The strategic bombing of German industry, transportation and cities, was gravely disappointing. Attacks on factories that made such seemingly crucial components as ball bearings, and even attacks on aircraft plants, were sadly useless. With plant and machinery relocation and more determined management, fighter aircraft production actually increased in early 1944 after major bombing. In the cities, the random cruelty and death inflicted from the sky had no appreciable effect on war production or the war.
Make sure you read that bolded bit again.
One reply on “Boardroom Warefare”
Thesis: “In the cities, the random cruelty and death inflicted from the sky had no appreciable effect on war production or the war.”
I agree with the first half, disagree with the second.
Random bombing did not take out the industrial capaicty nor did it significantly effect the infrastructure of Germany. However, it did create a great deal of damage, more than any time in history up to that point. At the end of the war, bombings had levelled a great deal of the major German cities, so that there was 4000 tons of rubble for every man, woman, and child in the country.
The real effect of bombings was not in the industrial capactiy of Germany. It was psychological. When you are getting the crap bombed out of you, it is hard to feel like you are winning the war, or that your inevitable conquest of the human race because you are UBERMENSCH is correct.
Much like the Doolittle bombings, the German “industrial” bombings had very little physical but a great deal of psychological impact.