Figure 1.--Herevwe see a British saene during theBlitz. A Luftwaffe pilot descibes the Blitz, "Beneath us. we saw the red blazing metropolis of England, the centre of plutocrats and slavholders, the capital of World Enemy No. 1. WEe saw the fires of destruction. Clouds of smole and pillars of fire looked like the flow of lava from a titanic volcano .... Lomdon is wrapped in flams .... Unheard by us, without respite the most dreadful scenes must be occurring down here, beneth our machines ..." Source: Stargardt, p. 117. He was totally accepting Gobbels propaganda. (Notice that the NAZI propaganda line was socilaist in character, just like the Soviets. The German people were repoptedly unaware of tthe nature of Luftwaffevtacticvs. They thought the Luftwdde was attacking military targets and war factories and it was the British that were engaged in teror bombing.

Hitler, Luftwaffe commander Göring, and NAZI propagandist Gobbes used their modern Luftaffe to threaten other countries and in Spain he demonstted the willingness to use it on cities and civilians (1936-39). This was most famously done at Basque town od Guernica, but Madrid, Barcelona, and other Spanish cities were also bombed. Hitler treatened President Hácha with unlashing the Luftwadffe on Czech cities. It was the reason besides Britain and France abndoning them that Czechoslvakia gave into the NAZIs. President Hácha collapsed when Hitler and Göring threaten to bomb Prague. Hitler did unleash the Luftwaffe on Poland (September 1939). A month later syrrounded by the ruins of Warsaw he openly threatened foreign journalists that this would happen to their cities if they resisted German arms. After the Victory in Poland The bombing of Rotterdam cused the Dutch to yield. We all knpow the trail of destruction the Luftwaffe left in its wake, especially with the Blitz because the British did not yield and the horrifying images reached America and other countries in countless numbers. This does not mean, however, that the German people were aware of this. Goebbels had convinnced most Germans, both civians and the soldiers, that the War was a justified defensive action to protect Germans inside and outside the Reich. Thst may seem incredible, but notice how President Putin has sucessfully comvimced most Russians that the 2022 action in Ukraine is a defenive matter and Ukraine cities are not being destroyed. Russians have access to more alternative sources of information than Germans during World War II. After the War began, Goebbels propaganda machine came up with 'Die Deutsche Wochenschau', weekly newsreels shown in movie theaters. It was the primary source of visual information about the War available to the German people (1940-45). . We have only viewed short clips, but much of the war content was on the lighter side of war. BNombing and destruction was shown, but as far as we know, it was the bombing abd destructiom caused by the Allies and after invading the Soviet Union, the Red Army. One Dutch observer tells us Goebbels did not depict the Lufwaffe bombing of enemy cities. "German people for sure weren't shown these horrible images." [Rops] They did depict Luftwaffe formations, but not the destruction wrought in Spain, Warsaw, Rotterdam. Lindon, Belgrade, and other cities. We can not confirm this, but it may well be ths case, thus German civilians camne to see the Allies Strategic Bombing Campaign as an unjustied war crime.

Sources

Rops, Stefan. Personal commibication (April2, 2022). Rops has a history channel--History Hustle. One of his programs is "How Germans Saw the Battle of Britain (1940)".

Stargardt, Nicholas. The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-45.

Created: 11:42 PM 4/3/2022
Last updated: 11:42 PM 4/3/2022