Hamburg's Firestorm - WWII: Witness to War - S01 EP105 - History Documentary 

.....War , is the continuation of politics by other means.

@@501sqn3C.P.G. Von .

Now something like this is happening to gaza , & palestiains are paying the price for the war that happened in europe!

how do you know English? Germans those days usually don't know English

My mother used to tell us war stories about German planes following the shine on the river Don from the sea to there target to Sheffield. She said same as you the droning of multiple aircraft engines getting closer is a sound that stays with you, then the explosions start shaking houses 9 miles away.

@@pragerbest7848 Maybe he is a teacher , teaching English. Or has the talent learning foreign languages ... If I remember correctly you could take English as an extra subject now it is mandatory...

​@@pragerbest7848 To assume he only spoke German and never learned other languages shows your ignorance. In your defense, as Americans, most of us do think the rest of the world only learns one language, which reveals just how poorly educated and uniformed we actually are.

Nazis….!!!!!

Your grandma slept with me last night

That's why you don't start wars, they are appalling

My dad was overhead in a b 17. After the war, he never stepped foot in a plane again.

@user-hg2be5dl2u That's amazing too! Terrible wars.

And Liverpool, the second most concentrated blitz on England, so nearly successful that Churchill suppressed any news about it - that's why Liverpool is seldom mentioned even now. Had Liverpool docks been destroyed, that would have been it.

Death of british civil: 50000 Death of German civil: 600000, dont Talk bs.

@@scarihscheidenkleister8998 Concentration camp victims 6,000,000 that we know of.

I think, German holocaust apart, more men die in war than women, children, infirm and elderly.

Don’t forget the millions of soldiers & Jews …

🤨

Moscow was barely touched.

British civilians killed: 50,000 German civilians killed: more than 635,000 “But what about-“ doesn’t even compare when it comes down to overall casualty figures, shut up

Also Rotterdam is laughable, barely 1,000 people were killed by German bombing, whereas 37,000 people were killed in Hamburg

Coventry, like Hamburg, was a valid target. It was an important supplier of the Rolls-Royce engines for the RAF. I am sorry in a way for the poor devils that flew the aircraft as Germans rather than the outright Nazis.

I am haunted by the suspicion that the bombing of Dresden may have been partly revenge for London. I've read that some of the aircraft crew were too sickened by it to drop their bombs on the city.

A vingança apenas torna o vingador igual ao criminoso.

Ok Chamberlain

Dachau,Bergen.Sobibor etc.

The poor innocent Bolsheviks, oh the horror.

​​@@damonmelendez856...AND THE ORDINARY CITIZENS OF THE USSR SUFFERED A HECK OF A LOT TOO- A GREAT MANY OF THEM WERE NO FRIENDS OF STALIN AND HIS GANG, AND THEY WOULD HAVE SIDED WITH THE GERMANS IF THEY WERE OFFERED THE OPPORTUNITY...

Actually, the real "Dam Busters" took heavy losses. You should read up on it.

@@raywhitehead730 I'm aware of what the actual damage was.

My great Aunt and her mother didn't survive the indiscriminate bombing of Liverpool. WAR HEH ?

​@@MrDaiseymaywell yes, the Americans dropped a few bombs too, just not as many as the Brits.

​@@julianneale6128Stupid comment of the week award coming your way

Let's even begin to faintly recall the number who died at the hands of the Soviets...

@@conveyor2 . . . And that started long before WWII.

50000 under Staleen !

Yes, and does that “justify” the Allied bombing terror against old people, women and children? So "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"... Well, the Israelis do it the same way... Was seid ihr nur für Heuchler und Moralisten🤮

That was known in 1943! Amazing that you present it as recent news!

@@Volcano-Man This documentary incorrectly states the the dam buster raid did not have much effect on Germany's industrial war production and was more of a moral boost . Bobdinwiddy corrected this error and pointed the raid knocked out industrial production in the Ruhr Valley for 3 months . Also , repairing the 2 dams would have taken resources away from other areas .

