Hamburg's Firestorm - WWII: Witness to War - S01 EP105 - History Documentary
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- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
- Witness the relentless air war over Germany in WWII as Allied forces unleashed their fury on cities like Dresden, Hamburg, and Berlin. From daring missions to thousand-bomber raids, this film delves into the unimaginable destruction caused by bombing campaigns. Featuring real footage, personal testimonies, and advanced technology, the video showcases the toll on civilian populations and the strategic aims of the attacks. Experience the courage of RAF Bomber Command, the Dam Busters' precision strikes, and the firestorm that engulfed Hamburg. Discover the moral dilemmas and human stories that shaped the outcome of World War II.
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I have an elderly friend with a vivid memory of him at age 12 in London during 1944-1945. He recalls watching and hearing the V1 jet bombs hitting his neighbourhood.
He told me about the “hot pieces of metal” and shrapnel falling off the roofs of the houses which he picked up when they cooled.
RS. Canada
no one asked britbong.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate an uncensored, non-blurred WWII documentary. Thank you.
amen
i hate a snowflake doc
I was 3 1/2 years old when this happened,we lived just west of Hamburg and I remember the droning of the bomber as they flew over our town towards Hamburg. I'll never forget that sound.
Now something like this is happening to gaza , & palestiains are paying the price for the war that happened in europe!
how do you know English? Germans those days usually don't know English
My mother used to tell us war stories about German planes following the shine on the river Don from the sea to there target to Sheffield. She said same as you the droning of multiple aircraft engines getting closer is a sound that stays with you, then the explosions start shaking houses 9 miles away.
@@pragerbest7848 Maybe he is a teacher , teaching English. Or has the talent learning foreign languages ... If I remember correctly you could take English as an extra subject now it is mandatory...
@@pragerbest7848 To assume he only spoke German and never learned other languages shows your ignorance. In your defense, as Americans, most of us do think the rest of the world only learns one language, which reveals just how poorly educated and uniformed we actually are.
As a child my Mother lived through the bombing of Hannover, another very heavily bombed city with over 90% of the central city destroyed. By 1945, aged 5 years old, they lost their dwellings for the second time only a few weeks before the end.
Yesterday (October 9th )marked the 80th anniversary of heaviest of the 89 raids on Hannover. It is commemorated as “The Black Day”…..9. October 1943.
People would often shelter in the cellars of the apartment buildings where they lived. On the second occasion their building took a direct hit. They only managed to escape the burning cellar because my Grandfather, who had been wounded out of the war on the Eastern Front in 1943, managed to hack their way out with an axe.
My Mother is 83 now……she has never ever set foot inside a cellar ever since.
Nazis….!!!!!
Your grandma slept with me last night
That's why you don't start wars, they are appalling
My dad was overhead in a b 17. After the war, he never stepped foot in a plane again.
@user-hg2be5dl2u That's amazing too!
Terrible wars.
I watched the 1950s British film "The Dam Busters", a dramatized version of the actual event, repeatedly on TV when I was a kid in the '60s. So I've always remembered this story.
Actually, the real "Dam Busters" took heavy losses. You should read up on it.
@@raywhitehead730 I'm aware of what the actual damage was.
This is a most devastating look at the horror of war, and it's destruction. Wow.
Interesting/informative/entertaining. Excellent photography job enabling viewers to better understand what the orator is describing. Special thanks to veteran soldiers sharing personal information pertaining to daily activities/experiences . Serving as ( R.A.F.) Pilots/crews/many whom never returned after a bombing mission. Last if not least the aerial photographers who's expertise made this documentary authentic and possible -!!!😉
"War is cruelty, there is no refining it" - William T. Sherman. He would know.
.....War , is the continuation of politics by other means.
@@501sqn3C.P.G. Von .
sherman was a butcher.
@kevinspacey5325 that might be, but he was better known as a great General and leader of men
@@kevinspacey5325 no he wasn’t a butcher , he was a “despoiler”.
As a life-long student of Bomber Command, I appreciated the high quality of your presentation. Thankfully the WW2 post war era of "RAF bombing guilt" has now passed. Your reverence towards the leadership of Sir Arthur Harris has indeed earned its rightful place alongside the likes of Sherman and Halsey among the pantheon of great warriors. This is a blessed message received over the celestial wireless to all those crews of the "Many", whom continue to maintain perfect speed, altitude and heading in the immortal Bomber Stream.
Remember them . Blue skies gentlemen. 🇬🇧
@@datruth66392 : All things considered I couldn't agree more with you. However, there is no question that the allied bombing of German cities was retaliation for the bombing of London. That doesn't make it right unless you consider the alternative. The German people were manipulated, intimidated and indoctrinated into believing in their fascist leader's victimization and nationalistic philosophy to their own detriment, or else. My fear is that here in the US we have been experiencing a growth in this same kind of criminal behavior under the similar guise of victimization and nationalistic philosophy. It will most likely end the same way. There are no heroes in war, only men and women who do their duty and victims. This is why most veterans who actually experience combat refuse to talk about it. They grieve both their losses and their victims, not all of whom were innocent.
Absolutely right. My forthcoming book on Bomber Command emphasizes its crucial importance in the Allied victory, not least because it forced the Germans in 1943 to its three biggest, costliest errors of strategy: withdrawal of fighters, and then 85% of 88mm guns, from the Eastern front - making the task of the Red Army vastly easier - and the green light for the monstrously wasteful V-weapons programme.
It severely delayed both the Me-262 programme, cut the Tiger tank production total by one third, and near halted the operational introduction of the super Type-21 submarine - among other achievements.
Its role in blasting the front lines of German army defences in Normandy was also pivotal. It forced German industry into huge, inefficient schemes of dispersal to avoid the bombs, including construction of enormous caves, tunnels and bunkers. If the concrete and manpower used in constructing the French U-boat pens had been properly used to build the Atlantic wall - an 8ft high structure from Calais to Bordeaux would have made D-Day near-impossible.
