Customer Reviews

Bombing of Germany

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have to agree with the positive reviews of this film.

This is one of the few films which accurately portray both sides of the WWII conflict, and unrestrained saturation bombing, in relation to its moral issues. This film also contains a fair amount of unseen footage of the decimation allied bombing caused in the heart of Germany during the conclusion of the war.

The film presents the issues, from all sides of the conflict, fairly balancing the horrors of bombing as a terror weapon, against the horrifying losses on all sides of the WWII conflict.

It shows the avowed strategies of the British to use bombing, as a terror device, against the Germans, to compel them to overthrow the Third Reich. However, it also points out that The U.S. Eighth Air Force, commanded by Jimmy Doolitle, remained vocifersously opposed to bombing civilian populations. Gen. Doolitle ordered his pilots to avoid civilian targets, whenever possible, to concentrate on reducing Germany's industrial capabilities to wage war.

This is one of the few WWII documentaries which exposes the shocking losses, not only of the allies, but, of the civilian populations in Europe (an estimate 20 million civilians lost their lives in the war). It is also one of the few films to point out that the Russians, in their drive to Berlin, lost over 200,000 troops.

Notwithstanding the violence in our Modern world, it is hard to comprehend the destruction, and tragic loss of life that the WWII conflict imposed on all of us, without viewing the realities depcited in honest and balanced documentaries.

This film explores the ethical and moral considerations with which Doolittle, Eisenhower, and other Allied commanders conducted the air campaign against Germany, balancing the use of air power as a terror weapon against the Germans, against the immense losses the Nazis were inflicting on the Allies and the rest of the world.

This film is non-judgmental, either for, or against, any side in the conflict. It allows the viewere to make their own moral conclusions as to what occurred, and, permits the viewer to judge our leaders for themselves.

I highly recommend this film to any student of WWI and WWII history.

While the overall tone of the critique by i.wiese is hyperbole, the accusation that the film does not show the extent of the horror holds true. The film is to be commended for offering some insight into the moral issues and going beyond the simple technology history demanded by air war veterans in the mid 1990s, but it does not give critics of the bombing enough of a voice - even if that would mean hearing their arguments and then refuting them, if that is the view the film makers want to defend. The film makes a reasonable effort to show how the bombing of civilians started, but it is a bit frustrating in that regard as well, since the discussion and arguments had begun long before the Germans bombed Warsaw.

For the story it wants to tell, the film focuses too much on the fate of allied, especially American, air crews. Yes, they were brave and we should admire their courage and sacrifice. The only member of my family killed in the war was a tailgunner shot down over Germany. They are part of the story. But if the theme is the bombing of Germany, much of the story is in the bomb shelters and cellars and ruins of the burning cities or in a sober, statistical analysis of whether or not or to what extent the bombing "worked." Interviews with historians simply asserting that it worked or making moral statements along the lines of "war is terrible" don't really do it for me.

Right at the very beginning, the film says that by the end of the war, "thousands" of civilians would be dead. Well, it was _hundreds of thousands_. Completely sober, source-based estimates go to 500,000, including tens of thousands of children. The film mentions this only at the end. German counter-measures such as the evacuation of tens of thousands of children from the cities are not included. The attacks on Hamburg and Berlin are shown here as well as can be expected in a short documentary and of course Dresden has its place. But some of the sudden, massive attacks were not mentioned: Cologne, Darmstadt, Pforzheim, etc. - each of which killed over 10,000 people within hours. That is at the _center_ of any historical account of the bombing of Germany.

All of this has led to decades of soul-searching in Britain and America which started during the war (and is, albeit superfically, part of the film), memorialization in Germany, heated discussions in all three countries, and gestures of reconciliation which cannot be covered in a short film. That makes the film frustrating at times, but that is probably in the nature of documentary film making with limited broadcast times and budgets.

I recently read the book Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany by Miller. This book opened my eyes to the challenges faced first by the RAF who had to fight on their own for an extended period of time and use whatever means they had to take the war to Germany without realizing unacceptable losses...for them this meant bombing at night, which of course meant no precision target selection at all. Then the US 8th Airforce arrives and implements a plan to conduct daylight bombing using the new B-17 flying fortress heavy bomber.

