the legends that some German cities (Heidelberg, Baden-Baden etc ....) were spared from bombing in W

@ the legends that some German cities (Heidelberg, Baden-Baden etc ....) were spared from bombing in WWII for some emotional reasons or other .....

those legends exist in Germany

Have you ever heard of them?
Do you think they are true?

 

Haven't heard them. I just remember many expected Dresden to be spared because it was so beautiful and culturally significant, but it received a very effective civilian-killing bombing because the defense was so ineffective.

I don't think there was any emotional calculus in strategic bombing. It was only about whether the bombing would be effective in terms of destroying infrastructure or lives - it was total war. In Japan, they just about ran out of significant cities to bomb.

It was one of the many shameful aspects of WWII.

 

Very much so!

 

I have heard of some of those legends - and wonder what you think about them .....

 

an example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelberg

 

Any legends about how Germans spared certain cities during WWII? I'd like to hear any stories you have.

 

Airborne leaflet propaganda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_leaflet_propaganda

 

I've not heard the legends. It wouldn't surprise me though. In the beginning both sides tried to avoid targetting eachother's civilians. Ostencibly a German 'accidental' bombing of London illicited a retaliatory bombing of a German city, and its escalated from there to both sides mercilessly trying to bomb eachother's civilians into a rebellion against their respective governments war efforts, neither with any success, both with very high civilian casualties.

I expect the desire to avoid unecessary casualties, be they human or cultural, still existed after that in some form, though certainly they most often went by the wayside.

France surrendered before the Germans could physically attack Paris in part to save their cultural heritage from devastation.

Both sides avoided using a popular historical monastary in Italy (iirc) as a military asset to keep it safe from the war ...for a time. Eventually the US blew it up, thinking the Germans were using it, but they weren't, but they did after we turned it to rubble...

War is hell.

 

Real British leaflets that were dropped over Germany:

https://nfknowledge.org/contributions/propaganda-leaflets/

 

I don't think they are true. The allies were pretty single minded about victory at the time and just wanted to end the war the only way they could conceive; by winning it. I've no doubt there was some anguish about bombing many of these cities which were artistically, historically, and culturally significant, but I don't think it changed the decision of which cities and targets to bomb.

 

I've actually heard that was one of Germany's great blunders. Had they continued to focus on destroying the RAF, they would have succeeded, had they not given the RAF relief by switching to strategic bombing. Had they destroyed the RAF, Operation Sea Lion could have occurred. I know they also needed naval superiority, but air superiority in the channel would naturally have led to that.

 

True

 

For me it is an emotional issue.
I was born in Baden-Baden shortly after the war and my mother told me later as a child that instead of bombs the allied planes had dropped leaflets saying that Baden-Baden would be saved.

But no such leaflets ever existed.

 

That sounds like a rumor that probably made the occupation easier to swallow.

 

All in all, the carpet bombing by the allied was just to create the total collapse of society and make the government focus on also helping out it's own civilians / diverting it's attention away from the war for the sake to win it.

But as we know, targeting civilians is a war crime.


It's a tactic that just doesn't work as well. The US massacred about 60 cities completely in Japan. There is literally no difference between firebombing one, and nuking an other. The result is the same. The only thing that changed was that the USSR set foot on Japanese turf after knocking out a 1 million strong army and having a fleet without a dent, that send them off flying into the arms of the US for an unconditional surrender. A surrender Americans say it would never have happened, but in the end... it did happen.

Russia still is occupying Japan today, as a kind reminder. The same Russia who made Hitler quit when they marched into Berlin.



And as for carpet bombing German factories. I hope people realize that they killed a massive amounts of allied slaves who were made to work there.

 

So it should be.

 

There were only so many planes and so many missions that could be flown and they had to be prioritized that's all. Had the war not ended and Allied forces crossing into Germany they all would have eventually been hit as they bore more of the war effort on Germany's part.

 

Starting in WW1 and full blown in WW2 war developed into a global affair with global strategic strategy which included destroying the enemies ability to make war and that including destroying it's infrastructure and manufacturing and communications and logistics all of which centered around population centers. The Nazi's could have evacuated the cities which they knew, after their attacks on British cities, had become targets.

 

The allied did not bomb 4 cities out of every city above 100.000. Your idea to just go evacuate everybody is just too ridiculous to respond to as if their was even any place to go to. It's just a no. The allied simply applied a tactic to create as much chaos as could in Germany by deliberately targeting civilians killing 500.000 of them on purpose. Do deal with the fact that with that the allied did commit war crimes on a large scale. It's their burden. In comparison, Saddam killed like 30K civilians (top of my head) and got executed over it.

 

True!

 

Also true!

 

Not possible.

 

Don't start nothin', won't be nothin'.

 

There were mass movements of people all through the war but the evacuations would have hurt the war efforts and why the cities were strategic targets.

 

You miss the point. It would not have been impossible to mass Move people out of cities. And out of those cities they would not have been targets. But that would have ended the war for Germany as they could no longer produce anything or move anything or communicate anything. All that manpower and infrastructure was part of the war effort and thus became strategic targets.