My parents were 11 miles away from Coventry and said the sky looked like daylight . People who experienced these raids nearly always talk about the droning sound of the Luftwaffe twin engine bombers . British scientist RV Jones discovered the Luftwaffe were using radio beams to navigate at night . However , on Nov. 14th , 1940 something happened with the radio frequencies , so the British didn't jam the radio frequencies . .

@@landsea7332 Allegedly Churchill had warning of the intended raid on Coventry but did not put up the RAF to defend it for fear that it would give away the intelligence Britain had acquired

​@@tonymercer7759 This was a myth started by intelligence officer FW Winterbotham . What actually occurred was that Luftwaffe bombers were using a navigational technology of radio beams . British scientist RV Jones discovered this and was able to jam the beams during other bombing raids . The process of the Luftwaffe changing radio beams & frequencies , and the British jamming them , became known as the " battle of the beams ." But the night of Nov 14th , 1940 , the Luftwaffe had a receiver technology with a small band width , and the British were slightly off with their jamming frequency . .

Yes and it was mainly Canadians who participated in the August 1942 Dieppe raid fiasco Just another example of using the colonials as cannon fodder

@@HughBond-kx7ly There were Brits there as well.

​@HughBond-kx7ly our people at home and the newspapers were clamoring that our troops who had been in Britain since 39, start seeing some action. Our pilots were in the air, our navy was hunting submarines and escorting convoys in the Atlantic. We needed to feel like they were "doing something." My uncle was at Dieppe with the Calgary Regiment. One of the few tankers to get back. Went on to fight in Sicily, Italy and then NW Europe. Survived the war.

Lesson, make your 0wn movies about WW2.

Canada had the third biggest navy and the fourth biggest air force in the world, by 1945.

Correcto.

The who? It's "allies" genius.

I am just being "snarky". But...France declared war on Germany first...Sept 03, 1939...and invaded Germany first...Sept 07, 1939. (Saarland)

They've learned now not to be so cruel to others... KARMA

They brought it on themselves. They're lucky they lost to the Americans. Reference "The Mouse That Roared".

Let's tell that to the Supreme Court of the USA.

Yep , the question is . What kind of legend ?

some documentaries portray Harris as a fiend and others,, like myself, believe he carried out his orders and made no secret of his belief in them. @@rolandgeorgschramm1839

London looks like a third world dump now, enjoy it

He was a disgusting lowlife. He was as low as they come

Harris was an absolute reactionary who hated all members of the working class even in his own country. He was a despicable human been, far from what you call a hero.

No to my cost they were aimed at London, and put me in Hospital

The USA *_ought not_* to have made a hero of Werner von Braun.

​@@jacksimpson-rogers1069but...but....buuu....ComMuNiSM eVeRyWhERe!!!!! - The Republicans.

You're basically right, however, the firestorm took place on the 27th of July, 1943, and this was the second major raid of Operation Gomorrah, rather than the third. The third raid was aimed at Barmbeck, and it caused a major area fire, but no true firestorm.

I'm 83 and still don't like Germans

blue collar workers who contributed to the german war effort that resulted in 60 million killed

@@jeanmeslier9491 What about Austrians?

@@conveyor2 ...WHAT ABOUT THEM?!!

shall reap the whirlwind

@@jamesferguson2353 and the thunder

Uma frase copiada e repetida por Arthur Harris, um genocida impune.

Germans are slow at leaning...! It wasn't supposed to happen. N

That's about all the bombs did... inspire colourful metaphors.

Actually Guy Gibson was hopeless at plumbing.

...AND I THINK IT'S SHAMEFUL HOW THE BRIT VOTERS TURNED THEIR BACKS ON CHURCHILL, NEAR THE END OF WW2!!!

That's because he was a fat weasel.

Wait a minute. Churchill was not even in office at the end of the war. It was a closet communist who was fairly elected that turned his back on Bomber Command. NOT Churchill. The people of Britain turned their back on the Greatest Prime Minister in British history.

Yes they never got a campaign medal unlike the army and RN.

The Dardanelle campaign in ww1, was not his finest hour either.

Eles irão pagar pelo vento e vocês irão pagar pela tempestade! É a Lei de Causa e Efeito.