If you want a copy of my book, let me know. Marcus Gibson
B ;;b. M
@@dukeofdelight-tf6xy...YOU SUMMED IT UP PRETTY WELL-!!!
@20:00 the impact of the Dam Busters Raid : a THREE MONTH DELAY recent research published in Holland shows ALL building works on the Atlantikwall were immediately halted as all able workmen and resources were recalled to Germany to restore the damaged industry there. High Command records show that work was delayed for three months following the raid. Source: “Atlantikwall in Kaart” 2023.
That was known in 1943! Amazing that you present it as recent news!
@@Volcano-Man This documentary incorrectly states the the dam buster raid did not have much effect on Germany's industrial war production and was more of a moral boost . Bobdinwiddy corrected this error and pointed the raid knocked out industrial production in the Ruhr Valley for 3 months .
Also , repairing the 2 dams would have taken resources away from other areas .
Excellent commentary.... Thank you....
My parents and Grandparents survived the attacks of the Rhine-Ruhr are. Well, my father was deployed to march towards Stalingrad.
Thats a different story.
My great Aunt and her mother didn't survive the indiscriminate bombing of Liverpool. WAR HEH ?
@@MrDaiseymaywell yes, the Americans dropped a few bombs too, just not as many as the Brits.
@@julianneale6128Stupid comment of the week award coming your way
@@MrDaiseymay Its very sad how many people died just because Churchill wanted total war with Germany.
I'm sorry for your loss but I am sorry for theirs as well
Yes targeting civilians will always be a war crime, no matter which side does it. Two wrongs don't make a right...
The Bomber offensive was an attempt to end the war. The Holocaust was genocide and was NOT a war winning strategy. There is a difference.
Being an allied airman in those days was a low life expectancy job. 30,000 of them died, thousands more wounded or ended up as POWs.
54000 died in RAF bomber command alone
@@peterflynn9123 55,000 .
My mother tells me constantly about seeing the fires of Coventry, She lived 46 miles from Coventry,
My parents were 11 miles away from Coventry and said the sky looked like daylight . People who experienced these raids nearly always talk about the droning sound of the Luftwaffe twin engine bombers . British scientist RV Jones discovered the Luftwaffe were using radio beams to navigate at night . However , on Nov. 14th , 1940 something happened with the radio frequencies , so the British didn't jam the radio frequencies .
.
@@landsea7332 Allegedly Churchill had warning of the intended raid on Coventry but did not put up the RAF to defend it for fear that it would give away the intelligence Britain had acquired
@@tonymercer7759 This was a myth started by intelligence officer FW Winterbotham .
What actually occurred was that Luftwaffe bombers were using a navigational technology of radio beams . British scientist RV Jones discovered this and was able to jam the beams during other bombing raids . The process of the Luftwaffe changing radio beams & frequencies , and the British jamming them , became known as the " battle of the beams ." But the night of Nov 14th , 1940 , the Luftwaffe had a receiver technology with a small band width , and the British were slightly off with their jamming frequency .
.
A great video. Wars aren't wars without war crimes. I kept seeing Baldrick as I listened.
during the 90,s building recession i like thousands of brit construction workers went over to germany for work and in hamburg and hanover worked on sites that were shut when finding unexploded bombs 50 years after the event
Unexploded WW2 bombs are still being found both in Germany and Britain.
And they’ll still be finding them for many years to come, as they do in UK.
The Germans started this and they did indeed reap the whirl wind...While London was bombed more heavily and more often than anywhere else in Britain, the Blitz was an attack on the whole country. Very few areas were left untouched by air raids. In relatively small compact cities, the impact of a severe air raid could be devastating.
From mid-November 1940, major provincial cities and industrial centres were targeted. In early 1941 another wave of attacks began, primarily against ports. Respite finally came from June when much of the Luftwaffe was directed against Russia and targets in the Mediterranean.
In these nine months, over 43,500 civilians were killed. This is how the Blitz affected towns and cities across the United Kingdom.
The interesting thing about the "Blitz" was that it was a blitzkrieg that wasn't.
Blitzkrieg means lightning war.
One thing not mentioned is that the attack on Hamburg took place over several nights. Each night a different section of the city was targeted. The firestorm took place on the third night and concentrated on an area north of the Elbe river and east of the Alster lake. It was an area with a lot of blue collar workers.
You're basically right, however, the firestorm took place on the 27th of July, 1943, and this was the second major raid of Operation Gomorrah, rather than the third. The third raid was aimed at Barmbeck, and it caused a major area fire, but no true firestorm.
I'm 83 and still don't like Germans
blue collar workers who contributed to the german war effort that resulted in 60 million killed
@@jeanmeslier9491 What about Austrians?
@@conveyor2 ...WHAT ABOUT THEM?!!
Our wonderful RAF and the American bombers
Heroic but misguided.
they liberated Europe from the Nazi's
Our 'wonderful' Weapons of Mass Destruction and death?
Sorry, but what was "Heroic" about the policy of de-housing workers?
@@antispindr8613 dehousing Nazi's, saving innocent people,, ...
Hans Jeshoneck died by suicide on August 18th, 1943, following the RAF on the rocket research facility at Peenemunde, not in 1944, as claimed here. Also, the battle of Stalingrad ended in January/February of 1943, while Hamburg was bombed in July of 1943.
During Covid I read quite a number of books about WW Two and was surprised how highly inaccurate bombing was- often they missed entire cities they aimed at. Things smaller than cities were almost pointless as targets.
That's not exactly true, many historians who report the bombings in that context do it simply because they don't do the proper research, or they are heavily biased towards making claims like that simply for sensationalism in an effort to sell books, nothing like getting people to talk about something to get books selling.
