Enjoyed this book very much.More than much. I finished it a while ago, but find myself unable to return it yet to the public library from where I got it. My mind still spins. And I want to read more. And am frustrated by the lack a availability of Freidreichs books in translation here.
Spent many years of life concentrating on the actual strategy and tactics of bombing from the strictly military point of view - from the actual tactics of fireraising, AA guns, marking, fighter planes tactics, ECM, radar directed fire, rocketry, blockbusters, etc etc etc. This is the first book, however, strictly from the civilian side Ive read. And now I want to read more. (Nation review)
It's written by Jorg Friedrich, a German who was born in 1944 - rite when the Allied airwar really started to burn German cities crazily. What started as a nearrun battle in the skies devolved into a beatdown in the last, say, 10m of the war. The book was called a 'catalog of disasters' of Germany by one reviewer, and that really should be the subtitle of this book. Since it's written from the German point of view, its heavily damning of the Allies- and the Nazis - for this "catalog" of disasters. In no way is this a full and complete 'catalog' of the entire airwar - but that writers skill gives us a great impression of the war. Reading it, that term 'impressionism' really seems pure in describing The Fire. Certain areas and certain times are represented - but not all. It is not an A to Zed guidebook by any means.
And it is structured like a catalog - and the catalog has logged in both sides deeds. The first few chapters deals w. the airwar as it was prosecuted area by area around Germany. Broadly it covers the Baltic, the Ruhr, the East, and the Rhineland in turn- but just looking @ the Rhineland parts allows one to get a good take on this book. The Rhineland is the Western part of Germany - and the book takes up the bombing war generally in late 1944 and 1945, or right when the American, British, and Canadian armies were battling on the ground near these cities. The writer makes sure we get the absurdity of the Allies having a full scale fire raid w. 500 planes to totally destroy a city -and to then have the Allies march in and take the city THREE FUCKING DAYS LATER. So, the Allies are the bad guys. But often the reason that these cities were destroyed - well, we think - was that the fanatical German resistance in these cities would have really bogged down the Allies and caused tremendous amounts of causalities. Better to totally destroy these places, so the Allied thinking went, then to allow the Germans to defend the place to the death. So, both sides wrong, the author writes. But other times the Allies would destroy a city behind the lines simply because it had a single train line running though a town or village- since there was the possibility of troops being moved up using these rail lines, this small town or that had to deal w. a 500 plane pasting.
But the author also writes that the English, by the end of the war, were just bombing to destroy everything and .... well, everything- that they could before the war ended. It took a long time for the RAF to get the whole fire raising thing down pat. When the war started, the RAF tried to bomb Germany in daylight - disaster. The theory that bombers could get through and bomb effectively in daylite turned out to be a terrible idea. Then they switched to night bombing. However, the English air force (the RAF) were not getting anywhere near their targets locations in these first months of the war - let alone hitting them when close. SO, they switched tactics again. They decided not to try to hit individual targets because this was too difficult from 3-4 miles up in the air and @ nite. Rather the the RAF tried to just burn down the German cities. Because it was so difficult to hit anything, the theory became to just hit the much larger (than a factory) city - especially so that the German workers would be killed and bigtime enough dislocated so that the industry (which was their original target) is also affected.
What the RAF eventually hit upon was a system which they eventually perfected where individual planes (Pathfinders) w. very experienced captains would fist get to the target, find the correct place where the planners had planned for ground zero, and drop special coloured markers and incendiaries to 'mark' the target. With the target area burning enough to be easily spotted by the following bombers, the 'blockbusters' bomb (gigantic bombs from 4000 to 24,000lbs) armed planes - which was to hit in the target area and send shock waves through the target areas - which broke windows and shattered rooftops. They did this in order to make the target area more susceptible to the thousands of smallish incendiary bombs that followed. These small bombs generlly just fizzed out flammable material which fell into the broken roofs and started fires in attics. The broken windows created a chimmeny effect that stoked the fies. And then game the GP (generel purpose) bombs, many w. timers on them set to explode hours after. This would discourage both firefighters from entering the bombed out areas to try to contain the fires- and keep people inside the bomb cellars for the same reason.
