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A LONG TIME IN THE PLANNING
“… the Dresden Massacre was not one of those terrible things which are brought about by an unfortunate combination of circumstances. It was the final outcome of a policy deliberately chosen three years before when the Lindemann Plan was adopted: a great number of working-class homes were indeed destroyed in this mass air raid in accordance with the plan. The origin of the Dresden Massacre can, however, be traced back for another two decades when what was regarded as a novel conception of warfare was put forward by the chiefs of the newly established Air Force, relatively youthful men who were intoxicated by the military possibilities of the heaver-than-air flying machine, an invention dating only from the experiments of the Wright brothers at the beginning of the century. This novel conception of warfare… was well expressed by Air Marshal Sir Hugh Trenchard in 1923 when he wrote: ‘The Army policy is to defeat the enemy army: our policy is to defeat the enemy nation.’
“The Dresden Massacre was the result of the gradual conversion by the Air Force chiefs of the politicians to this primitive conception of warfare. During the period between the world wars little progress had been made, but immediately war broke out in September 1939 the Air Staff began to clamour for leave to carry their ideas of warfare into practice. When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in May, 1940, they obtained his permission to adopt a definition of military objectives so wide as to render the term in practice meaningless: their final triumph came two years later with the adoption of the Lindemann Plan which initiated terrorism as a means to victory…
“Although one of his first acts when he took office was to give way to the frantic entreaties of the Air Staff for a free hand, there is some evidence that Churchill gave way with some reluctance, and thereafter was never free from twinges of conscience This is not really surprising. Churchill had started his career in the Victorian Epoch as a professional soldier, and never lost the traditional outlook of the professional soldier of his youth. He had an unrivalled knowledge of every campaign fought in the civil wars of Europe during the previous two and a half centuries, all of which had been fought in accordance with the Rules of Civilized Warfare. Regarding history from an early age as a drama in which it was his ambition to play a leading role, he was deeply concerned with what view future historians would take of him, unlike so many of his colleagues who were indifferent to the judgment of posterity so long as they successfully performed the task which at the moment they had in hand…
“The Australian diplomat Lord Casey, who was sent to Washington in December, 1940, to sabotage in advance any attempt it was feared Lloyd George might make to induce President Roosevelt to support a negotiated peace, in his memoirs entitled Personal Experiences (Constable, London, 1962) records the following entry in his diary for the 27th June, 1943, on which day he visited Chequers where a film of the bombing campaign was shown for the entertainment of the Prime Minister and his guests: ‘In the course of the film showing the bombing of German towns from the air, very well and dramatically done, W. C. suddenly sat bolt upright and said to me: ‘Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?’
Of the innumerable anecdotes told of Sir Winston Churchill, this is likely to become the most frequently quoted by his admirers. There is no reason to question its authenticity since its narrator, Lord Casey, was clearly surprised that ‘a very well and dramatically done’ film should disturb the Prime Minister’s equanimity. It is consistent also with the minute dated the 28th March 1945, which Sir Winston Churchill sent to the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Charles Portal, six weeks after the mass raid on Dresden: ‘It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing. I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforth be more strictly studied in our own interests rather than that of the enemy. I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives, such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive.'”
Naturally, Air Marshal Portal, one of the foremost champions of the bombing policy which had been carried out for the previous three years with the Government’s entire approval, expostulated at the frank wording of this minute. The Prime Minister withdrew it and substituted one tactfully worded, but nevertheless referring to ‘the question of so-called ‘area bombing’ of German cities.’ In fact, as Sir Charles Webster and Dr. Noble Frankland say in their official history of the Air Offensive, immediately after victory became certain, ‘The Prime Minister and others in authority seemed to turn away from the subject as though it were distasteful to them and as though they had forgotten their own recent efforts to initiate and maintain the offensive.’…
“Since the publication in 1961 of the official history of terror bombing, The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany, 1939-45, it has become clear that adoption was also supported by the Foreign Secretary, Sir Anthony Eden. On the 15th April, 1942, only a month after its adoption, Sir Anthony wrote to the Air Minister, Sir Archibald Sinclair, expressing the view that ‘the psychological effects of bombing have little connection with the military and economic importance of the target.’ He went on to suggest that the psychological effects of attacking a medium-sized town were greater than those of attacking, with equal force, a larger town, and added: ‘I wish to recommend therefore that in the selection of targets in Germany, the claims of smaller towns of under 50,000 inhabitants which are not too heavily defended, should be considered, even though those towns contain only targets of secondary importance.’
“’There is no reason to suppose,’ comment the joint authors of this authoritative work, ‘that Sir Archibald Sinclair found these views morally repugnant.’ Quite the contrary in fact! They proceed to quote a letter written the following month by Sir Archibald declaring that he was ‘in full agreement’ with the views of an unnamed M.P. who had written him emphatically supporting terror bombing and proclaiming that he was ‘all for the bombing of working-class areas in German cities. I am a Cromwellian—I believe in ‘slaying in the name of the Lord’.” (Advance to Barbarism, pp. 130-8)