Birmingham 2009 Online PDF 2,630 kB, accessed on September 7, 2013.
  15. ^ A b R. A. Mason: The British Dimension. In: Alfred F. Hurley and Robert C. Ehrhart (eds.): Air Power and Warfare. The Proceedings of the 8th Military History Symposium, United States Air Force Academy, October 18-20, 1978. Office of Air Force History, Headquarters USAF and United States Air Force Academy, Washington DC, 1979, pp. 22-35 Online PDF 25, 1 MB (entire volume), accessed September 6, 2013.
  16. ^ Frederick William Lanchester: Aerodynamics, constituting the first volume of a complete work on aerial flight. Archibal Constable, London 1907 Online PDF 23.5 MB, accessed September 6, 2013.
  17. ^ JC Smuts: The Second Report of the Prime Minister's Committee on Air Organization and Home Defense against Air Raids, dated August 17, 1917. In: Eugene M. Emme (Ed.): The Impact of Air Power. Van Nostrand, Princeton NJ 1959, p. 35, quoted in: Malcolm Smith: A Matter of Faith: British Strategic Air Doctrine before 1939. In: Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 15, 1980, ISSN  0022-0094 , pp. 423-442, here p. 425.
  18. ↑ a b c d e f g Michael Schmidt-Klingenberg: "We will erase them". Hitler's bomb terror. In: Der Spiegel Special 1/2003, pp. 24–32 Online , accessed on September 4, 2013.
  19. ^ Giulio Douhet: The Command of the Air. Translated by Dino Ferrari. New imprint. Air Force History and Museums Program, Washington DC 1998, ISBN 0-912799-10-2 Online PDF 38.4 MB, accessed September 5, 2013.
  20. ↑ Malcolm Smith: A Matter of Faith: British Strategic Air Doctrine before 1939. In: Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 15, 1980, ISSN  0022-0094 , pp. 423-442.
  21. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Richard G. Davis: Bombing the European Axis Powers. A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive 1939–1945. Air University Press, Maxwell Airforce Base AL 2006, ISBN 1-58566-148-1 Online PDF 2,005 kB, accessed September 6, 2013.
  22. ↑ Harry Garretsen, Marc Schramm and Steven Brakman: The Strategic Bombing of German Cities during World War II and its Impact for Germany (= Tjalling C. Koopmans Research Institute, Discussion Paper Series no: 03-09). Utrecht University, Utrecht 2003 Online PDF  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 1,025 kB, accessed on September 5, 2013.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / igitur-archive.library.uu.nl  
  23. ↑ a b c Jochen Bölsche: “This is what hell must look like”. In: Der Spiegel Special 1/2003, pp. 6–20 Online , accessed on September 5, 2013.
  24. ^ A b c Rex F. Cording: The Other Bomber Battle. An Examination of the Problems that arose between the Air Staff and the AOC Bomber Command between 1942 and 1945 and their Effects on the Strategic Bomber Offensive. Dissertation, University of Canterbury, Canterbury 2006 Online PDF 3,140 kB, accessed September 8, 2013.
  25. ^ A b c d John Fahey: Britain 1939-1945: The economic cost of strategic bombing. Dissertation, University of Sydney, Sydney 2004 Online PDF 3,475 kB, accessed on September 6, 2013.
  26. ^ Alan Johnston: Libya 1911: How an Italian pilot began the air war era. BBC News Europe, May 10, 2011 Online , accessed September 8, 2013.
  27. ^ Sven Lindqvist: A History of Bombing. Granta Books, London 2002, ISBN 1-86207-490-9 .
  28. ↑ David L. Bashow: None but the brave. The essential contributions of RAF Bomber Command to Allied victory during the Second World War. Canadian Defense Academy Press, Kingston, Ontario 2009, ISBN 978-1-100-11552-8 Online PDF 3,640 kB, accessed September 7, 2013.
  29. ^ Richard R. Muller: The Origins of MAD. A short history of city bombing. In: Henry D. Sokolski (Ed.): Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice. Strategic Studies Institute, 2004, ISBN 1-58487-172-5 , pp. 15–50 Online PDF 21.1 MB, (entire book), accessed on September 7, 2013.
  30. ↑ Per Hinrichs: Test for Terror. In: Der Spiegel Special 1/2003, pp. 33–35 Online , accessed on September 5, 2013.
  31. ^ Klaus A. Maier: The destruction of Gernika on April 26, 1937. In: Military history. Historical Education Journal. Issue 1/2007, pp. 18-22, ISSN  0940-4163 , Online PDF 2,180 kB (entire issue), here p. 22.
  32. ^ Neal Ascherson: Cultural destruction by war and its impact on group identities. In: Nicholas Stanley-Price (Ed.): Cultural Heritage in Postwar Recovery. Papers from the iCCROM FORUM held on October 4-6, 2005 (= ICCROM Conservation Studies 6). International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, Rome 2007, ISBN 92-9077-201-8 Online PDF ( Memento from May 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 4,840 kB, accessed on September 8, 2013.
  33. ^ Anton Hoch: The air raid on Freiburg on May 10, 1940. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 4th year, 2nd issue, 1956, pp. 115–144 Online PDF 1,330 kB, accessed on 6 September 2013.