Justa part of the deep harshness of this sorta fire raising warfare was that the best way to burn down German cities was to make 'ground zero' in the place where it was easiets to raise th fires - in the cities "Old Towns". These were the ancient city centers, some going back to the 4th century. the Old Towns were cramped crowded places w. narrow winding lanes w. buildings built w. wood - a raging fire waiting to happen, especially w. these RAF tactics. Once one building caught fire, cramped-location buildings rite next to each other caught fire one after another. With the firefighters so interfered by the GP bombs and the time delay bombs it was hard to contain the fires. Newer cities like Berlin (or, say, Chicago) were not quite built w. old towns - but many of the ancient German cities were. The ultimate aim was to create a "Firestrom" - if the fires from all the little bombs were let go long enough, they merged into a shockinhly distructive massive firestorm. These horrific agents of destruction were horrible - everything burned, all the oxygen was sucked away from area, massive winds so strong they sucked up people into the fire area, and the temperatures were raised up to 3000 degrees. The book was deeply compelling - but the cataloug of disasters would often get so sad and depressing that I had to put it down - despite the deep reading experience it provided.
Part of the depression was in the physical parts of these cities destroyed. here the authors skill as a writer come in. He'll describe an attack - and then write about the history of the places destroyed. for example, as a grand cathedral starts to burn and fall apart, he'll ...... well, catalog the parts of the structure as it crumbles. This part built in the 9th century by this famous architect falls down in the first par of the raid, then thhis other part built by this other famous architect in the 14th C. then falls. the fire then spreads to the famous wing of the building built by this famous German prince in the 18th C. Lost, and horribly. I so love those little city centers all over Europe - its a shame so much was lost in such a little bit of time. So much lost.
But the real depressing part is the experince of the people undergoing these air raids. here the author makes no bones about his feelings on the Firebombers by the language he uses. He never writes that its a 'holocaust' - but many words and images he uses brings it to mind. For example, when the bombs started to fall, people took to their cellars and shelters- and eventually the Germans built massive bomb bunkers. These generally protected people from the bombs themselves - but not from the aftereffects. As mentioned above, the heat in an area where a firestom is raised could raise temps up tp 3000 degrees or so. The people in the cellars were protected by the bombs by th trong bricks/stones that the cellars were made from. but since the fire raged outside in the streets and the people were trapped inside, these cellars acted like OVENS and turned these people into ashes - even tho' the fire mite never reach them. The heat also started coal stored in basements and cellars to start to smolder - and release killer gasses that GASSED those people trapped by the fires. There is a chapter on the treasures and papers lost in the fire raids - he makes much of the amounts of BOOKS BURNED and lost to Germany. finally, there are pictures and descriptions of PILES OF CORPSES being burned after the raids to get rid of them. there is a lot of controversy over this - many feel he should not have tried to equate thesuffering of german citizens in lite of the nazi crimes - but shit, man, .......... war is such a fucking mess.
All of this doesn't excuse the Nazis - the author doesn't go that way. But the tenor of the book does make the claim that maybe the German citizens really just didn't deserve what happened to them and their cities. Again, controversy since no one wants to deny the Nazis deeds.
This excellent book - as all excellent books do - open many new vistas to me. The airwar used to be viewed from 4 miles up in the air for me. But a whole new world now exists - the ground view. Before my p.o.v. was all military - but now the fascination lies in the citizens. Martin Middlebrookes excellent series of books on the air war touched on the citizens ordeal in various battles (Hamburg, Berlin, Schwienfurt-regensburg, Nuremberg, and Peenumende), so i was aware of what when on the ground. But this book is almost exclusively on the ground. So many things new to me. The whole world of shelters, for example. I knew people sheltered from the bombs in their cellars, that they were connected to each other so people could escape if the building above them fell down, etc... But bomb shelters and bunkers were all new. Shelters generally were long corridor type deals w. people generally facing each other across an aisle - think NYC subway cars, except narrower. They generally held up pretty well, but they did collapse from time to time if there was a direct hit. Sometimes they held up only because many men had to hold up the sidewall fullon w. their shoulders. Shit! And then there was the bouncing and buckling of the shelters by massive near hits - like a car going over a big bump, I guess. Bunkers were larger still, and held many more people than a shelter. They were just about impossible to destroy - but @ least one was cracked and destroyed by a direct hit. The description of the people inside, impossible to get out, receiving comfort and last rites from priests, was just horrible.