Seguimos esperando casi 80 años después....@@catiagranico7796

Unfortunately there are always going to be civilian casualties in times of war😢. After a couple German cities being leveled. The disillusioned leadership in Berlin. Should have telegraphed London with surrender request.

I so agree.

Strangely enough, were not the civilians in Japan less guilty of what the Emperor's military were doing and had done, than the responsibility for the Nazis that German civilians who'd had more political power?

54000 died in RAF bomber command alone

@@peterflynn9123 55,000 .

Unexploded WW2 bombs are still being found both in Germany and Britain.

And they’ll still be finding them for many years to come, as they do in UK.

That's not exactly true, many historians who report the bombings in that context do it simply because they don't do the proper research, or they are heavily biased towards making claims like that simply for sensationalism in an effort to sell books, nothing like getting people to talk about something to get books selling. Think about it, you couldn't miss an entire city if you tried, you wouldn't even need bomb sights to hit something as big as an entire city, you could have guys chucking bombs out of the bomb bay by eye and you'd still hit it, in the cases where entire cities were missed it wasn't because the bombing systems (sights) were so inaccurate they were incapable of hitting a city that's an entire mile across, it's for reasons like the lead navigator flying the formation to the wrong target resulting in it getting bombed and going on record as "zero bombs on target" even though the bombardiers absolutely plastered what they were actually aiming at, then years later instead of researchers subtracting the results from that when talking about bombing accuracy they include it in their math when talking about bombing accuracy. There's many other things that factor in that shouldn't be included when talking about bombing accuracy, like the Germans camouflaging targets and setting up decoys nearby, or them lighting off smoke pots to obscure visibility, but the biggest one is how the majority of bombs were aimed, all kinds of people claim that the Norden bombsight used by the US bombers was supposedly inaccurate, but the fact is 65% of the bombs aimed by the 8th Air Force over Europe weren't aimed optically with the Norden bombsight they were aimed using the H2X ground scanning radar system due to cloud cover making optical sighting impossible, especially during the winter months when overcast clouds were the norm, yet all the historians who bash the Norden bombsight don't subtract the results from the missions where the H2X system was used to aim the bombs, I don't think the majority of those so called experts even know about the H2X system and how much it was used. So the claim that they missed entire cities isn't at all true, they hit what they were aiming at it's just that they were aiming at the wrong thing because of navigator errors or other factors like decoys being bombed, even in WW1 where at first a guy was hanging over the side of the plane dropping bombs he couldn't miss an entire city, that claim is made by so called researchers just saying things out of context to make a lot of noise trying to make a name for themselves. The subject of accuracy is one thing, the subject of results is something entirely different, and the difference between the two speaks to the conditions that the bombing campaign happened under along with thing's like human error and deception added in.

The US airforce once missed japan! Due to high winds they set their bomb sites and without knowledge of the jet stream in those days literally overshot Yokohama and bombed the Pacific so missing a whole country

Only 5% of the RAF bombs came within FIVE miles of the target in the first year of night bombing. It wasn't until the UK's boffins developed electronic guidance system did most of the bombers at least find the city. @@dukecraig2402

Which the USAAF quickly learned from it, while it took more than a year for BC to even find a city. @@vernongoodey5096

@@vernongoodey5096 Not the first time ,the American military dont seem able to catch a bus at times. Numbers dont always equate to excellence. EG 2 air craft on 9 11 for the entire Eastern seaboard? Why this never became a major scandal ,defies belief. A training exersize that day???

In 1945 at Yalta meeting Stalin asked Churchill to bomb Dresden as it was a major transport hub for vermacht troops and munitions going to the eastern Front and Churchill obliged him otherwise Dresden would most likely not have been bombed.

nonsense

@@HughBond-kx7ly correct

In Dresden there were at least 127 factories and workshops producing vital military equipment.

