Page 427 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

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individual fires could spread and lead to an inferno“. And this, as early as 9 October: „This
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attack was the first manifestation of total war“. At a later stage considerations of this sort
25
were to prompt the Western allies to use similar weapons, firebombs, aerial mines, high ex-
plosive and fragmentation bombs, against German towns.
The British and American concept of air war was based on the principle that bombers fly-
ing in close formation with defensive weapons on board could not be brought down. But this
was soon called into question by the deployment of German interceptor planes. The RAF‘s
initial attacks on German ships over the Heligoland Bight in December 1939 incurred heavy
losses and led to a drastic re-think. In the years that followed British strategic bombing was
carried out almost exclusively at night. The original idea of also carrying out precision bomb-
ing at night turned out to be impossible, even though the means of identification for target
spotting at night were continually being improved.
The first Luftwaffe attack on British territory took place on 16 March 1940 and was aimed
at military targets, i.e. RAF bases. The British responded in kind, with an attack on the naval
air base at Hörnum on the island of Sylt. The reason for British reticence about bombing the
Ruhr, even though it would be of great military advantage, was, as far as the War Cabinet
was concerned: „The possibility that we could be accused of initiating the first indiscriminate
bombing, and the fact that an act of this kind would probably lead to German retaliatory at-
tacks against England“. But to start with the Luftwaffe did not attack industrial targets in
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england and when it attacked Belgium, luxemburg and Holland it was under strict instruc-
tions not to bomb residential and industrial areas without pressing reasons. there were two
motives behind this: firstly to avoid British retaliation against the Ruhr and secondly, the
Germans wanted to be able to make use of the industrial plants they intended to occupy.
British cabinet files clearly show that it was the dramatic deterioration of Britain‘s and
France‘s position on the ground due to the imminent occupation of the French Channel coast,
and not, as has often mistakenly been assumed, the German attack on Rotterdam, that ulti-
mately provoked the British decision to start strategic bombing. This decision was „not a
reaction to the way the Germans had been conducting the war, but the realisation of a con-
cept long-since formulated for the event of a war ... the cabinet resolution of 15 May 1940
made Britain the first to embark on air war, and this was not directly related to land or sea
operations“. However, the first attack on the Ruhr on 15 May 1940 was not particularly
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successful and was unable to prevent the military defeat of France. But it was all Hitler
needed to give the order for an air war against England, which should start with a „retaliatory
act of annihilation“. The consequence of this for towns like Dresden and others in Eastern
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Germany, regarded as less at risk due to their easterly location, was that the air-raid shelters
now built on a large scale in Western Germany were completely missing in Dresden on 13

24 ibid.
25 Ibid., 334
26 Boog, Der angloamerikanische Luftkrieg, 453
27 Eberhard Spetzler, Luftkrieg und Menschlichkeit. Die völkerrechtliche Stellung der Zivilpersonen im Luft-
krieg. Göttingen [etc.], 256f.
28 Walter Hubatsch (Ed.), Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung 1939-1945. Dokumente des Oberkomman-
dos der Wehrmacht. Frankfurt am Main 1962, Nr. 13, 54.