So, you're reading a book by a man who has drawn parallels between the Einsatzgruppen and British pilots? Good call. Friedrich's claim of 670k is more than double what most other historians have said. Another point is that, despite what the author claims, the targeting of civilians began with Germany, even Goering admitted to the systemic targeting of UK civilians.
And, for the record, you might want to directly respond to the person instead of your own post. It gives you a better chance of getting a response.
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Once upon a time, we had a love affair with fire.
http://athinkersblog.com/
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wagross
11 years ago
The British Airforce started the targeting of civilians. First the British bombed Moenchengladbach (North-Rhine) at night on 12th May 1940. Then many other German towns followed during the months before the 'Battle of Britain'. Because the British hadn't yet the heavy bombers they used in great numbers (attacks with 1000 bombers) from 1942 onwards, the human and material losses remained rather limited in 1940.
The British called their conception 'Moral Bombing' because they wanted to subvert the moral of the working class population by killing as many civilians as possible living in the industrial towns. Already in the 1920's the British Airforce in principle developed the conception of area bombing against civilian populations. In the 1930's the necessary heavy bombers were constructed but building them only started after the beginning of WW 2 because of the high costs.
The British 'target figure' for killing civilians was 1 million+. The number of German civilian deaths of the bomb war probably is slightly lower than that figure. But we don't know for sure because the German historians always try to get the lowest figure - but only for German war casualties.
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