The Bombers and the Bombed by Richard Overy

Author:Richard Overy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-02-19T16:00:00+00:00

“Will Germany Crack?”: 1944–45

In February 1944, Heinrich Himmler, appointed minister of the interior in August 1943, in addition to his other offices, announced that “no German city will be abandoned” as a result of bombing.227 The situation facing Germany’s urban areas in 1944 was nevertheless a daunting one. In the last seventeen months of the war three-quarters of all bombs were dropped and approximately two-thirds of all bombing deaths were caused. In Munich, 89 percent of bombs on the city fell in 1944 and 1945; in Mainz, 93 percent of the deaths from bombing occurred in the same two years.228 By the spring of 1945, no part of the contracting German empire remained untouched. Bombing by day and by night did not affect every area simultaneously, and many towns were bombed just once. But bombing and its social and cultural consequences came to dominate the daily lives of millions of Germans, a majority of them female. One young schoolgirl in Berlin, Waltraud Süssmilch, subject to compulsory civil defense training and playground demonstrations, surrounded by bombed areas of the city, straining to distinguish the different rush and explosion of each type of bomb, later recalled the bizarre wartime world in her memoir: “Bombs belonged to my life. I was confronted with them daily. I could not do otherwise. . . . I was no longer a child.”229

The presence of Himmler as minister of the interior as well as chief of German police continued a process begun in the 1930s to extend the responsibility of the SS and police system over all areas of air-raid protection and civil defense policy. During 1944, Himmler continued to undermine the position of the Air Ministry, and in August the Air Force Inspectorate 13, responsible for air-raid protection, was abruptly abolished at Hitler’s insistence. Responsibility for air-raid protection and the air-raid warning service was transferred unconditionally to the SS and police. On February 5, 1945, just weeks before the end of the war, Himmler also succeeded in removing the Regional Air Commands from any responsibility for civil defense, leaving only a handful of mobile “Air Protection Regiments” under air force control.230 His new role introduced a fresh element of menace into the regular work of civil defense. On April 14 he published a decree threatening tough punishment for civil defenders who failed in their duty. While most citizens were said to display an “exemplary self-sacrifice,” the slackers and feckless were to be dealt with sharply under the terms of the Air Protection Law. Persistent negligence, malice, or deliberate defiance was to result in a court appearance, which by 1944 meant facing a justice system dominated by a narrow ideological outlook and a search for vengeance.231 For many of those engaged in civil defense, whether Ukrainians in the fire service or camp prisoners detailed to clear up urban debris, the SS was effectively their lawless master.

Goebbels found it difficult to maintain his position in the face of Himmler’s ambitions. In December 1943, frustrated that the Inter-Ministerial Committee

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.