ZGram - 2/15/2004 - "Terror Bombing" Part I

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

Zgram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

February 15, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite

Yesterday, two thousand people walked in silent columns to honor the 
memory of the men, women and children who died in the Dresden 
Holocaust caused by three ferocious Allied bombing raids on February 
13-14, 1945.  Michael Walsh of England has summarized and footnoted 
how some of these, and similar, bombing raids took place.  I am 
running a two-part Zgram to make up for yesterday and catch up with 
today.  Please note:  Sources are listed at the end of Terror 
Bombing, Part II"

[START]

TERROR BOMBING:

THE CRIME OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

"In terms of personal success, there has been no career more 
fortunate than that of Winston Churchill. In terms of human suffering 
to millions of people and destruction of the noble edifice of mankind 
there has been no career more disastrous." -

The European and English Journal. Source. American Manifest Destiny 
and the Holocausts. P.176

"The most uncivilized means of warfare that the world had known since 
the Mongol invasions."
February 13/14 1945: Holocaust over Dresden, known as the Flo-rence 
of the North. Dresden was a hospital city for wounded soldiers. Not 
one military unit, not one anti-aircraft battery was deployed in the 
city. Together with the 600.000 refugees from Breslau, Dresden was 
filled with nearly 1.2 million people. Churchill had asked for 
"suggestions how to blaze 600.000 refugees". He wasn't interested how 
to target military installations 60 miles outside of Dresden. More 
than 700.000 phosphorus bombs were dropped on 1.2 million people. One 
bomb for every 2 people. The temperature in the centre of the city 
reached 1600 o centigrade. More than 260.000 bodies and residues of 
bodies were counted. But those who perished in the centre of the city 
can't be traced. Appr. 500.000 children, women, the elderly, wounded 
soldiers and the animals of the zoo were murdered in one night.

This autumn the British Broadcasting Corporation will be releasing a 
£2 million two-part drama called 'Night and Day'. It purports to be a 
true account of RAF Bomber Command's monstrous conflagration of 
Europe. It will in fact be a crude one-sided attempt to launder a 
series of British and American war crimes equaled only by Josef 
Stalin and Ghenghis Khan's grotesque 'scorched earth' policies which 
reduced eastern Europe to ashes and decimated its population.

Doubtless, the same programme makers would be able to find similar 
justification for the equally evil 'hidden holocaust'. This occurred 
when Josef Stalin's British equipped Red Army in 1945 turned northern 
Germany into a wasteland upon which was scattered the remains of four 
million Germans, mostly women and children. Not even animals were 
spared.

The BBC's Night and Day programme will be a carefully edited 
'account' of RAF Bomber Command's air war against Germany; a 
glorification of what the eminent British war historian Captain Sir. 
Basil Liddell Hart declared as being "the most uncivilized means of 
warfare that the world had known since the Mongol invasions." (1)

'ABSOLUTELY CONTRARY TO INTERNATIONAL LAW'

Night and Day will certainly fail to mention, as did Prime Minister 
Neville Chamberlain, that England's bombing policy "was absolutely 
contrary to international law." (2). The Prime Minister, before being 
ousted in a Winston Churchill coup, told a packed House of Commons in 
London: 'His Majesty's Government will never resort to the deliberate 
attack on women and children and other civilians for the purpose of 
mere terrorism.' (3).

The slick an' sick 'Day and Night' docu-drama will undoubtedly trot 
out the usual canard summed up by Bomber Command's Bill Reid, VC of 
Crieff in Perthshire who said: "In 1942 the bombing of Germany was 
the only way we had of hitting back." (Daily Mail, 7 February 2001). 
Note the key words: 'Hitting back!' You will hear it time after time 
during this programme.

This lends spurious credence to the 'Britain at Bay' lie that 
suggests that Britain had no other means of defending herself against 
the Nazi onslaught. It will of course fail to point out the since 
proven facts. All German air attacks against Britain were in 
retaliation against Britain's air war. As Britain's most illustrious 
historian A.J.P Taylor reminded us, it was Germany that was at bay.

Another myth peddled by the victor nation's 'palace journalists' is 
that Germany gave as good as it got. Hardly!

During the war, more bombs by weight were dropped on the city of 
Berlin than were released on the whole of Great Britain during the 
entire war.