I wrote of some of the dangers above that I have learned anew. The gassing of people in shelters from the dangerous mix in the air. The heat that incinerated people - a story of a husband in the suburbs during the raid finally being able to get back to his building in the damage zone, and discovering a pile of ashes where his wife had regularly sat during raids. Stories of people being trapped w. no way out, but then running through a burning area to get to another shelter and thence to safety. And the 'water corridor' - fireman, if they had pressure and the water available, would send up massive streams of water in burning areas which would allow trapped people to sometimes escape. Or, sometimes, people trapped outside a bunker unable to get in because it was full and the doors locked- and then bombs hitting rite there. the example that sticks in my mind is of an older woman and a boy, purple in the face and dead, still standing upright, w. her arm around the boy. And, finally, people trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building, w. firmen trying to stop the fire from burning to death people trapped inside the pile- and the screams of the people trapped further down as the water rises and drowns them.
What the RAF eventually hit upon was a system which they eventually perfected where individual planes (Pathfinders) w. very experienced captains would fist get to the target, find the correct place where the planners had planned for ground zero, and drop special coloured markers and incendiaries to 'mark' the target. With the target area burning enough to be easily spotted by the following bombers, the 'blockbusters' bomb (gigantic bombs from 4000 to 24,000lbs) armed planes - which was to hit in the target area and send shock waves through the target areas - which broke windows and shattered rooftops. They did this in order to make the target area more susceptible to the thousands of smallish incendiary bombs that followed. These small bombs generlly just fizzed out flammable material which fell into the broken roofs and started fires in attics. The broken windows created a chimmeny effect that stoked the fies. And then game the GP (generel purpose) bombs, many w. timers on them set to explode hours after. This would discourage both firefighters from entering the bombed out areas to try to contain the fires- and keep people inside the bomb cellars for the same reason.
Justa part of the deep harshness of this sorta fire raising warfare was that the best way to burn down German cities was to make 'ground zero' in the place where it was easiets to raise th fires - in the cities "Old Towns". These were the ancient city centers, some going back to the 4th century. the Old Towns were cramped crowded places w. narrow winding lanes w. buildings built w. wood - a raging fire waiting to happen, especially w. these RAF tactics. Once one building caught fire, cramped-location buildings rite next to each other caught fire one after another. With the firefighters so interfered by the GP bombs and the time delay bombs it was hard to contain the fires. Newer cities like Berlin (or, say, Chicago) were not quite built w. old towns - but many of the ancient German cities were. The ultimate aim was to create a "Firestrom" - if the fires from all the little bombs were let go long enough, they merged into a shockinhly distructive massive firestorm. These horrific agents of destruction were horrible - everything burned, all the oxygen was sucked away from area, massive winds so strong they sucked up people into the fire area, and the temperatures were raised up to 3000 degrees. The book was deeply compelling - but the cataloug of disasters would often get so sad and depressing that I had to put it down - despite the deep reading experience it provided.
Part of the depression was in the physical parts of these cities destroyed. here the authors skill as a writer come in. He'll describe an attack - and then write about the history of the places destroyed. for example, as a grand cathedral starts to burn and fall apart, he'll ...... well, catalog the parts of the structure as it crumbles. This part built in the 9th century by this famous architect falls down in the first par of the raid, then thhis other part built by this other famous architect in the 14th C. then falls. the fire then spreads to the famous wing of the building built by this famous German prince in the 18th C. Lost, and horribly. I so love those little city centers all over Europe - its a shame so much was lost in such a little bit of time. So much lost.
But the real depressing part is the experince of the people undergoing these air raids. here the author makes no bones about his feelings on the Firebombers by the language he uses. He never writes that its a 'holocaust' - but many words and images he uses brings it to mind. For example, when the bombs started to fall, people took to their cellars and shelters- and eventually the Germans built massive bomb bunkers. These generally protected people from the bombs themselves - but not from the aftereffects. As mentioned above, the heat in an area where a firestom is raised could raise temps up tp 3000 degrees or so. The people in the cellars were protected by the bombs by th trong bricks/stones that the cellars were made from. but since the fire raged outside in the streets and the people were trapped inside, these cellars acted like OVENS and turned these people into ashes - even tho' the fire mite never reach them. The heat also started coal stored in basements and cellars to start to smolder - and release killer gasses that GASSED those people trapped by the fires. There is a chapter on the treasures and papers lost in the fire raids - he makes much of the amounts of BOOKS BURNED and lost to Germany. finally, there are pictures and descriptions of PILES OF CORPSES being burned after the raids to get rid of them. there is a lot of controversy over this - many feel he should not have tried to equate thesuffering of german citizens in lite of the nazi crimes - but shit, man, .......... war is such a fucking mess.
