The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945

Nevertheless there were two final flurries of German bombing in the late spring of 1942 and the early spring of 1944, both of them inspired by a renewed desire to retaliate against the greatly expanded British bombing of German cities. The first came in April and May 1942 with the so-called Baedeker raids. The term ‘Baedeker’, after the well-known German tourist guides, was invented by the deputy director of the Foreign Office press department, Baron von Stumm, and it stuck despite Goebbels’ hostility to the idea of publicly boasting about ‘the destruction of things of cultural value’.²¹⁸ The raids have usually been explained as a response to the RAF bombing of the ancient German ports of Rostock and Lübeck, which destroyed their medieval centres, but the main RAF raids on Rostock occurred after the Baedeker raids had started. In fact the origin of the renewed wave of bombing lay in an RAF attack on Paris in early March 1942. Hitler was incensed by the threat to the artistic and architectural heritage of the French capital, which had been spared in 1940 by the German Air Force, and demanded that Air Fleet 3 prepare a revenge attack on London. Göring, who throughout the long period of air force inactivity in the west chafed at the bit to start bombing again, ordered Hans Jeschonnek, the German Air Force chief of staff, to get Air Fleet 3 to start attacking British industry as well.²¹⁹ Following the destruction of two-thirds of the historic port of Lübeck on 28–29 March, Hitler changed the order to bomb London into reprisal attacks against selected British cities with special historic or cultural value. This time bomber groups were permitted to carry out terror raids against the population as revenge for RAF attacks, but Göring told his crews that there was little to be gained from simply bombing residential districts, and ordered them to find useful military or economic objectives instead.²²⁰

The raids were carried out by small forces of between 40 and 70 aircraft, starting with Exeter on 23–24 April, followed by attacks on Bath on 25–26 April, Norwich on 27 and 29 April and, in between, York on 28 April. On 16 May Göring ordered raids against Canterbury too and the city was attacked on 31 May and 2 June. Two raids against the seaside resort of Weston-super-Mare in late June were later recorded by the German Air Force history office in the list of principal Baedeker targets, though its cultural value was at best modest (‘a popular watering-place’, according to the 1927 Baedeker Great Britain).²²¹ Over the summer months some 30 raids were made, dropping a total of only 439 tonnes on target, but by August the thick defence and declining numbers brought the raids to a halt. The brief campaign had almost no strategic effect except to provoke an even higher level of defensive alertness and technical improvement on the part of the enemy. In the first three months of 1943 only 67 tonnes of bombs were dropped on target, mostly along the English south coast. German aircraft were forced to fly low and to shift course constantly to avoid detection by enemy radar. Little reliance was made on radio navigation, and the results on poorly illuminated nights were regarded by the field commanders as ‘worthless’.²²²

The second brief campaign occurred in the spring of 1944, following repeatedly heavy attacks against the German capital in the ‘Battle of Berlin’ in the autumn of 1943. The roots of what was codenamed Operation Steinbock lay in Hitler’s angry insistence in the spring of 1943 that the German Air Force do something to intensify the air war against Britain in order to counter the remorseless impact of the Anglo-American Combined Bomber Offensive and satisfy growing popular demands for retaliation.²²³ Secret missile development, which Hitler hoped would prove decisive, was still more than a year from operational readiness. In mid-March Göring’s deputy, Field Marshal Erhard Milch, convened a meeting to discuss ways of rebuilding air striking power against Britain. One way, it was concluded, lay in improvements to the existing technology. Air Fleet 3 was promised increased supplies of the new fast medium bomber, the Messerschmitt Me410, the improved Junkers Ju188S and the Focke-Wulf Fw190 fighter-bomber version with additional drop fuel tanks; a more effective incendiary bomb and improved radar aids (Lichtenstein-R and Neptun-R) were also expected to raise the operational effectiveness of the force.²²⁴ It was also promised larger numbers. Throughout 1943, despite growing pressure to give priority to fighters, plans were hatched to expand bomber output. By December 1943 Göring was calling for an increase in bomber output to 900 a month, from the modest 410 achieved in October. It was indicative of the declining political influence of the air force commander-in-chief that these ambitions remained in the realm of fantasy.²²⁵