All German towns and cities above 50,000 population were from 50% to 
80% destroyed. Dresden with a population larger than that of 
Liverpool was incinerated with an estimated 135,000 civilian 
inhabitants burned and buried in the ruins. Hamburg was totally 
destroyed and 70,000 civilians died in the most appalling 
circumstances. Cologne with a population greater than Glasgow's was 
turned into a moonscape. As Hamburg burned the winds feeding the 
three-mile high flames reached twice hurricane speed to exceed 150 
miles per hour. On the outskirts of the city trees three feet in 
diameter were sucked from the ground by the supernatural forces of 
these winds and hurled miles into the city-inferno, as were vehicles, 
men, women and children.

VOLCANIC FLAMES 5,000 FEET HIGH

The volcanic flames ensuing were thrown five times the height of New 
York's Empire State Building, with gases as high again caused 
meteorological reaction as high as the stratosphere. Likewise 
Frankfurt and scores of other cities like them. Middle Europe, the 
cradle of civilization, was incinerated along with its inhabitants.

Between 1940 and 1945, sixty-one German cities with a total 
population of 25 million souls were destroyed or devastated in a 
bombing campaign that was unquestionably initiated by the British 
government.

Destruction on this scale had no other purpose than the 
indiscriminate mass murder of as many German people as possible quite 
regardless of their civilian status. It led to bombing retaliation 
that result in 60,000 British dead and 86,000 injured.

Indiscriminate bombing was internationally outlawed. The Washington 
Treaty (1922) expressly forbade the use of bombing against civilian 
populations. Although not ratified by the Geneva Convention 'it was 
still universally agreed that terror bombing (of civilians) would not 
be employed. As with all other promises they were torn up and 
discarded at will.

Adolf Hitler alone, a man whom Lord Rothermere said: "There is no 
human being living whose promise on important matters I would trust 
more readily", remained within international law, refusing 
steadfastly to repudiate it.

"BOMBING - AN ILLEGAL BARBARITY"

The German leader was resolute: "The construction of bombing 
airplanes would soon be abandoned as superfluous and ineffective if 
bombing as such were branded as an illegal barbarity. If, through the 
Red Cross Convention, it definitely turned out possible to prevent 
the killing of a defenseless wounded man or prisoner, then it ought 
to be equally possible, by analogous convention, and finally to stop 
the bombing of equally defenseless civil populations. I owe it to my 
position not to admit any doubt as to the possibility of maintaining 
peace. The people want peace. It must be possible for governments to 
maintain it. We believe that if the nations of the world could agree 
to destroy all their gas and inflammatory and explosive bombs it 
would be a much more useful achievement than using them to destroy 
each other." (4)

English warlord Winston Churchill however rejected this. "His 
enthusiasm for behind the lines destruction of civilian populations 
could be traced back to his comment: 'The air opened paths along 
which death and terror could be carried far behind the lines of the 
actual enemy; to women, children, the aged, the sick, who in earlier 
struggles would perforce have been left untouched.'" (5) This alluded 
to England's air war against Persian tribes' people.

ENGLAND INITIATED TERROR BOMBING

J.M Spaight, CB, CBE, Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry (RAF) 
conceded that "Hitler only undertook the bombing of British civilian 
targets reluctantly three months after the RAF had commenced bombing 
German civilian targets. Hitler would have been willing at any time 
to stop the slaughter. Hitler was genuinely anxious to reach with 
Britain an agreement confining the action of aircraft to battle 
zones." (6)

The first breach of international law occurred very early on in 
England's war against the German nation. As the noted jurist, F.J.P 
Veale surmised. "This raid on the night of May 11th 1940, although in 
itself trivial, was an epoch-marking event since it was the first 
deliberate breach of the fundamental rule of civilized warfare that 
hostilities must only be waged against the enemy's combatant forces, 
Their flight marked the end of an epoch which had lasted for two and 
one-half centuries." (7)

Again the first 'area air attack' of the war was carried out by 134 
British bombers on the German city of Mannheim on the 16th December 
1940. The object of this attack, as Air Chief Marshall Peirse later 
explained, was, 'to concentrate the maximum amount of damage in the 
center of the town.'" (8).

DELIBERATE GOADING OF GERMANY

As early as 1953 H.M Stationery Office published the first volume of 
a work, The Royal Air Force, 1939 - 1945, The Fight at Odds.p.122. 
This tome is recognized as being 'officially commissioned and based 
throughout on official documents. It has been read and approved by 
the Air Ministry Historical Branch. Its author, Dennis Richards, 
reveals that: "If the Royal Air Force raided the Ruhr, destroying oil 
plants with its most accurately placedbombs and urban property with 
those that went astray, the outcry for retaliation against Britain 
might prove too strong for the German generals to resist. Indeed, 
Hitler himself would probably lead the clamor. The attack on the Ruhr 
was therefore an informal invitation to the Luftwaffe to bomb London."