No. Churchill’s War Cabinet adopted the Lindemann Plan in March, 1942, which then became Britain’s official policy. This decision of the War Cabinet was kept a closely guarded secret from the British public throughout the war and for many years afterwards. The British people were told that only military and industrial targets were bombed, and any damage beyond that was unintentional. The true nature of British bombing of German cities and civilians was revealed in 1961 in a book titled Science and Government by the physicist and novelist, Sir Charles Snow. The following passage from the book was immediately translated and published in several languages: “Early in 1942 Professor Lindemann, by this time Lord Cherwell and a member of the Cabinet, laid a cabinet paper before the Cabinet on the strategic bombing of Germany. It described in quantitative terms the effect on Germany of a British bombing of ensive in the next eighteen months (approximately March 1942-September 1943). The paper laid down a strategic policy. The bombing must be directed essentially against German working-class houses. Middle-class houses have too much space round them and so are bound to waste bombs; factories and “military objectives” had long since been forgotten, except in of icial bulletins, since they were much too dif icult to find and hit. The paper claimed that-given a total concentration of ef ort on the production and use of aircraft-it would be possible, in all the larger towns of Germany (that is, those with more than 50,000 inhabitants), to destroy 50 per cent of all houses.” Angus Calder wrote, in his book, “The Peoples’ War,” 1969: “It may be Inconvenient History but England rather than Germany initiated the murderous slaughter of bombing civilians thus bringing about retaliation. [Neville] Chamberlain conceded that it [bombing of civilians and cities]was “absolutely contrary to International law.” It began in 1940 and Churchill believed it held the secret of victory. He was convinced that raids of suf icient intensity could destroy Germany’s morale, and so his War Cabinetplanned a campaign that abandoned the accepted practice of attacking the enemy’s armed forces and, instead made civilians the primary target. Night after night, RAF bombers in ever increasing numbers struck throughout Germany, usually at working class housing, because it was more densely packed.” Britain devoted more of her resources to RAF Bomber Command than to all the other branches of the British military combined. Having discovered early in the war that it was nearly impossible to hit a small target such as a factory or a runway from high in the air, Bomber Command decided to concentrate entire air wings into bomber raids of a thousand planes at a time on German cities. To avoid airplane losses to German fighter planes and anti￾aircraft fire from the ground, these massive attacks were flown only at night at high altitude. The British gave up on military targets early in the war and decided to concentrate entirely on Germany’s cities, using the city centers as their aiming point. The city centers were the oldest part of the cities, dating back to the middle ages and beyond. In the city centers the streets were narrow and the buildings were close together, constructed mostly of highly flammable wood, covered with plaster, which ignited easily and burned furiously. The people in these old cities suffered agonizing deaths as they were fried, cooked, and broiled by the fires, or blown to pieces by the explosions. ******** The United States entered the air war in Europe in September, 1942 with air groups of B-24s and B-17s flying out of Britain. The United States at first did not attack civilians directly but attempted to carry out precision bombing of German factories and military installations. Whereas the British flew all their raids at night, the Americans did their bombing runs during daylight, to improve bombing accuracy. But “precision bombing” at high altitude was a fantasy, whether done during the day or at night, as more bombs invariably fell on areas surrounding the target than on the target itself. After a time, the Americans gave up on “precision bombing” and joined the British in “area bombing,” that is, targeting entire cities"

Vocês irão pagar, do mesmo modo que os alemães, a partir de quando começaram até onde pararam.

...THAT'S FOR DOGGONE SURE- THE GERMANS WERE SOUNDLY DEFEATED, AND THE ALLIES RUBBED THE GERMANS' NOSES IN IT!!!

Okay psychopath.

Berlin was very unlucky to have Hitler's worst minions forbidding surrender.

ignoramus nonsense

Without question

The Germans were actually developing a nuclear device. Britain was doing the same, but was ahead of the Germans in this respect. Because of the devastation the UK suffered in the blitz, they had other financial priorities e.g. rehoming two million people, who's homes were severely damaged or destroyed, killing 40 to 60 thousand civilians in the process. They decided to hand all of their research & development to the US &, sent scientists to Los Alamos to join the Manhattan project.

Guaranteed.

Thats Hollywood for you, it makes you think who the allies and friends actually where and are....

dresden was an allied war crime no doubt about that

Young people have become incredibly ignorant.