This documentary does a good job of showing the trail of decisions that led to the early US bomber strategy of precision bombing, which it turns out, wasn't as precise as we were once led to believe. But, eventually bombing had to become part of a larger scale strategy of victory. This meant diverting bomber resources to supporting ground troops and theater level strategies, which diluted the initial mission of US bombing campaigns. Then, toward the end of the war, Nazi Germany was clearly beaten, yet fought on. At this point US bomber command was assigned the task of breaking German morale, and this meant saturation bombing of German cities. Some historians believe that the US crossed a moral line when this order came down. The effect? The 1000 plane raid on Berlin, the fire-bombing of Dresden, and then, on the other side of the world, the fire bombng of Tokyo...where an estimated 100,000 civilians died.

The WWII era might of the US bomber initiative, from its weak and tenuous beginnings to the end of the war where the US air forces dominated the skies over Europe and struck blows that did, in my opinion cross moral lines, yet, apparently had to be crossed in order to bring the war in Europe to a close.

In my opinion, this documetary does a good job of portraying these moral and ethical dilemmas in the face of war, cost to the USA, and its need to focus its efforts on Japan.

The footage is good. I liked the archival footage that was used in conjunction with the program, though, of course, I'd seen much of this and footage like it in other shows and documentaries.

In my view, this was very good. 4 stars.

I saw this documentary broadcast last night on THE MILITARY CHANNEL. I am in full agreement with both of the previous reviewers. Having both studied and worked in Germany, and privy to both German documentary photographs and German family anecdotal memories of the air war against Germany, I find the citation of statistics, the visual and narrative respresentation of the horror and the general apathetic tone of the film really inexcusable. The completely impersonal and apathetic mentality of both Churchill and Harris was one and the same. Churchill, in both WWI and WWII, viewed both enemy forces and populations and, for that matter, British military personnel (especially from the Dominions) as ciphers. Where is the mention of Churchill's demand, refused by the Admiralty and the Air Lords, that German cities be bombed with poison gas immediately after the first (accidentaly) Luftwaffe bombing of London? At least the connection is made between Bomber Harris and Churchill as he tried to prove himself as ruthless and bloodthirsty as Stalin both in the air war against Germany and in Churchill's suggestion for the Russian partition of Poland. Where is the mention, known to so many German families, of the use of anti-personnel mini-mines, dropped by parachute and attached to dolls, thus targetting children, dropped in quantity especially over Munich? Where are the accounts of the use of phosphorous incendiary bombs in the area-bombing of cities such as Düsseldorf, descriptions of those who threw themselves into the Rhine to put out the horrible fire that continued to burn underwater through their flesh and bones?

And what of the destruction of world heritage sites that could easily have been avoided? Rothenburg ob die Tauber is one of the few such sites to be spared by Alkluied arial bombing or artillery bombardment. The word on the ground is still that the American military governor of Germany saved Rothenburg only because he had a girlfriend there.

Did the German people make the connection between the war of aggression they had enthusiastically or tacitly unleashed on the world and the destruction raining down on them from the British by night and the Americans by day? Long after the fact, perhaps, but at the time NO, they did not! That is a lesson the United states and its constant ally in the bombing of population centers, the British, have still not learned. Drop bombs on anyone and the only connection the people on the ground will make is with the murderers in the air. Yet, we continue to be surprised and confused by a 'liberated' population in Iraq that can't wait to see the back of us. Such bombing did not shorten the Allied war with Germany, and it has interminably lengthened the war 'for' Iraq.

I AM VERY SORRY THAT I CAN NOT MAKE THIS REVIEW MUCH FUN.

THE REASON IS THAT I WAS LOANED A DISC ENTITLED 'THE BOMBING OF GERMANY' AND THE DISC BROKE AS I TOOK IT OUT OF ITS PACKET. THE FRIEND WHO LOANED IT TO ME WAS A BRIGADER IN WW11 AND TREASURES HIS VIDEO COLLECTION. SO I WAS HORRIFIED AND SET ABOUT REPLACING IT ASAP.I WAS SO HAPPY THAT AMAZON COULD LOCATE A COPY FOR ME. HOWEVER ON RECEIPT, I FIND THAT I CAN NOT PLAY IT ON MY TV IN AUSTRALIA BECAUSE WE ARE IN AREA 4 AND THE DISC ONLY PLAYS IN AREA 1. I AM VERY FRUSTRATED AT PRESENT.

REGARDS

JOHN PUNCH