Churchill or Hitler: Who started bombing civilian cities first?

A war against Germany was winnable.... whatever side brought the Soviets into it on their side would ultimately win it.

Germany struck a deal with Stalin that in return for staying out the war, the Soviet Union gets back land it lost after WW1, but really this was land the Nazi's had their eyes on (especially the Baltics and Ukraine).

Thing was it was a bluff by both sides.... Stalin thought nobody would be stupid enough to invade the Soviet Union, so he planned to let Western Europe kill each other and at a later date just sweep up the mess that Churchill and Hitler had made.... whereas Hitler wanted to keep Russia out of the War, but invade when they were not expecting it (Hitler had been told that a two front war was unwinnable for Geramny, but got lucky because he caught Stalin so off guard that he is suppose to have had a mental break down and none of his generals would question his orders.... was only when he got his act together that Russia was able to change the war).

So as far as the Western Allies were concerned, Stalin was a valuable ally to have on their side.... only problem was he wanted a large slice of the pie once the war was won, which nobody would question.

Americans wanted in and out as fast as possible, and Britain was bankrupt as a result of the war, so was a case of letting Stalin get what he wants, and hope that is enough to satisfy him as a war in Europe against the Soviet Union (especially now it controlled half of Europe) was something nobody wanted.

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Technically it was Germany, during the earlier stages of the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe sought to cripple Britain's war industry by focusing bombardment on industrial centres through night bombing. One of the first targets was the very large and densely industrialised east-end of London, bombing accuracy being what it was then coupled with doing it at night meant that the Germans did hit some of the east end factories but they also hit many civilian targets in the Capital as well resulting in high casualties. The British retaliation on Berlin then caused the Germans to become deliberately indiscriminate in their bombing from then onwards

If some people want to effectively see it as unintentional indescriminate bombing begets deliberately indescriminate bombing, its a moot point as the outcomes are still the same. When you bomb a country's civilians no matter what the specific nature of your intentions, you're going to incur retribution

As far as the OP's comments on the Soviet Union; by July 1945 the Soviet Union had the largest army in the world focused entirely in continental Europe. The Soviet position was so strong that they could dictate peace terms in the land they controlled. Had the allies continued the war against the Soviet Union its difficult to tell how many more years it might have rumbled on for and who may have won, no-one wanted that after a brutal 5 year conflict. Accepting the situation in eastern europe seemed the easiest option in the chaotic immediate post-war period.

The way I heard it Germany bombed a city first "by accident" then British retaliated. The germans thought they could force Britain into peace by bombing cities so started bombing major cities instead of airfield, ironically this heloed Britain stay in the fight with little bombing on vital airfields.

As for not declaring war on USSR, the US had no plans whatsoever of joining the wa, france and Britain wasn't even ready for a fight with germany never mind combined Germany and USSR. A better question would be why declare war on Germany over Poland, I don't see why Poland is France or Britain's problem.