Yes, war is still tragic, no matter where it happens. It does not discriminate between innocent civilians and soldiers who fight in the battlefields. I hate seeing the innocent men, women, and children perish in the crossfire of war.

Is it any different than an abortion clinic -???😈

All of Germany was complicated with the war, there were no innocents!!

​@@asullivan4047Yes

​@@ElieGroffDo you mean 'complicit"?

And Martin Caidin's 1964 "The Night Hamburg Died"

Turning Germans into Hamburg-er MEAT!!

Hamburg bombings survivor Hans Massoqui's "Destined to Witness"

David Irving "The Destruction of Dresden"

​@@ludovicleprinceroyal8721...HOLOCAUST DENIER-(!)

Man, that's deep philosophy. Did you learn that from the "Science Guy ?"

Remember them . Blue skies gentlemen. 🇬🇧

@@datruth66392 : All things considered I couldn't agree more with you. However, there is no question that the allied bombing of German cities was retaliation for the bombing of London. That doesn't make it right unless you consider the alternative. The German people were manipulated, intimidated and indoctrinated into believing in their fascist leader's victimization and nationalistic philosophy to their own detriment, or else. My fear is that here in the US we have been experiencing a growth in this same kind of criminal behavior under the similar guise of victimization and nationalistic philosophy. It will most likely end the same way. There are no heroes in war, only men and women who do their duty and victims. This is why most veterans who actually experience combat refuse to talk about it. They grieve both their losses and their victims, not all of whom were innocent.

Absolutely right. My forthcoming book on Bomber Command emphasizes its crucial importance in the Allied victory, not least because it forced the Germans in 1943 to its three biggest, costliest errors of strategy: withdrawal of fighters, and then 85% of 88mm guns, from the Eastern front - making the task of the Red Army vastly easier - and the green light for the monstrously wasteful V-weapons programme. It severely delayed both the Me-262 programme, cut the Tiger tank production total by one third, and near halted the operational introduction of the super Type-21 submarine - among other achievements. Its role in blasting the front lines of German army defences in Normandy was also pivotal. It forced German industry into huge, inefficient schemes of dispersal to avoid the bombs, including construction of enormous caves, tunnels and bunkers. If the concrete and manpower used in constructing the French U-boat pens had been properly used to build the Atlantic wall - an 8ft high structure from Calais to Bordeaux would have made D-Day near-impossible. If you want a copy of my book, let me know. Marcus Gibson

B ;;b. M

​@@dukeofdelight-tf6xy...YOU SUMMED IT UP PRETTY WELL-!!!

I am here in E. Hartford CT home of Pratt and Whitney Aircraft. Two of my great uncles worked at P and W. One was an experimental metal worker. People like Lenny and Felix won the war, as well as the troops.

Most of the British reckon Canada, Australia, and even the Falkland Islands as British.

...YOU'RE LUCKY...!!!

Yeah but it was Winston Churchill who started the bombing campaign on civilian population in Berlin in 1940 despite signing a treaty to bar civilian population as targets from bombing, and for your information in 1923 article 51 was signed by Britain and they ignored it when there bombers flew to Berlin and killed innocent civilians so Germany in turn did the same, you should research this matter before making comments then you have no clue or understanding of what happened back then.

@@glennquagmire1747 Germany invaded... Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia (modern Czech Republic and Slovakia), Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Guernsey (U.K. Channel Island), Hungary, Italy, Jersey (U.K. Channel Island), Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia (partial occupation), San Marino, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, (modern Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia). Like I said, my friend... Germany reaped what it had mercilessly sown. And let's not bring the Holocaust into the equation.

@@justinthyme5730- The ramblings of a wannabe historian, like I said do some research and learn something lol

Germany attacks London in 1939 ,, bombing civilians,,, Germany U-boat attacks targeted civilian ships ,,, They got what was coming

Germany bombed civilians in England first. Then Winston bombed Berlin

26,000. Eighth AF lost 26,000.

It's a bigger proportion of the British populace, but it may be that the Americans did more damage per death. I get the impression that in destructive success per crewman lost, the "mad" wooden Mosquito was the winner.

