If bombing had lived up to those expectations then the cost, in financial terms and in terms of human life, would have seemed a small price to pay. Had Harris been able to devastate a handful of other German cities in quick succession his predictions of an early end to the war might indeed have been proven right. If Berlin had suffered the same fate within a few weeks, it is conceivable that that alone might have tipped the balance. But neither the RAF nor the USAAF had the ability to do such a thing, let alone do it quickly, and the small window of opportunity created by their new, radar-jamming techniques soon began to close. By the time the Allies attacked Berlin in force that autumn the tactical advantage had already swung back towards the Luftwaffe.
The Allies did not achieve such air supremacy again for another eighteen months. It was not until February 1945, when they bombed Dresden, that they finally demonstrated the ability to replicate what had happened at Hamburg, seemingly at will. However, by this time few believed in bombing as the ultimate weapon. With the Allies poised to enter Germany from both sides, the emphasis had long since changed to land operations. It is perhaps ironic that air bombardment only ever reached its full, war-winning potential after it was no longer required to deliver the decisive blow.
This, then, is the final tragedy of what happened at Hamburg. It did not herald an end to the war, as so many people in the RAF hoped and believed that it would: instead, it was merely the opening page of the most destructive chapter in the history of air warfare. While it was the forerunner of the catastrophes at Dresden and Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Allied air supremacy did not come soon enough to make Hamburg truly count. Instead Germany was subjected to a death by a thousand cuts. The countless lesser destructions that took place in the following two years would spell the devastation not only of individual cities, but of an entire nation. By the time Germany capitulated in May 1945, the country was a virtual wasteland.
24. Redemption
This only is denied even to God, The power to make what has been done undone
Agathon 1
I am aware that this book might have made uncomfortable reading for some. There is still a great deal of bitterness towards Germany, despite the decades that have passed, and many people simply do not care if the Germans suffered or not. During the course of my research I have spoken to scores of people – Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Danes, Dutchmen, Frenchmen, the list goes on – who have listened to my descriptions of the Hamburg firestorm and merely shrugged their shoulders. ‘It was their own fault,’ is the standard reply. ‘They started it.’ I would be surprised if even the most intransigent of these people could remain unmoved by some of the eyewitness accounts of the firestorm and its horrific effects; however, I do not imagine this will produce a change of heart, especially among those who suffered directly as a result of the way the Germans conducted the war. Indeed, some may resent being manipulated into feeling an empathy they had never intended. I make no apology for their unease. War is a horrific thing, and it would be unnatural to feel comfortable in its presence.
For readers from Germany, America or the British Commonwealth there may be an added dimension to their discomfort. The legacy of guilt that surrounds the European bombings of the Second World War is huge, and both sides are still struggling to come to terms with it, even today. In Germany it remains virtually impossible to mention the bombs without the immediate acknowledgement that it was they who opened Pandora’s box in the first place. A modern generation still feels duty-bound to apologize for war crimes that were committed not by their parents, or even their grandparents, but by their great-grandparents. In the English-speaking world, feelings about the bomber war are even more complicated. While on the one hand there is a certain pride that they stood up to Hitler and rid the world of his particular brand of evil, on the other there is an unspoken sense of shame at the methods they were forced to use. There seems to be an underlying suspicion in the popular imagination that the RAF and the USAAF were only able to defeat the Nazis by descending, at least some of the way, to their level.
Two events encapsulate this discomfort. The first took place in central London, in May 1992, when hundreds of RAF veterans and their families attended a ceremony in honour of their old commander-in-chief, Sir Arthur Harris. The highlight of the day was to be the unveiling of a statue outside the church of St Clement Danes in the Strand, followed by a reception at the High Court. However, among the crowd a group of protesters had turned out to voice their disgust that the butcher of Hamburg, Dresden and countless other German cities should be so honoured. They hurled abuse at the RAF veterans, and even at the Queen Mother, who was performing the unveiling ceremony. That night the statue of Harris was daubed with red paint. This was cleaned off, but it was soon attacked again, and it has been defaced several times since.
The second event took place a year later, in Hamburg. The Lutheran Church marked the fiftieth anniversary of the firestorm by organizing a series of meetings and memorial services to commemorate the victims. On the whole these were gentle, sombre affairs, but during one service at the Michaeliskirche a group of students burst into the church and heckled the mourners. What had angered them was the all-inclusive nature of the commemoration. According to the students, the Church should have made a clear distinction between civilians and everyone else: the deaths of civilians should be mourned; the deaths of soldiers, or members of the Nazi Party, should not. After unfurling a banner with the slogan ‘Operation Gomorrah – there’s nothing to mourn’, the demonstration finally became violent, and they had to be forcibly ejected from the church. 2
Both events caused a furore at the time, not only because they represented a younger generation questioning the deeds of their grandparents, but because they highlighted some of the deep moral questions with which neither side has yet been able to come to terms. The Germans, to their credit, at least recognize that this is a subject they cannot avoid – they even have a specific word for it: Vergangenheitsbewältigung(‘the process of coming to terms with the past’). Britain and America, however, seem much less prepared. They do their best to look back on the war in terms of black and white, good and evil, right and wrong – I am speaking not only of the veterans, but also of those who turn out to protest against the bomber war. When either group is confronted by the more ambiguous realities of bombing, few seem quite sure how to react.
* * *
The moral questions that surround the Allied bomber offensive are much deeper, and much more disturbing, than most people realize. During the course of my research for this book I have been asked repeatedly whether I thought the bombing of cities like Hamburg was justified. I have struggled to find an answer to this question, because it opens up so many difficult issues. Certainly it cannot be taken lightly: after all, if ‘war’s glorious art’ is murder on a mass scale, then bombing is one of its most efficient weapons.
To begin with, I have very little problem with the factthat Hamburg was bombed. The city was a huge centre of industry, providing U-boats, aircraft, oil, chemicals and all kinds of other materials that were essential for the German war effort. It was imperative that the Western Allies did everything in their power to disrupt those industries, both for their own sake and for the sake of the Russians, who were dying in their millions on the Eastern Front. Britain and America lived in constant fear that the USSR would one day give up their titanic struggle by coming to some arrangement with Hitler. Bombing was the only way to prove that they were doing something to help, and successes like the devastation of Hamburg provided the Russians with a great morale boost. As Albert Speer pointed out after the war, the value of bombing cities like Hamburg lay not only in the disruption it caused to German industry but also in the huge resources it diverted away from the Russian Front.