England's Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry agreed: "We began 
to bomb objectives on the German mainland before the Germans began to 
bomb objectives on the British mainland."

He added: "Because we were doubtful about the psychological effect of 
propagandist distortion of the truth that it was we who started the 
strategic bombing offensive, we have shrunk from giving our great 
decision of May 11 1940, the publicity it deserves." (9).

In a grim testimony to the adage that the nice guy never wins: "Air 
Marshall Tedder made every effort to be a worthy pupil of his warlord 
leader Winston Churchill. The Marshall told high British officers 
that Germany had lost the war because she had not followed the 
principle of total warfare." (10)

"Retaliation was certain if we carried the war into Germany... there 
was a reasonable possibility that our capital and industrial centers 
would not have been attacked if we had continued to refrain from 
attacking those of Germany," added the triumphant Principal Secretary 
to the Air Ministry. He went on to admit: "The primary purpose of 
these raids was to goad the Germans into undertaking reprisal raids 
of a similar character on Britain. Such raids would arouse intense 
indignation in Britain against Germany and so create a war psychosis 
without which it would be impossible to carry on a modern war." (11)

GLOATING THAT THE ENGLISH PEOPLE WERE LIED TO

In his groundbreaking analysis of England's bombing war, F.J.P Veale 
summed up. "It is one of the greatest triumphs of modern emotional 
engineering that, in spite of the plain facts of the case which could 
never be disguised or even materially distorted, the British public, 
throughout the Blitz Period (1940 1941) remained convinced that the 
entire responsibility for their sufferings it was undergoing rested 
on the German leaders. Too high praise cannot, therefore, be lavished 
on the British emotional engineers for the infinite skill with which 
the public mind was conditioned prior to and during a period of 
unparalleled strain." He added: "The inhabitants of Coventry, for 
example, continued to imagine that their sufferings were due to the 
innate villainy of Adolf Hitler without a suspicion that a decision, 
splendid or otherwise, of the British War Cabinet, was the decisive 
factor in the case." (12).

WORKING CLASS TARGETED FOR HIGH KILL RATIOS

As the air war against National Socialist Europe developed the 
civilian populations of Germany, Austria, Hungary and other European 
cities and towns, were increasingly targeted as a means of causing 
maximum bloodshed and instilling outright terror. This began on 11 
March 1942 with the adoption of the Lindemann Plan by the British War 
Cabinet.

This genocidal policy continued with undiminished ferocity until the 
end of the war in May 1945. "The bombing during this period was not 
as the Germans complained indiscriminate. On the contrary it was 
concentrated on working class houses because, as Churchill's Jewish 
key advisor, Professor Frederick Lindemann maintained, a higher 
percentage of bloodshed per ton of explosives dropped could be 
expected from bombing houses built close together, rather than by 
bombing higher class houses surrounded by gardens." (13)

"I am in full agreement (of terror bombing)." added Sir Archibald 
Sinclair, Secretary for Air (RAF). "I am all for the bombing of 
working class areas in German cities. I am a Cromwellian - I believe 
in 'slaying in the name of the Lord."

WOMEN AND CHILDREN TO BE SLAUGHTERED FIRST

"They, the British Air Chiefs drawn almost exclusively from the 
English upper class public school system, argued that the desired 
result, of reducing German industrial production, would be more 
readily achieved if the homes of the workers in the factories were 
destroyed. If the workers were kept busy arranging for the burial of 
their wives and children, output might reasonably be expected to 
fall." (14)

Even Churchill, hardly renowned for timidity in war blanched and 
thought twice. "It seems to me that the moment has come when the 
question of bombing German cities simply for the sake of increasing 
terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed." (15)

"In the course of the film showing the bombing of German towns from 
the air, very well and dramatically done, W.C (Winston Churchill) 
suddenly sat bolt upright and said to me: 'Are we beasts? Are we 
taking this too far?'" (16)

AN RAF AIRCREW MEMBER CONFESSES

On 13th February 1945 I was a navigator on one of the Lancaster 
bombers which devastated Dresden. I well remember the briefing by our 
Group Captain. We were told that the Red Army was thrusting towards 
Dresden and that the town would be crowded with refugees and that the 
center of the town would be full of women and children. Our aiming 
point would be the market place.

I recall that we were somewhat uneasy, but we did as we were told. We 
accordingly bombed the target and on our way back our wireless 
operator picked up a German broadcast accusing the RAF of terror 
tactics, and that 65,000 civilians had died. We dismissed this as 
German propaganda.