Why no sympathy for the British victims of German bombing? Don't you realise that firestorms also affected London, Coventry, Clydeside etc?

I agree with you. I would love to learn more about the firestorms in Britain@@davidlauder-qi5zv

@@davidlauder-qi5zvbecause the figures don’t compare Britain suffered 50,000 casualties during the war Germany suffered more than 650,000 casualties from UK bombing, they don’t compare

@@davidlauder-qi5zv I have plenty of sympathy for the British victims. It's terrible on both sides. You lunatics just like hearing about the deaths of Germans who don't even exist anymore, generations before you were even born.

Yeah? Would you have killed every child and old woman yourself?

That was unnecessary, wasn't it.... The Brits were quoted as stating the Americans have no stomach for war because The English wanted to sow the land with salt so nothing would grow there for 1000 years... Americans wanted to build a buffer state against the soviets

​@@JeffreyDRein...I'D SAY THAT THE AMERICANS WERE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT- (BUT I'M BIASED)...!!!

​@@daleburrell6273Americans right?there's a 1st time for everything I suppose

You defently have a problem upstairs!!!!

The interesting thing about the "Blitz" was that it was a blitzkrieg that wasn't. Blitzkrieg means lightning war.

Magnesium was used also...pathfinders dropped windows and magnesium to light up dresden for instance...

"window", not 'windows' Target flares were based on magnesium - it burns well . . . @@doctorsocrates4413

@@doctorsocrates4413 It’s ‘window,’ not plural. That was the point of the original comment.

Took his initial lessons from the Geman firebombing of Coventry in Nov 1940.

Heroic but misguided.

Is it possible that Germany learnt from the Brits about war crimes against civilians in the Boer War?

@@dieterspringer9177 No

Não existem inocentes numa guerra.

it was England that declared war on Germany not the other way round

@@johnsmith-mq4eq England did that after Germany invaded Poland.

Well remarked.

Ye shall sow the wind . Ye shall reap the whirlwind .

Bombing cities as a means of waging total war had already become an accepted strategy among the members of Britain’s “war party.” Britain began developing and building long range, heavy bombers as early as 1933. The United States did the same. The Lancaster, the B17 and the B24 were built for no purpose except to destroy cities and inflict massive casualties on the German population. Military operations require small, fast, “tactical” planes. Thousand plane armadas of four-engine, heavy “strategic” bombers had no military purpose. Colonel (later Brigadier General) Robin Olds, a highly respected officer and USAF fighter pilot who served in both WWII and Vietnam, stated more than once that the so-called strategic bombing program was ineffective, wasteful and pointless. It is generally acknowledged today that the strategic bombing program did not shorten the war by a single day, and that in the end, it served no military purpose. After all, Germany reached her highest level of war production in the last months of the war when the bombing was most intense. Colonel Olds, among many others, was of the opinion that fighter bombers carrying a single bomb flying low and fast would have been far more effective against German military and strategic targets. He said that a single Mustang could have dropped a five hundred pound bomb through the window of any factory in Germany. It was impossible to hit a factory with a huge formation of bombers flying at 25,000 feet without destroying everything for miles around it. He also emphasized that this would have greatly minimized civilian casualties. Perhaps the colonel was naive. Perhaps he did not understand that the very purpose of “strategic bombing” was to maximize civilian casualties. In a word, the purpose of “strategic bombing” was genocide!! While Britain and the United States were building thousands upon thousands of four-engine, long range, heavy bombers, designed for no otherpurpose than the destruction of cities and the slaughter of massive numbers of civilians, Germany built only light, maneuverable, low altitude bombers designed for ground support. These planes were unsuitable for genocidal terror bombing. H. only undertook the bombing of British civilian targets reluctantly, three months after the RAF began a campaign of carpet bombing German cities. H would have been willing at any time to stop the slaughter. Churchill’s War Cabinet adopted the Lindemann Plan in March, 1942, which then became Britain’s official policy. This decision of the War Cabinet was kept a closely guarded secret from the British public throughout the war and for many years afterwards. The British people were told that only military and industrial targets were bombed, and any damage beyond that was unintentional. The true nature of British bombing of German cities and civilians was revealed in 1961 in a book titled Science and Government by the physicist and novelist, Sir Charles Snow. The following passage from the book was immediately translated and published in several languages: “Early in 1942 Professor Lindemann, by this time Lord Cherwell and a member of the Cabinet, laid a cabinet paper before the Cabinet on the strategic bombing of Germany. It described in quantitative terms the ef ect on Germany of a British bombing of ensive in the next eighteen months (approximately March 1942-September 1943). The paper laid down a strategic policy. The bombing must be directed essentially against German working-class houses. Middle-class houses have too much space round them and so are bound to waste bombs; factories and “military objectives” had long since been forgotten, except in of icial bulletins, since they were much too dif icult to find and hit. The paper claimed that-given a total concentration of ef ort on the production and use of aircraft-it would be possible, in all the larger towns of Germany (that is, those with more than 50,000 inhabitants), to destroy 50 per cent of all houses.” Angus Calder wrote, in his book, “The Peoples’ War,” 1969: “It may be Inconvenient History but England rather than Germany initiated the murderous slaughter of bombing civilians thus bringing about retaliation. [Neville] Chamberlain conceded that it [bombing of civilians and cities]was “absolutely contrary to International law.” It began in 1940 and Churchill believed it held the secret of victory. He was convinced that raids of suf icient intensity could destroy Germany’s morale, and so his War Cabinetplanned a campaign that abandoned the accepted practice of attacking the enemy’s armed forces and, instead made civilians the primary target. Night after night, RAF bombers in ever increasing numbers struck throughout Germany, usually at working class housing, because it was more densely packed.”