  34. ↑ a b Theodore E. Grevstad-Nordbrock: The American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas: Historic Preservation in Europe During World War II. MA thesis, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 2005 Online PDF 12 kB ( Title), online PDF 14 kB (table of contents), online PDF 7,980 kB (text), accessed on September 7, 2013.
  35. ^ Andreas Hillgruber: War diary of the high command of the Wehrmacht (Wehrmacht command staff). Volume II. January 1, 1942 - December 31, 1942. 1st half volume. Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen, Frankfurt 1963, p. 163.
  36. ↑ Wolfgang Muth: "Hitler-Germany has neither tradition nor future." Speech at the event of contemporary witnesses of the initiative "Lübeck is open to the world" on March 21st. In: Lübeckische Blätter, Volume 177, Issue 7, 2012, ISSN  0344-5216 , pp. 108–110 Online PDF 4,470 kB (excerpts from the entire issue), accessed on September 8, 2013.
  37. ↑ Karsten Schröder: Within your walls there is unity and general well-being. Rostock 2003.
  38. ^ Andreas Hillgruber : War diary of the high command of the Wehrmacht (Wehrmacht command staff). Volume II. January 1, 1942 - December 31, 1942. 1st half volume. Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen, Frankfurt 1963, p. 164.
  39. ^ Olaf Groehler : Bomb war against Germany. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-05-000612-9 , p. 449.
  40. ^ Sidney B. Fay: Bombs on Germany. In: Current History, vol. 2, no. 11, 1942, ISSN  0011-3530 , pp. 340-344.
  41. ↑ Derek Gregory: "Doors into Nowhere". Dead cities and the natural history of destruction. In: Peter Meusburger , Michael Heffernan and Edgar Wunder (eds.): Cultural memories. The Geographical Point of View. Springer, Heidelberg 2011, ISBN 978-90-481-8944-1 , pp. 249-283.
  42. ^ NC Hyde: The Application of Air Power to War. In: Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, vol. 97, no. 588, 1952, pp. 550-553.
  43. ^ David Ian Hall: "Black, White and Gray": Wartime Arguments for and against the Strategic Bomber Offensive. In: Canadian Military History, vol. 7, no. 1, 1998, pp. 7–19 Online PDF ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 202 kB, accessed on September 8, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wlu.ca
  44. ↑ a b c d Nechama Janet Cohen Cox: The Ministry of Economic Warfare And Britain's Conduct of Economic Warfare, 1939 - 1945. Dissertation, King's College, London 2001 Online PDF 22.3 MB, accessed September 6, 2013.
  45. ↑ a b c d Robert Hotzan: Historical research on danger prevention after acts of war using the example of Oranienburg (WW II - bomb blind people). Dissertation, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus, Cottbus 2012 Online PDF 25.5 MB, accessed on September 7, 2013.
  46. ↑ Uta High: The Bomber`s Baedeker - Target Book for Strategic Bombing in the Economic Warfare against German Towns 1943-45. In: GeoJournal vol. 34, no. 2, 1994, ISSN  0343-2521 , pp. 213-230.
  47. ↑ Kevin Norris: “A Serious Query”: Operation THUNDERCLAP and the Allied Bombing of Eastern German Cities During the Winter of 1944–1945. MA thesis, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton 2006 and Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario 2006, ISBN 0-494-49789-0 Online PDF ( Memento from September 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) 3,160 kB, accessed on September 8 2013.
  48. ↑ Hans Vogt and Herbert Brenne: Krefeld im Luftkrieg 1939–1945 (= Krefeld Studien Vol. 3), Ludwig Röhrscheid, Krefeld 1986, ISBN 3-9801610-2-1 , pp. 182 and 190, quoted from Dieter Nellessen and Waldemar Frangen : The history of the former knight residence "Haus Dreven", Hohenbudberg, under the tenant and owner families Brors-Frangen in the 19th / 20th century. In: die Heimat , Vol. 79, 2008, pp. 46–59 Online PDF ( Memento from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) 455 kB, accessed on September 5, 2013.
  49. ^ Matthew Saunders: The Conservation of Buildings in Britain since the Second World War. In: Stephen Marks (Ed.): Concerning Buildings: Studies in Honor of Sir Bernard Feilden. Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford 1996, pp. 5-33.
  50. ↑ without author: Luftwaffe pilot apologies to city. BBC News, Wednesday April 25, 2008 Online , accessed June 16, 2020.
  51. ↑ without author: Sorry Luftwaffe man's plane crash. BBC News, Wednesday August 7, 2008 Online , accessed June 16, 2020.
  52. ↑ without author: Plaque recalls visit of air ace. BBC News, Wednesday August 21, 2008 Online , accessed June 16, 2020.
  53. ↑ Rainer Rudolph: Remembering the "madness". Kölner Stadtanzeiger, April 10, 2008 Online , accessed June 16, 2020.
  54. ↑ Hendrik Bebber: “I just wanted to fly”. Kölner Stadtanzeiger, April 27, 2008 Online , accessed June 16, 2020.
  55. ↑ Without author: German pilot who regretted wartime air raids dies at 89. The Bath Chronicle, June 24, 2010 Online , accessed on June 16, 2020.