March 27, 2015

Finest Hour 127, Summer 2005

Page 29

“TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATION” sometimes takes the form of unteaching the collected disinformation of distorters…

Editor’s note: Finest Hour 124 carried a letter from a German deploring Churchill’s alleged role in the destruction of German cities by air bombing. Considering the amount of brazen misinformation in German texts about Churchill’s role, this remarkable bending of history should not be surprising. M. Marchal, below, now has the facts; but think of how many readers of Kriegskinder still do not.

I am a student of English and German at the University of Mons in Belgium. In my last year I am writing a thesis on Kriegskinder [Children of the War], by Hilke Lorenz, about the living conditions of German children during the Second World War.

2024 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 41st International Churchill Conference. London | October 2024

More

There are several references to the bombing of German cities by the RAF and U.S. Army Air Corps. According to Lorenz, Churchill sent a letter to the general staff of the R.A.F. to congratulate them for the success of the operation, an excerpt of which is translated into German: “I think that the only purpose of our attacks on German cities should from now on be to terrorize the German population, even if we use other pretexts, because otherwise we are going to take control over a totally ruined country.”

Is there an official French translation of that letter, and where can I find a copy of the original?
—Etienne Marchal

Dear M. Marchal,
Sir Martin Gilbert directs us to his volume VII of his Churchill biography, Road to Victory 1941-1945, which contains the full text of this Churchill minute on page 1257. It is dated 28 March 1945, to Air Marshal Portal. The question of bombing had come up at this late date in the war because of Churchill’s frustration in locating and destroying the German launch bases for the V2 rockets.

The quotation you have cited has been entirely altered from what Churchill actually wrote. Here is the passage from Road to Victory:

…Churchill made another incursion into the controversial area of bombing policy, having been shown accounts of the bombing of Dresden on the night of February 13. Churchill’s reaction was to raise the whole issue of such bombardments. As he minuted to the Chiefs of Staff Committee, and to Portal:

“It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land. We shall not, for instance, be able to get housing materials out of Germany for our own needs because some temporary provision would have to be made for the Germans themselves. The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing. I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforward be more strictly studied in our own interests rather than that of the enemy. The Foreign Secretary has spoken to me on this subject, and I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives, such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive.”

At a meeting of the Chiefs of Staff on March 29, Portal pointed out “that it had always been the aim of our bombing of large cities to destroy the industries and transportation services centred in those cities and not to terrorise the civilian population of Germany.” Churchill then agreed to withdraw his “rough” minute, and instructed Portal to re-draft it “in less rough terms.”

In Portal’s redraft, the word “terror” did not appear. The new minute still asserted, however, that the time had come to consider a halt to this type of raid. Drafted by Portal, but signed by Churchill, it read: “It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called ‘area bombing’ of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our Allies; and we shall be unable to get housing materials out of Germany for our own needs because some temporary provision would have to be made for the Germans themselves. We must see to it that our attacks do not do more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy’s immediate war effort. Pray let me have your views.”

This minute was issued on April 1. Three days later the Air Staff agreed that “at this advanced stage of the war” there was “no great or immediate additional advantage” to be expected from air attack on “the remaining industrial centres of Germany.”

Churchill assumed that the new policy would be strictly followed. He was therefore puzzled, two and a half weeks later, to read aircraft had been despatched on the night of April 14 to bomb Potsdam. He wrote at once to Sinclair and Portal: “What was the point of going and blowing down Potsdam?”

Gilbert goes on to explain that Portal replied that the PM’s wishes would be followed expressly. —RML