Dresden was payback for Coventry

Indeed, & PLYMOUTH is another city almost completely destroyed, although many people don't know it even happened. As a naval base, I accept it was a prime military target, but the actual naval base was/is outside the city (Devonport). Nevertheless, Germany carried out fifty nine separate air raids on the base & the city itself, leaving it decimated, so it sickens me that Germany now acts as the victim.

​@@dougclevenger6748No it wasn't. Dresden, Leipzig at al; stood in front of the advancing Red Army. Zhukov halted his advance and through Stalin demanded that they be bombed to enable his advance to continue. Dresden was an essential hub for communications, German troops moving to and from the front, and materiels of war either being stockpiled or moved to to the front. Coventry - well there was also London, Southampton, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Liverpool, Manchester, Belfast and others; all bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1940-41, and later - look up the Baedabecker Raids, all had been avenged long before Dresden.

Please do not insult animals only humans who are SUPPOSED to know better behave like this. I live in Africa and have never seen any animal doing this in my long life. I am 70.

​@@tabularasa9104...YOU SUMMED IT UP PERFECTLY- AND YOU HIT NAIL RIGHT ON THE HEAD-(!)

No HE couldn't!😂😊

They did. Lived in Germany for 3 years. It is a beautiful country

^^^ Yep, It's "Baldrick" ( aka Sir Tony Robinson ) from Blackadder = He also narrates "Time Team" (the original) .

@@hawnyfox3411 Yes , its Sir Baldrick .

Dachau was not necessary either.

@@anthonycaruso8443Nor Guantanamo Bay either

DRESDEN was absolutely necessary. SOVIET UNION ASKED us to hit Leipzig Chemnitz and Dresden . So we did. THATS what allies do. We had asked them to attack during Battle of BULGE SO THEY DID .

Giasu re kostaki me ton sfixto to kolaraki😅

19:16

Who is we?? And why did take so long ?? Ah , we had to ask the Americans again .😂

@@michaelmueller6083 No we did not ask the Americans again! They were drawn into the war when the Nazis declared war on USA after the attack on Pearl Harbour.

​@@dianeunderhill8506...WASN'T "LEND-LEASE" STARTED LONG BEFORE THE U.S. OFFICIALLY ENTERED WW2-(?) MOST AMERICANS WANTED NO PART OF ANOTHER WAR IN EUROPE- AND FDR LITERALLY RISKED BEING IMPEACHED BY ILLEGALLY SENDING SUPPORT TO BRITAIN UNDER THE TABLE!!!

