Battling with the Truth by Ian Garden

Author:Ian Garden [Garden, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750969178
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2016-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

100,000 Killed in Bombing of Rotterdam

A Third of the City Destroyed

For its part, the German High Command was just as reticent to report to its own people the extent of the damage and any loss of civilian life caused by the bombing of Rotterdam. Its focus was on:

The Capitulation of the Dutch Army

[…] in the face of superior German force on the land and in the air.

Nevertheless, it was this incident rather than any other that was to change the attitude of British politicians towards the bombing war. It seemed irrelevant that the Germans might not have intended to bomb Rotterdam that evening. The point was that their pilots had always been prepared for such a mission and, whether or not it had been that particular night, if the Dutch had not surrendered, the Luftwaffe would eventually have indiscriminately bombed the city with the full blessing of its leaders.

The British might well have wished to hold the moral high ground. After all, even after war was declared, Chamberlain was determined to stay faithful to an undertaking he had given to President Roosevelt not to bomb civilian populations or unfortified cities. However, this was a moral stance that it was always going to prove impossible to sustain.

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