Think about it, you couldn't miss an entire city if you tried, you wouldn't even need bomb sights to hit something as big as an entire city, you could have guys chucking bombs out of the bomb bay by eye and you'd still hit it, in the cases where entire cities were missed it wasn't because the bombing systems (sights) were so inaccurate they were incapable of hitting a city that's an entire mile across, it's for reasons like the lead navigator flying the formation to the wrong target resulting in it getting bombed and going on record as "zero bombs on target" even though the bombardiers absolutely plastered what they were actually aiming at, then years later instead of researchers subtracting the results from that when talking about bombing accuracy they include it in their math when talking about bombing accuracy.
There's many other things that factor in that shouldn't be included when talking about bombing accuracy, like the Germans camouflaging targets and setting up decoys nearby, or them lighting off smoke pots to obscure visibility, but the biggest one is how the majority of bombs were aimed, all kinds of people claim that the Norden bombsight used by the US bombers was supposedly inaccurate, but the fact is 65% of the bombs aimed by the 8th Air Force over Europe weren't aimed optically with the Norden bombsight they were aimed using the H2X ground scanning radar system due to cloud cover making optical sighting impossible, especially during the winter months when overcast clouds were the norm, yet all the historians who bash the Norden bombsight don't subtract the results from the missions where the H2X system was used to aim the bombs, I don't think the majority of those so called experts even know about the H2X system and how much it was used.
So the claim that they missed entire cities isn't at all true, they hit what they were aiming at it's just that they were aiming at the wrong thing because of navigator errors or other factors like decoys being bombed, even in WW1 where at first a guy was hanging over the side of the plane dropping bombs he couldn't miss an entire city, that claim is made by so called researchers just saying things out of context to make a lot of noise trying to make a name for themselves.
The subject of accuracy is one thing, the subject of results is something entirely different, and the difference between the two speaks to the conditions that the bombing campaign happened under along with thing's like human error and deception added in.
The US airforce once missed japan! Due to high winds they set their bomb sites and without knowledge of the jet stream in those days literally overshot Yokohama and bombed the Pacific so missing a whole country
Only 5% of the RAF bombs came within FIVE miles of the target in the first year of night bombing. It wasn't until the UK's boffins developed electronic guidance system did most of the bombers at least find the city. @@dukecraig2402
Which the USAAF quickly learned from it, while it took more than a year for BC to even find a city. @@vernongoodey5096
@@vernongoodey5096 Not the first time ,the American military dont seem able to catch a bus at times. Numbers dont always equate to excellence. EG 2 air craft on 9 11 for the entire Eastern seaboard? Why this never became a major scandal ,defies belief. A training exersize that day???
Total war stinks in more ways than one. It stinks not only of rotting bodies but of evil and horror as well. For those who want to see real-life horror movies, a documentary of war is the thing to see. It shows the hellish nature of bombings and the subsequent destruction of human lives and infrastructure. It also shows the atrocities inflicted upon innocent civilians caught in the path of soldiers who are fighting their enemies. Thank you for this eye-opening video of the awful firestorm in Hamburg, Germany during the second world war.
Unfortunately there are always going to be civilian casualties in times of war😢. After a couple German cities being leveled. The disillusioned leadership in Berlin. Should have telegraphed London with surrender request.
I so agree.
Strangely enough, were not the civilians in Japan less guilty of what the Emperor's military were doing and had done, than the responsibility for the Nazis that German civilians who'd had more political power?
For me this was a war crime. But the history doesn't want to judge the "goods of the movie".
No, Britain was NOT standing alone. We Canadians as well as other countries of the Empire were there with the British. We did not have the much bigger forces of the U.S., but we punched well above our size. This reminds me of the tendancy of U.S. movies and popular historians to focus almost totally on the U.S. experience on D-Day, June 1944. We were also there, and in fact were first to get ashore in France, and also got the furthest inland that day.
Yes and it was mainly Canadians who participated in the August 1942 Dieppe raid fiasco Just another example of using the colonials as cannon fodder
@@HughBond-kx7ly There were Brits there as well.
@HughBond-kx7ly our people at home and the newspapers were clamoring that our troops who had been in Britain since 39, start seeing some action. Our pilots were in the air, our navy was hunting submarines and escorting convoys in the Atlantic. We needed to feel like they were "doing something." My uncle was at Dieppe with the Calgary Regiment. One of the few tankers to get back. Went on to fight in Sicily, Italy and then NW Europe. Survived the war.
Lesson, make your 0wn movies about WW2.
Canada had the third biggest navy and the fourth biggest air force in the world, by 1945.
He who sows the wind, reaps the storm
shall reap the whirlwind
@@jamesferguson2353 and the thunder
Uma frase copiada e repetida por Arthur Harris, um genocida impune.
Germans are slow at leaning...! It wasn't supposed to happen. N
That's about all the bombs did... inspire colourful metaphors.
Great videos!
Hello. Hamburg was a horrific event -- there is no doubt. However, what is the expression? "You reap what you sow." Be safe! Mike
I am haunted by the suspicion that the bombing of Dresden may have been partly revenge for London. I've read that some of the aircraft crew were too sickened by it to drop their bombs on the city.
Ironic since it was the British who first sowed the seeds of indiscriminate bombing on German cities. The Blitz was a retaliation of this.
Are you saying in New York City on September 11, 2001 was justified with your idea?
Never Forget Warsaw, Manila, Nanking, Rotterdam, Stalingrad, Belgrade.
A vingança apenas torna o vingador igual ao criminoso.
Ok Chamberlain
Dachau,Bergen.Sobibor etc.
The poor innocent Bolsheviks, oh the horror.
@@damonmelendez856...AND THE ORDINARY CITIZENS OF THE USSR SUFFERED A HECK OF A LOT TOO- A GREAT MANY OF THEM WERE NO FRIENDS OF STALIN AND HIS GANG, AND THEY WOULD HAVE SIDED WITH THE GERMANS IF THEY WERE OFFERED THE OPPORTUNITY...