Vocês foram melhores do que eles no genocídio.

​@@michaelmueller6083The US joined the war when Japan, an ally of Germany bombed its fleet in Pearl Harbour declaring war. The US sat on its hands until 1941 end.

Sneeringly supercilious maybe?

...well, "if ya don't LIKE IT- then ya don't have to EAT IT!!!"

​​@@EllieMaes-GrandadAnd with an apparent callous disregard for the victims of German bombing. Were the civilians of Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Coventry, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Clydeside, Swansea. Cardiff, etc., to blame for their own fates? And for the record, firestorms happened in London, Coventry, Clydeside. etc. as well. Also, let's not pretend that the Germans (as some claim) only bombed military targets. That was not so. Ever heard of the Baedeker air raids? Look them up.

Seems I know more than you . . . @@davidlauder-qi5zv

@@EllieMaes-Grandad Care to explain?

None at all, because those machine gun bullets would have lost most of their velocity.

A few people were killed from falling flak in ww2 I've been reading about it! Google it

@@cwj9202 = He's just too thick to realise it !!!!!

What was it caused? That’s interesting.

@@49kittypretty1 it was the USAAF......United States Army Air Force during WW2 if that is what you were asking.

...THE "U.S. AIR FORCE" DIDN'T EXIST AS A SEPARATE BRANCH OF THE U.S. ARMED FORCES UNTIL 1947!!!

@stevemartin6144 True, but we all know that the US Air Army Force was referred to EVEN by its own officers and men, believe it or not as 'US AIR FORCE,' or simply 'AIR FORCE,' and strangely still is!

@@Volcano-Man odd then that 13 people agree with me.

Thank you for your service! 💂

(Nutsacker) is angry af

Hamburg is a bit sterile nowadays I’ve found, no?

The U.S. élite was pro-fascist before the war and saw to it that its counterparts in W Germany got off lightly after it, regardless of the show trials: Patton was part of that elite, as was John McCloy, their man who ran W.Germany, who'd been the U.S. lawyer for the powerful I.G. Farben chemicals group which had funded the Nazis and which had important plants at Auschwitz that McCloy (as a wartime military planner) saw to it were not bombed by the Army Air Corps. He also saw to it that many German war-criminals got off lightly.

@@None-zc5vg History has shown that communism is infinitely worse than fascism in terms of human casualties.

Pigs do not behave like this only immoral humans...

​@@tabularasa9104...THAT'S THE TRUTH- I'M SAD TO SAY...!!!

And you couldn't even say that right.

So what ! You got his meaning ! Patton," we fought the wrong people ! "

@@user-jx7dg7ci9g Sympathizer says what?

@@user-jx7dg7ci9g During the Yalta Conference in Feb 1945 , there were 6.8 million Soviet solders in Eastern Europe , Poland and 80 km from Berlin . Soon after Yalta , Stalin reneged on his agreement to let Poland have free elections . Churchill was warning FDR , and later Truman , that Stalin couldn't be trusted . However , the American's needed Stalin's commitment to attack the JIA and help end the war with Japan . In May 1945 , Churchill asked his military staff to examine if the Soviet Army could be pushed out of Poland . They came back and said it would lead to total war . Operation Unthinkable was declassified in 1998 . .

Not the point. The point is to win a war,not keep things proportional.

It's terrible really though, all these poor people who were just escaping the war....I hope this never happens again

10 puta više je engleska bombardovala nemačku a Drezden je ratni zločin bez premca.

​@@milanbrakus8704A crime by todays standards yes but it was not back then.

@@watkinsrory Za Englesku ništa nije zločin šta ona radi a lista kroz istoriju je dugačka jednom će morati da se plati.

Stop invading countries.

Well stated

Thank You! It is true! @@damonmelendez856

you are correct.. if nazy Germany were the victors you won't see accurate death tolls and zero reports on dead in the concentration camps

It also looked the same from the side of the Brits when Germany bombed England’s cities. It didn’t help to elide the fine points regardless of where the bombs were dropped, and by whom. It’s always the same, the senseless struggle and the oneupmanship; the scorched earth heaving its death count again and again.