The penny didn't drop until a few weeks later when my squadron 
received a visit from the Crown Film Unit who were making the wartime 
propaganda films. There was a mock briefing, with one notable 
difference. The same Group Captain now said, 'as the market place 
would be filled with women and children on no account would we bomb 
the center of the town. Instead, our aiming point would be a vital 
railway junction to the east.

I can categorically confirm that the Dresden raid was a black mark on 
Britain's war record. The aircrews on my squadron were convinced that 
this wicked act was not instigated by our much-respected guvnor 
'Butch' Harris but by Churchill. I have waited 29 years to say this, 
and it still worries me." (17)

COWARDS ATTACKED DEFENSELESS TARGETS

Nobody knows for sure just how many people innocent civilians were 
bombed and burned to death in Dresden. What is beyond dispute was 
that its destruction was of no military significance whatsoever. It 
did not shorten the war by as much as a minute, nor was it intended 
to. The war by February 1945 was to all intents and purposes won. The 
city itself had no military, political or industrial significance. 
The British Government was well aware that Dresden and indeed all 
other German cities were defenseless. Its 600,000 population was 
swollen by an estimated further 500,000 refugees fleeing from the Red 
Army.

One waits with anticipation to see how the BBC's 'Night and Day' will 
excuse the incineration of Dresden where the strafing of columns of 
refugees by both American and British fighter planes was par for the 
blood crazed course. In Dresden, "Even the huddled remnants of a 
children's' choir were machine-gunned in a street bordering a park." 
observed historian David Irving.

The British Press for the large part described the needless massacre 
of tens of thousands of refugees as 'an unexpected and fortunate 
bonus.' (18)

THE FIRESTORM OF HAMBURG

Whilst Dresden and occasionally Hamburg are referred to in regard to 
what became known as 'saturation bombing', never to be forgotten or 
forgiven are the sixty-one German cities, scores of towns and indeed 
other towns and cities across Europe devastated by allied bombing 
attacks. Germany was not by any means alone in suffering from allied 
air attacks; it is a little known fact that allied air attacks on 
France alone resulted in far more deaths and injuries than from 
German attacks. Sisley Huddleston was scathing: ""One town I know (in 
Normandy) had 2,000 inhabitants killed or wounded out of a population 
of 5,000, and hardly a house was left standing." - Petain, Patriot or 
Traitor, Dakers, p.202.

It is a grim fact that British soldiers, occupying France after the 
Germans had been driven out, unlike the German troops, were confined 
to barracks for their own safety.

Let the maritime city of Hamburg then speak for all of those who 
perished beneath the wings of Bomber Command. The story of Hamburg 
illustrates the full horror of the cowardly English-inspired air war 
that the British Broadcasting Corporation with equal infamy today 
seeks to whitewash.

The Police President of Hamburg spoke after the initial bombing 
raids: "Its horror is revealed in the howling and raging of the 
firestorms, the hellish noise of exploding bombs and the death cries 
of martyred human beings as well as the big silence after the raids. 
Speech is impotent to portray the measure of the horror, which shook 
the people for ten days and nights and the traces of which were 
written indelibly on the face of the city and its inhabitants.

GRUESOME SCENES OF HORROR

No flight of imagination will ever succeed in measuring and 
describing the gruesome scenes of horror in the many buried air 
shelters. Posterity can only bow its head in honour of the fate of 
these innocents, sacrificed by the murderous lust of a sadistic 
enemy...."

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan's only two Christian cities come first 
to mind when one considers total incineration from the air but the 
destruction of those great cities, along with their inhabitants, pale 
into relative insignificance when compared with the greater and more 
sustained destruction of middle Europe's great cities. American 
Martin Caidin, one of the world's foremost experts on the effects of 
bombing said, "Neither Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffering from the 
smashing blows of nuclear explosions could match the utter hell of 
Hamburg." (See end notes on Martin Caidin).

Coventry of course is always thrown up when apologists seek to 
justify the saturation bombing of European cities. Notwithstanding 
the fact that it has since been proved that the bombing of Coventry, 
like the sinking of the Lusitania, was deliberately set up as 'a 
means to an end', it might be remembered in terms of proportion that 
Coventry lost 100 acres through bombing. In just ten terrible days in 
the summer of 1943 British bombers gutted more than six thousand 
acres of Hamburg.

During the entire course of the war a little over 300 people in 
Coventry lost their lives. In just ten days an estimated 70,000 
citizens of Hamburg were killed.

Martin Caidin was furious at the wanton loss of life: "The fire and 
horror lasted ten full days. This is what makes Hamburg - and the 
loss of some seventy thousand men, women and children - stand out as 
the worst of the disasters visited upon civilization during the 
insanity of World War 2."

[END]

Part II  to follow