All of this doesn't excuse the Nazis - the author doesn't go that way. But the tenor of the book does make the claim that maybe the German citizens really just didn't deserve what happened to them and their cities. Again, controversy since no one wants to deny the Nazis deeds.
This excellent book - as all excellent books do - open many new vistas to me. The airwar used to be viewed from 4 miles up in the air for me. But a whole new world now exists - the ground view. Before my p.o.v. was all military - but now the fascination lies in the citizens. Martin Middlebrookes excellent series of books on the air war touched on the citizens ordeal in various battles (Hamburg, Berlin, Schwienfurt-regensburg, Nuremberg, and Peenumende), so i was aware of what when on the ground. But this book is almost exclusively on the ground. So many things new to me. The whole world of shelters, for example. I knew people sheltered from the bombs in their cellars, that they were connected to each other so people could escape if the building above them fell down, etc... But bomb shelters and bunkers were all new. Shelters generally were long corridor type deals w. people generally facing each other across an aisle - think NYC subway cars, except narrower. They generally held up pretty well, but they did collapse from time to time if there was a direct hit. Sometimes they held up only because many men had to hold up the sidewall fullon w. their shoulders. Shit! And then there was the bouncing and buckling of the shelters by massive near hits - like a car going over a big bump, I guess. Bunkers were larger still, and held many more people than a shelter. They were just about impossible to destroy - but @ least one was cracked and destroyed by a direct hit. The description of the people inside, impossible to get out, receiving comfort and last rites from priests, was just horrible.
I wrote of some of the dangers above that I have learned anew. The gassing of people in shelters from the dangerous mix in the air. The heat that incinerated people - a story of a husband in the suburbs during the raid finally being able to get back to his building in the damage zone, and discovering a pile of ashes where his wife had regularly sat during raids. Stories of people being trapped w. no way out, but then running through a burning area to get to another shelter and thence to safety. And the 'water corridor' - fireman, if they had pressure and the water available, would send up massive streams of water in burning areas which would allow trapped people to sometimes escape. Or, sometimes, people trapped outside a bunker unable to get in because it was full and the doors locked- and then bombs hitting rite there. the example that sticks in my mind is of an older woman and a boy, purple in the face and dead, still standing upright, w. her arm around the boy. And, finally, people trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building, w. firmen trying to stop the fire from burning to death people trapped inside the pile- and the screams of the people trapped further down as the water rises and drowns them.
As stated above, I also didnt know that much of the damage from the bombing was concentrated in the last 10m of the war; I always figured it was from the bombing starting in 1942 thru' '45. But once the RAF got started and got the Germans down, they just went from one city to another destroying them. When they were destroyed, then they started on the smaller towns. And on. There came a certain point where the cities were just about undefended because of the prponderance of allied air power over the Luftwaffe.
And the final question: did the bombings have a positive effect on war effort for the Allies? I remember a holiday party @ Gunners and Kats - it was Dec. 2002, I am sure - and I was talking to Ragdoll, a German language prof then @ UIC. I was then working though Middlebrooks ouvre, and wanted a Germans POV. When i asked first, she said, slowly, that maybe it was a military thing and did much to defeat the Nazis. But then, during the convesation, other views came out - basically, the views of this book. In my mind, despite the deep inhumanity of what went on, I just cant get it out of my had that the enormous effort to keep the cities safe DID play a role in th downfall of Nazi Germany. The massive amount of concrete used in bunkers, the continual rworking of the railways, the amount of fighters and flak in the cities and not on the battlelines. But fuck .............................................. I really no longer know what to say.
My next book, immediately picked up, was on the firebombing of Japan. More on that later.
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My comment just morphed into a blog post.
i will follow ....
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