Essay Assess The Significance Of Allied Strategic Bombing Of Germany

‘Assess the significance of Allied strategic bombing of Germany during the Second World War.’ The Allies introduced a new revolutionary war tactic of strategic bombing which is the tactic of bombing populated cities and targeting places that would damage the economy and terrorise populations into surrender. Bombing’s significance can be assessed through the diplomatic impacts, the impacts it had on the various fronts, the impact on German economy and the impacts on both German and British morale impacts it did had during the war. This essay will argue that bombing was significant and increased in its significance over time.

A significant bombing impact was its role in Allied diplomacy. In order for cooperation between the allies to be maintained

Before 1943 the Allies weren’t cautious enough about the targets they were choosing to bomb. Bombing itself wasn’t reliable as even by 1944 only around 7% of bombs were hitting within 1 kilometre of their target. This meant that a lot of the targets remained unaffected and even if they were hit the targets usually were repaired or relocated quickly. By 1943 the Allies started to choose their targets more carefully, a good example of this was the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission. The allies started to target buildings and places that produced things that were vital to the German war attempts. Ball bearings were one of these vital components. Ball bearings were used in the production of nearly every German vehicle so was vital to the Germans. The aim of the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission was to wipe out the buildings producing the ball bearings. In theory the idea was good and the air forces delivered by successfully destroying the buildings, however the Germans still had three weeks’ worth of excess ball bearings already being used to produce vehicles. The amount of vehicles being produced was therefore not affected. The allies eventually realised that the most important part of the German’s economy was oil and that if they took out German oil their economy would crumble. Attacks on oil production factories and refinery’s effectively took place and there were

The strategical bombing of Germany’s most populated cities such as Hamburg, Hannover and Berlin caused civil devastation. Over the 2nd and 3rd of October nearly 200,000 people lost their homes in Hannover. The Allies thought that if they bombed the cities of Germany and caused civil unrest it would lead to unrest between the German public and questioning of the Nazi party. People in Germany were terrified and recent research has shown although there was not a lot of active resistance against the Nazis during the war, after several years of bombing there was a decrease in public statements in favour of the regime. The public were terrified and were more concerned with staying alive rather than revolting against the Nazis. It could even be said that the terrifying situation the public found themselves in tied them even closer to the regime, looking to them for a solution. Soldiers were angered at the prospect of helpless friends and family dying at the hands of the Allies’ bombs and raised their morale also making them fight harder. Bombing was ineffective from a morale point of view in terms of damaging German morale and lacks in significance. Bombing impacted the morale of the British public as well. Writers such as H. G. Wells popularised air-warfare by writing fictitious novels such as ‘War in the Air’ which made bombing out to be a superior and insufferable force in warfare. Bombing acted as a public morale