Half of my dad's family lived in Altona, Hamburg. They left in 1907 and came to New York and lived mostly in New Jersey.
War crimes? Let this sink in: All the warring nations in world war 2 dropped a total of 4 million tons of bombs. The United States dropped 8 million tons of bombs in Indochina between 1962 and 1973 during the Vietnam war.
Yes indeed. They sowed the wind................................
Eles irão pagar pelo vento e vocês irão pagar pela tempestade! É a Lei de Causa e Efeito.
Seguimos esperando casi 80 años después....@@catiagranico7796
Britain bombed German civilians before Germans bombed British civilians...
How dare anyone say we where as bad as the Nazis. Animals never change there habits. But we tried..we tried. Oh one word...COVENTRY.
Dresden was payback for Coventry
Indeed, & PLYMOUTH is another city almost completely destroyed, although many people don't know it even happened. As a naval base, I accept it was a prime military target, but the actual naval base was/is outside the city (Devonport). Nevertheless, Germany carried out fifty nine separate air raids on the base & the city itself, leaving it decimated, so it sickens me that Germany now acts as the victim.
@@dougclevenger6748No it wasn't. Dresden, Leipzig at al; stood in front of the advancing Red Army. Zhukov halted his advance and through Stalin demanded that they be bombed to enable his advance to continue. Dresden was an essential hub for communications, German troops moving to and from the front, and materiels of war either being stockpiled or moved to to the front.
Coventry - well there was also London, Southampton, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Liverpool, Manchester, Belfast and others; all bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1940-41, and later - look up the Baedabecker Raids, all had been avenged long before Dresden.
Please do not insult animals only humans who are SUPPOSED to know better behave like this. I live in Africa and have never seen any animal doing this in my long life. I am 70.
@@tabularasa9104...YOU SUMMED IT UP PERFECTLY- AND YOU HIT NAIL RIGHT ON THE HEAD-(!)
He who sleeps in his bed, often awakes rested in the morning.
You can also find some interesting books about this topic. Inferno: The Fiery Destruction of Hamburg, 1943 by Keith Lowe was an interesting book.
And Martin Caidin's 1964 "The Night Hamburg Died"
Hamburg bombings survivor Hans Massoqui's "Destined to Witness"
David Irving "The Destruction of Dresden"
@@ludovicleprinceroyal8721...HOLOCAUST DENIER-(!)
@@kidmack3556
‘Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945’ Frederick Taylor
Don't start nothin' won't b nothin'
Plumber pilot Guy Gibson,marvellous stuff.
Actually Guy Gibson was hopeless at plumbing.
Germany reaped what it had mercilessly sown.
Yeah but it was Winston Churchill who started the bombing campaign on civilian population in Berlin in 1940 despite signing a treaty to bar civilian population as targets from bombing, and for your information in 1923 article 51 was signed by Britain and they ignored it when there bombers flew to Berlin and killed innocent civilians so Germany in turn did the same, you should research this matter before making comments then you have no clue or understanding of what happened back then.
@@glennquagmire1747 Germany invaded... Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia (modern Czech Republic and Slovakia), Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Guernsey (U.K. Channel Island), Hungary, Italy, Jersey (U.K. Channel Island), Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia (partial occupation), San Marino, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, (modern Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia).
Like I said, my friend... Germany reaped what it had mercilessly sown. And let's not bring the Holocaust into the equation.
@@justinthyme5730- The ramblings of a wannabe historian, like I said do some research and learn something lol
Germany attacks London in 1939 ,, bombing civilians,,, Germany U-boat attacks targeted civilian ships ,,, They got what was coming
Germany bombed civilians in England first. Then Winston bombed Berlin
Μου αρέσουν πολύ αυτά τα πολεμικά ντοκιμαντέρ που τα βλέπω συχνά στο Netflix, εντελώς τυχαία είδα το κανάλι σας, Μπραβο Πολύ ωραία θέματα και ευχαριστώ πολύ. Χαιρετισμούς από την Μακεδονία Ελλάδα 🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷
Giasu re kostaki me ton sfixto to kolaraki😅
19:16
Love this series! Tony Robinson makes it.
Thanks!
When wars were won, not just fought continuously.
It got so hot that people got stuck walking down asphalt streets as it reached melting temperature.
It was rumored that in the morning death squads were sent out to put people out of their misery.
Why no sympathy for the British victims of German bombing? Don't you realise that firestorms also affected London, Coventry, Clydeside etc?
I agree with you. I would love to learn more about the firestorms in Britain@@davidlauder-qi5zv
@@davidlauder-qi5zvbecause the figures don’t compare
Britain suffered 50,000 casualties during the war
Germany suffered more than 650,000 casualties from UK bombing, they don’t compare
@@davidlauder-qi5zv I have plenty of sympathy for the British victims. It's terrible on both sides. You lunatics just like hearing about the deaths of Germans who don't even exist anymore, generations before you were even born.
Luftwaffe bombing NEVER created a firestorm in Britain! Please get ypur facts straight bro.
In war, worse and worse behaviour becomes normalised as opponents match each other’s atrocities
Pleasing to read the comments and note people comprehend that Hamburg was nothing -1 night compared to 57 continuous nights over London, including a 998 -bomber raid by nazis in 1940's But like all war the women, children, infirm and elderly paid the price.
And Liverpool, the second most concentrated blitz on England, so nearly successful that Churchill suppressed any news about it - that's why Liverpool is seldom mentioned even now. Had Liverpool docks been destroyed, that would have been it.
Death of british civil: 50000
Death of German civil: 600000, dont Talk bs.
@@scarihscheidenkleister8998 Concentration camp victims 6,000,000 that we know of.
I think, German holocaust apart, more men die in war than women, children, infirm and elderly.
Don’t forget the millions of soldiers & Jews …
Trying to make Germany the victim over Dresdan does not compute😮.Also I am convinced that if Germany had a nuclear bomb they would have used it.Same with Japan.
Without question
The Germans were actually developing a nuclear device. Britain was doing the same, but was ahead of the Germans in this respect. Because of the devastation the UK suffered in the blitz, they had other financial priorities e.g. rehoming two million people, who's homes were severely damaged or destroyed, killing 40 to 60 thousand civilians in the process. They decided to hand all of their research & development to the US &, sent scientists to Los Alamos to join the Manhattan project.
Guaranteed.
Thats Hollywood for you, it makes you think who the allies and friends actually where and are....
dresden was an allied war crime no doubt about that
I feel most honoured to have been able to correspond with 4 mentioned within: Hajo Herrman, Arthur Harris, Johnny Johnson and Barnes Wallis.
...YOU'RE LUCKY...!!!
Arthur Harris,what an absolute legend.
Yep , the question is . What kind of legend ?
some documentaries portray Harris as a fiend and others,, like myself, believe he carried out his orders and made no secret of his belief in them. @@rolandgeorgschramm1839
London looks like a third world dump now, enjoy it
He was a disgusting lowlife. He was as low as they come
Harris was an absolute reactionary who hated all members of the working class even in his own country. He was a despicable human been, far from what you call a hero.
Mums school got bombed in Nottingham ,then she worked as a switch board operator at 14 years old
Let’s not forget the number of civilians across Europe that died at the hands of the Germans ……
Let's even begin to faintly recall the number who died at the hands of the Soviets...
@@conveyor2
. . . And that started long before WWII.
50000 under Staleen !
Yes, and does that “justify” the Allied bombing terror against old people, women and children?
So "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"...
Well, the Israelis do it the same way...
Was seid ihr nur für Heuchler und Moralisten🤮
Not forgetting Hitler's barbarism that doesn't excuse Harris's barbarism.
"you sewed the wind, now you will reap the whirlwind"
A well constructed piece of history. Accurately shows the price civilians pay for the actions of their government. When you wage war the horrors of humanity are sure to come out in the mist of total destruction.
Well remarked.
Ye shall sow the wind . Ye shall reap the whirlwind .
Bombing
cities as a means of waging total war had already become an accepted strategy
among the members of Britain’s “war party.” Britain began developing and
building long range, heavy bombers as early as 1933. The United States did the
same. The Lancaster, the B17 and the B24 were built for no purpose except to
destroy cities and inflict massive casualties on the German population.
Military operations require small, fast, “tactical” planes. Thousand plane
armadas of four-engine, heavy “strategic” bombers had no military purpose.
Colonel (later Brigadier General) Robin Olds, a highly respected officer and
USAF fighter pilot who served in both WWII and Vietnam, stated more than
once that the so-called strategic bombing program was ineffective, wasteful
and pointless. It is generally acknowledged today that the strategic bombing
program did not shorten the war by a single day, and that in the end, it served
no military purpose. After all, Germany reached her highest level of war
production in the last months of the war when the bombing was most intense.
Colonel Olds, among many others, was of the opinion that fighter bombers
carrying a single bomb flying low and fast would have been far more effective
against German military and strategic targets. He said that a single Mustang
could have dropped a five hundred pound bomb through the window of any
factory in Germany. It was impossible to hit a factory with a huge formation of
bombers flying at 25,000 feet without destroying everything for miles around
it. He also emphasized that this would have greatly minimized civilian
casualties. Perhaps the colonel was naive. Perhaps he did not understand that
the very purpose of “strategic bombing” was to maximize civilian casualties.
In a word, the purpose of “strategic bombing” was genocide!!
While Britain and the United States were building thousands upon
thousands of four-engine, long range, heavy bombers, designed for no otherpurpose than the destruction of cities and the slaughter of massive numbers of
civilians, Germany built only light, maneuverable, low altitude bombers
designed for ground support. These planes were unsuitable for genocidal terror
bombing. H. only undertook the bombing of British civilian targets
reluctantly, three months after the RAF began a campaign of carpet bombing
German cities. H would have been willing at any time to stop the
slaughter.
Churchill’s War Cabinet adopted the Lindemann Plan in March, 1942,
which then became Britain’s official policy. This decision of the War Cabinet
was kept a closely guarded secret from the British public throughout the war
and for many years afterwards. The British people were told that only military
and industrial targets were bombed, and any damage beyond that was
unintentional. The true nature of British bombing of German cities and
civilians was revealed in 1961 in a book titled Science and Government by
the physicist and novelist, Sir Charles Snow. The following passage from the
book was immediately translated and published in several languages:
“Early in 1942 Professor Lindemann, by this time Lord Cherwell and a
member of the Cabinet, laid a cabinet paper before the Cabinet on the
strategic bombing of Germany. It described in quantitative terms the ef ect
on Germany of a British bombing of ensive in the next eighteen months
(approximately March 1942-September 1943). The paper laid down a
strategic policy. The bombing must be directed essentially against German
working-class houses. Middle-class houses have too much space round them
and so are bound to waste bombs; factories and “military objectives” had
long since been forgotten, except in of icial bulletins, since they were much
too dif icult to find and hit. The paper claimed that-given a total
concentration of ef ort on the production and use of aircraft-it would be
possible, in all the larger towns of Germany (that is, those with more than
50,000 inhabitants), to destroy 50 per cent of all houses.”
Angus Calder wrote, in his book, “The Peoples’ War,” 1969: “It may be
Inconvenient History but England rather than Germany initiated the
murderous slaughter of bombing civilians thus bringing about retaliation.
[Neville] Chamberlain conceded that it [bombing of civilians and cities]was
“absolutely contrary to International law.” It began in 1940 and Churchill
believed it held the secret of victory. He was convinced that raids of
suf icient intensity could destroy Germany’s morale, and so his War Cabinetplanned a campaign that abandoned the accepted practice of attacking the
enemy’s armed forces and, instead made civilians the primary target. Night
after night, RAF bombers in ever increasing numbers struck throughout
Germany, usually at working class housing, because it was more densely
packed.”
I thought this was a documentary about Hamburger!
Is the narrator named Baldrick? Sounds like that guy on Blackadder😅! Great documentary though.
^^^
Yep, It's "Baldrick" ( aka Sir Tony Robinson ) from Blackadder = He also narrates "Time Team" (the original)
.
@@hawnyfox3411 Yes , its Sir Baldrick .
My gosh. Don't these places have a editor to correct the spelling?
All that posters have to do is click on the three dots next to their post which it allows you to edit your errors.
The V1's and V2's were aimed at military targets? NO.
No to my cost they were aimed at London, and put me in Hospital
The USA *_ought not_* to have made a hero of Werner von Braun.
@@jacksimpson-rogers1069but...but....buuu....ComMuNiSM eVeRyWhERe!!!!!
- The Republicans.
@@jacksimpson-rogers1069 Waste not, want not,..
No.
Of the 133 crew members in 617 Sqn., 30 were Canadian.
Anti-radar strips were known as "window", not 'windows' . . .
Magnesium was used also...pathfinders dropped windows and magnesium to light up dresden for instance...
"window", not 'windows' Target flares were based on magnesium - it burns well . . . @@doctorsocrates4413
@@doctorsocrates4413
It’s ‘window,’ not plural. That was the point of the original comment.
I hit subscribe before the first bombs fell!
Thank you for your service! 💂
The RAF lost 55,000 flyers over Europe during WWII. The Eighth AF lost 80,000.
26,000. Eighth AF lost 26,000.
It's a bigger proportion of the British populace, but it may be that the Americans did more damage per death.
I get the impression that in destructive success per crewman lost, the "mad" wooden Mosquito was the winner.
In the 1990s I befriended ,in my local pub, an ex-navigator in Lancasters who took part in the bombing of Dresden. He told me after the first and subsequent night's bombing increasing numbers of aircrew refused to go any bombing missions over Dresden. I think it was keenly felt by aircrew that it was bad/wrong. This aspect is not really mentioned in this documentary.
The amazing Sergeant pilots of the RAF from all around the world
Were they any different to the officer pilots?
You start the wind 💨
You reap the whirlwind.
WAR. All bets are off
No Holds Barred
ignoramus nonsense
Using Hamburg as clickbait is disappointing 4 N inadequately brief history of the bombing of Germany; all the ruses, technology, techniques, circumstances, the pacing of different stages in the Hamburg campaign, & the full denouemont of it, R not presented here
My mother and her parents had been in the U.S. since right after WW l. She was born in Hamburg. Her relatives were still in Hamburg. My grandfather became a U.S. citizen during the war. He went back to Hamburg as soon as possible. He had many relatives there. The worst of the bombings of people burning alive was confiscated by the British so that the world would not see what the Americans and British had done. That is why you see only mostly buildings and not the horrors of the dead civilians. The present death toll is a lie. It is so easy for the victors to lie about death tolls. One would have to be an idiot to believe it. If the injured die in a week, they are still considered injured. The allies have no shortage of bodies to show of their side, but it is rare that you see the amount of horrific deaths of German civilians.
Stop invading countries.
Well stated
Thank You! It is true! @@damonmelendez856
you are correct.. if nazy Germany were the victors you won't see accurate death tolls and zero reports on dead in the concentration camps
It also looked the same from the side of the Brits when Germany bombed England’s cities. It didn’t help to elide the fine points regardless of where the bombs were dropped, and by whom. It’s always the same, the senseless struggle and the oneupmanship; the scorched earth heaving its death count again and again.
Oh my days! I am thinking of those small children who still get killed any where in the world because of war.
Yes, war is still tragic, no matter where it happens. It does not discriminate between innocent civilians and soldiers who fight in the battlefields. I hate seeing the innocent men, women, and children perish in the crossfire of war.
Is it any different than an abortion clinic -???😈
All of Germany was complicated with the war, there were no innocents!!
@@asullivan4047Yes
@@ElieGroffDo you mean 'complicit"?
It was really shameful how Churchill turned his back on the boys of Bomber Command at the end of the war. It was not his finest hour.
...AND I THINK IT'S SHAMEFUL HOW THE BRIT VOTERS TURNED THEIR BACKS ON CHURCHILL, NEAR THE END OF WW2!!!
That's because he was a fat weasel.
Yes they never got a campaign medal unlike the army and RN.
The Dardanelle campaign in ww1, was not his finest hour either.
Churchill wasn’t prime minister when WW2 ended. He was voted out of office in July 1945.
Pro tip: don't vote dictators into power.
Let's tell that to the Supreme Court of the USA.
Especially those masquerading as "socialists"
Let's hope the Americans remember that in November...
Churchill was not voted into power by the people, despite this he managed to send the first civilian targeted bombing raid between the British and German which escalated the war and caused the deaths of countless innocent civilians.
Oops, too late! Now they've got a tyrant in a hairpiece!
well. if any one knows what a war crime was and how to commit one, it was germany.
Is it possible that Germany learnt from the Brits about war crimes against civilians in the Boer War?
@@dieterspringer9177 No
Não existem inocentes numa guerra.
it was England that declared war on Germany not the other way round
@@johnsmith-mq4eq England did that after Germany invaded Poland.
Harris certainly acheived his whirlwind, Biblical pillars, tornados of fire, like Le May he was a realist with no illusions about the fruit of his labors, mega death.
Took his initial lessons from the Geman firebombing of Coventry in Nov 1940.
Bomber Harris raised his concerns about bombing Dresden saying it wouldn't make any difference to the outcome amongst other things but he was ignored.
In 1945 at Yalta meeting Stalin asked Churchill to bomb Dresden as it was a major transport hub for vermacht troops and munitions going to the eastern Front and Churchill obliged him otherwise Dresden would most likely not have been bombed.
nonsense
@@HughBond-kx7ly correct
In Dresden there were at least 127 factories and workshops producing vital military equipment.
No. Churchill’s War Cabinet adopted the Lindemann Plan in March, 1942, which then became Britain’s official policy. This decision of the War Cabinet was kept a closely guarded secret from the British public throughout the war and for many years afterwards. The British people were told that only military and industrial targets were bombed, and any damage beyond that was unintentional. The true nature of British bombing of German cities and civilians was revealed in 1961 in a book titled Science and Government by
the physicist and novelist, Sir Charles Snow. The following passage from the
book was immediately translated and published in several languages:
“Early in 1942 Professor Lindemann, by this time Lord Cherwell and a member of the Cabinet, laid a cabinet paper before the Cabinet on the strategic bombing of Germany. It described in quantitative terms the effect
on Germany of a British bombing of ensive in the next eighteen months
(approximately March 1942-September 1943). The paper laid down a strategic policy. The bombing must be directed essentially against German
working-class houses. Middle-class houses have too much space round them
and so are bound to waste bombs; factories and “military objectives” had long since been forgotten, except in of icial bulletins, since they were much too dif icult to find and hit. The paper claimed that-given a total
concentration of ef ort on the production and use of aircraft-it would be possible, in all the larger towns of Germany (that is, those with more than 50,000 inhabitants), to destroy 50 per cent of all houses.”
Angus Calder wrote, in his book, “The Peoples’ War,” 1969: “It may be Inconvenient History but England rather than Germany initiated the murderous slaughter of bombing civilians thus bringing about retaliation. [Neville] Chamberlain conceded that it [bombing of civilians and cities]was
“absolutely contrary to International law.” It began in 1940 and Churchill
believed it held the secret of victory. He was convinced that raids of
suf icient intensity could destroy Germany’s morale, and so his War Cabinetplanned a campaign that abandoned the accepted practice of attacking the
enemy’s armed forces and, instead made civilians the primary target. Night
after night, RAF bombers in ever increasing numbers struck throughout
Germany, usually at working class housing, because it was more densely
packed.”
Britain devoted more of her resources to RAF Bomber Command than to
all the other branches of the British military combined. Having discovered
early in the war that it was nearly impossible to hit a small target such as a
factory or a runway from high in the air, Bomber Command decided to
concentrate entire air wings into bomber raids of a thousand planes at a time
on German cities. To avoid airplane losses to German fighter planes and antiaircraft fire from the ground, these massive attacks were flown only at night at
high altitude. The British gave up on military targets early in the war and
decided to concentrate entirely on Germany’s cities, using the city centers as
their aiming point. The city centers were the oldest part of the cities, dating
back to the middle ages and beyond. In the city centers the streets were narrow
and the buildings were close together, constructed mostly of highly flammable
wood, covered with plaster, which ignited easily and burned furiously. The
people in these old cities suffered agonizing deaths as they were fried, cooked,
and broiled by the fires, or blown to pieces by the explosions.
********
The United States entered the air war in Europe in September, 1942 with
air groups of B-24s and B-17s flying out of Britain. The United States at first
did not attack civilians directly but attempted to carry out precision bombing of
German factories and military installations. Whereas the British flew all their
raids at night, the Americans did their bombing runs during daylight, to
improve bombing accuracy. But “precision bombing” at high altitude was a
fantasy, whether done during the day or at night, as more bombs invariably fell on areas surrounding the target than on the target itself. After a time, the Americans gave up on “precision bombing” and joined the British in “area bombing,” that is, targeting entire cities"
A great city. A phoenix reborn.
Hamburg is a bit sterile nowadays I’ve found, no?
Note....no roads suffered during the war.....looks like perhaps implosion rather than explosion !
Germany deserved far worse they’re lucky we stopped when we did…
Vocês irão pagar, do mesmo modo que os alemães, a partir de quando começaram até onde pararam.
...THAT'S FOR DOGGONE SURE- THE GERMANS WERE SOUNDLY DEFEATED, AND THE ALLIES RUBBED THE GERMANS' NOSES IN IT!!!
Okay psychopath.
Berlin was very unlucky to have Hitler's worst minions forbidding surrender.
ignoramus nonsense
How many cities,towns, jungles, and anything that moved were destroyed since WW2. Never learning about the past is to destroy the present. That’s my quote today 🤔
Like Gaza; they created it! Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind!
“He was down in the meat locker on the night that Dresden was destroyed. There were sounds like giant footsteps above. Those were sticks of high-explosive bombs. The giants walked and walked. The meat locker was a very safe shelter. All that happened down there was an occasional shower of calcimine. The Americans and four of their guards and a few dressed carcasses were down there, and nobody else. The rest of the guards had, before the raid began, gone to the comforts of their own homes in Dresden. They were all being killed with their families.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse Five
I never realized people actually look back to World War Two and think somehow Germany was a victim because we bombed cities with civilians in them. In America everyone says Germany deserved everything they got. They didn’t learn the first time so they started another war. Don’t care if we knocked down every building in the country. That’s Germanys problem. Actually it became our problem after the war when we rebuilt Berlin and other cities. We lost so many young Americans and then helped rebuild the country. Germany should pay the Allies back for our troubles. Americans don’t want to ever fight in Europe again. Not our problem anymore. But Germany had it coming. This victim mentality is ridiculous.
"As the Kaiser did not start World War I, H. and the N/s did not start World War II. Moreover, H. did everything within his power to avoid a war with Britain, France and the United States. He also made a number of peace initiatives as the war progressed, all of which were either rejected or
ignored. Britain and France declared war on Germany, not the other way around. All of Germany’s military initiatives in the West, i.e., the invasion of
Norway, the invasion of France, the occupation of the Low Countries, etc., were preemptive strikes that were at bottom defensive in nature. The invasion of the Soviet Union was preemptive, as well. Germany also did not start the bombing of civilians, Britain did"
And you know what, once again they started a war and want us to fix the mess in Europe. Germany will never change.
So could Lynette Nusbacher been drafted to fight for the allies?
No HE couldn't!😂😊
There is something difficult about Mr Robinson’s voice, it isn’t quite pleasant. The bombastic American chap seems to have faded away.
Sneeringly supercilious maybe?
...well, "if ya don't LIKE IT- then ya don't have to EAT IT!!!"
@@EllieMaes-GrandadAnd with an apparent callous disregard for the victims of German bombing. Were the civilians of Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Coventry, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Clydeside, Swansea. Cardiff, etc., to blame for their own fates? And for the record, firestorms happened in London, Coventry, Clydeside. etc. as well. Also, let's not pretend that the Germans (as some claim) only bombed military targets. That was not so. Ever heard of the Baedeker air raids? Look them up.
Seems I know more than you . . . @@davidlauder-qi5zv
@@EllieMaes-Grandad Care to explain?
You can't say they didn't ask for it. Actually the Germans and Japanese got off lightly.
My stepfather was a navigator on a b17, and he dudnt like talking about the war. He was especially angered over Dresden, that it was not necessary, as was his fellow friends dying right in front of his eyes.
Dachau was not necessary either.
@@anthonycaruso8443Nor Guantanamo Bay either
DRESDEN was absolutely necessary. SOVIET UNION ASKED us to hit Leipzig Chemnitz and Dresden . So we did. THATS what allies do. We had asked them to attack during Battle of BULGE SO THEY DID .
I had a friend who survived is house being bombed as a baby in coventry, his mother always used to place him under there belfast sink, his mom and dad died but that Belfast sink saved his life
The main complaint by Germans seems to be we did it better than them 😂
Who is we??
And why did take so long ??
Ah , we had to ask the Americans again .😂
@@michaelmueller6083 No we did not ask the Americans again! They were drawn into the war when the Nazis declared war on USA after the attack on Pearl Harbour.
@@dianeunderhill8506...WASN'T "LEND-LEASE" STARTED LONG BEFORE THE U.S. OFFICIALLY ENTERED WW2-(?)
MOST AMERICANS WANTED NO PART OF ANOTHER WAR IN EUROPE- AND FDR LITERALLY RISKED BEING IMPEACHED BY ILLEGALLY SENDING SUPPORT TO BRITAIN UNDER THE TABLE!!!
Vocês foram melhores do que eles no genocídio.
@@michaelmueller6083The US joined the war when Japan, an ally of Germany bombed its fleet in Pearl Harbour declaring war. The US sat on its hands until 1941 end.
The 8th American Air Force , were the Mighty 8 Air Force Suqadan out of Savannah , GA .
There is a Museum in Pooler GA . , dedicated to that WWII Air Force Squdran .
"We stuck the wrong pig." General George S. Patton
The U.S. élite was pro-fascist before the war and saw to it that its counterparts in W Germany got off lightly after it, regardless of the show trials: Patton was part of that elite, as was John McCloy, their man who ran W.Germany, who'd been the U.S. lawyer for the powerful I.G. Farben chemicals group which had funded the Nazis and which had important plants at Auschwitz that McCloy (as a wartime military planner) saw to it were not bombed by the Army Air Corps. He also saw to it that many German war-criminals got off lightly.
@@None-zc5vg History has shown that communism is infinitely worse than fascism in terms of human casualties.
Pigs do not behave like this only immoral humans...
@@tabularasa9104...THAT'S THE TRUTH- I'M SAD TO SAY...!!!
so interesting to watch they got back what we recieved
Germany got what they started.
300.000 civilian deaths during allied bombarding in germany.
30.000 during blitzkrieg.
You have to be joking right?
@@jon.schnee so?
...but the hamburgler lives on!
This was the 40s not the 60s. Civil-rights where and how ?
8:20 | this guy needs to chill out
Lynnete is really a man😊
I hear my historians, I'm in ✌🏼🌐
It annoys me when British talk about standing alone you were not standing alone you had the Colonial and Dominion forces so let’s start to acknowledge that Britain survived that period because of the then Empire
Most of the British reckon Canada, Australia, and even the Falkland Islands as British.
@@jacksimpson-rogers1069idiot
In 1940 Britain was the ONLY unconquered country in Europe. Churchill said ‘We STAND alone. Get the context. The help came later.
WHAT ABOUT COVENTRY,Rotterdam,London,Kiev,,Moscow,WARSAW???
🤨
Moscow was barely touched.
British civilians killed: 50,000
German civilians killed: more than 635,000
“But what about-“ doesn’t even compare when it comes down to overall casualty figures, shut up
Also Rotterdam is laughable, barely 1,000 people were killed by German bombing, whereas 37,000 people were killed in Hamburg
Coventry, like Hamburg, was a valid target. It was an important supplier of the Rolls-Royce engines for the RAF.
I am sorry in a way for the poor devils that flew the aircraft as Germans rather than the outright Nazis.
Excellent
How do the dam busters fit into firebombing? I thought this was about firebombing?
how many people killed on the ground from all those machine gun bullets falling down?
None at all, because those machine gun bullets would have lost most of their velocity.
A few people were killed from falling flak in ww2 I've been reading about it! Google it
@@cwj9202 = He's just too thick to realise it !!!!!
The subsonic, aging , B - 52 , with non - nuclear weapons, gives me a chill . During WW2 , the slow Lancaster was the doomsday weapon . Total war , total Hate . It's all sickening .
That nutsacker is a weird dude
(Nutsacker) is angry af
And that's how you win a war.