Talk:Bombing of Braunschweig (October 1944)

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Verifiability and Citations[edit]

This article needs Wikipedia:Verifiability: Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

It is not that there is not a reference section in the article, it is just that most of the facts and figures in the articles have no citations. Please see Bombing of Pforzheim in World War II and Bombing of Dresden in World War II for articles which employ citations for all facts and figures.

For example at the moment the only way to check that "Braunschweig, that in October 1944 had about 150,000 inhabitant" is to read all the references until that fact is found. It needs to have a footnote stating where that fact can be found to give the article user friendly ease of use and verifiability. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:38, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I find a problem with an article, I usually set it right myself rather than complain about it. Why don't you insert the footnotes if you think they're needed? Kelisi 03:09, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please read WP:V. I have put in a citation for those parts where I modified the text [1]. The literature given at the bottom is in German and is not on line. If I rewrite the article it will only use the sources I can find in which case the article will be gutted and I do not want to do that, much better to work in cooperation as was done on the Bombing of Pforzheim in World War II article. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:41, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A certain amount of trust is in order, Phil. The article is a direct translation of the linked German article, which I did myself. I had to trust that the German writer's sources were reliable, and you have to trust that my translation was accurate. I think you're aiming for perfection. You'll never reach it.
The fact that you cannot read those sources because they are not online is neither here nor there. I don't think WP:V says anything about sources having to be online. I think we're supposed to get up from our computers and go to a library or wherever we need to go to see these works if their contents are important to us.
Furthermore, the fact that they are in a language that you don't understand is also neither here nor there. Knowledge is knowledge, even if it's written in German. You can find someone to translate. Kelisi 18:47, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Bombing of Pforzheim in World War II, many of the sources are in German and not on line. I do not have a problem with that, but the sources are not only referenced, they are also cited. It is not a matter if I trust you or not, it is a matter of how credible and reliable the article is for someone who wants to use it as a source. The Pforzheim article is in my opinion more usable than this one. As an example:

From the Pforzheim article:

In an area about 3 kilometers long and 1.5 kilometers wide, all buildings were reduced to rubble. 17,600 citizens were officially counted as dead and thousands were injured. ... (Citation: Pforzheim - 23 February 1945 by Christian Groh. In German. http://babelfish.altavista.com translates the web page from German into a form of English which can be used to verify facts.) [see References] 83% RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary February 1945, The German army report is taken from [see References] Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 23, 2005, under headline "Sofortmeldung nach dem Angriff". Its original in German reads: "In den fruehen Abendstunden richtete sich ein schwerer britischer Angriff gegen Pforzheim". Translation by user:Hild.)

From this article:

When the Second World War began, Braunschweig had 202,284 inhabitants. By the war's end, this figure had fallen by 26.03% to 149,641. From the effects of war (mainly air raids but also their aftermath, such as having to dispose of or otherwise make safe the duds that the Allies dropped) about 2,905 people died, 1,286 of whom, or 44.3%, were foreigners. (Citation none (could be in any of the litrature given)

As you are clearly fluent in German perhpase you would like to ask the contributers to the German page to cite their sources in the German article, and then you can copy them into this article. That would be a way for both articles to be improved. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:15, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am the author of the German article on the raid. I will try to provide the requested information as soon as possible, however, I am quite busy right now, so it may take some time to unearth the right book, i.e. page etc.--Brunswyk 06:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personal opinion?[edit]

How is the publication of perished persons' names and a memorial service ("memorial act") an instrumental opportunity for total war?

Even on the night of the attack, the National Socialists seized the opportunity to make the victims an instrument in their quest for total war, for already by the next day, 16 October, with Braunschweig still burning, the local Nazi propaganda newspaper, the Braunschweiger Tageszeitung, came out with the headline "Die teuflische Fratze des Gegners. Schwerer Terrorangriff auf Braunschweig – Volksgemeinschaft in der Bewährung" ("The foe's devilish antics. Heavy terror attack on Braunschweig – Population put to the test"), and Südhannover-Braunschweig Gauleiter Hartmann Lauterbacher's (1909-1988) pithy words of perseverance to "the Braunschweigers". On 19 October, the number of "fallen" was given as 405, and on 20 October appeared a full-page death notice with 344 names. On 22 October, one week after the disastrous attack, there was a "memorial act" for the victims, both at the State Cathedral ("Staatsdom") – as the Nazis called Braunschweig's cathedral – and at the Schlossplatz, the square in front of Braunschweig Palace.

Ksenon 17:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article tone[edit]

Having read the article, I feel that it's rather subjective, being anti-bombing and attempting to invoke guilt or lay blame on the part of the attackers. For example, the firestorm is written of as "no accident, but a deliberate, scientifically planned development".

I'm not quite sure what else the author expects...if you're going to send over hundreds of bombers, dropping thousands of tons of bombs, you are in the first place trying to cause terrible destruction. What exactly is therefore so much worse about deliberately trying to maximize the damage you're attempting to cause? for the implicit alternative is ridiculous; that one drops all these bombs but tries to cause the least harm possible!

In total war, the "civilian" population is engaged in war work - producing weapons. If there is a rationale which says that only the soliders bearing those weapons should be attacked, while those producing the weapons should not, I have not heard its justification.

To quote Churchill from his memoirs, "if we used a bludgeon, it was for wont of a rapier".

The only way to fight a war is to strike as hard as possible, as often as possible, to lead to the shortest possible conflict. The alternative, to draw ones blows, only lengthens the war and increases the risk of failure; and this failure here would be against a regieme in the very process of genocide.

Toby Douglass 10:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"The only way to fight a war is to strike as hard as possible, as often as possible, to lead to the shortest possible conflict." --> Exactly that is the nature of war - being brutal, being cruel, causing pain. What would be more applicable to break the enemy's resistance than killing civilians? It's an old and well proven tactics. Murder is murder, if you are at war or not. Time to accept that.

SYSTEMATICAL ATTACK ON CIVILIANS[edit]

This britsh area bombing directive nr. 42 lead to a systimatical attacking of the geman civil populatiuon. the british attacks were concentrated on workingclass quarters and midivael citycenters. The goal was pure terror against civilians. The amount of civilian loses were enormous. In Hamburg (55.000 dead, in Dresden betwenn 25.000 and 35.000 dead, in Pforzheim 20.277 dead ,31,4 % of all inhabitants, in Darmstadt 12.500 dead, 66.000 homeless out of former 110.000 inhabitants, Kassel 10.000 dead, Heilbronn 6500 dead, Würzburg 8500 dead etc. Churcill, Harris, Lindmann and many other bristish politicians and military personell was not sentenced for his warcrimes after the war.--Kastorius 16:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Germans could have evacuated their cities, then the RAF couldn't have hurt the civilian population. The Germans didn't do this. It wasn't illegal to kill civilians, only defencless civilians, and the Luftwaffe also did this on a number of notable occasions. So did the Japanese. Hermann Göring wasn't charged at Nuremberg for his bombing campaign either. The German people had the Luftwaffe to protect them, and so they weren't classed as defenceless, whereas the British weren't rounding-up and gassing millions of unarmed jews, gipsies, and the like.
The fact may be unpalatable, but in a democracy you get the government you vote for, and Germany's suffering was a direct result of allowing a mass-murderer like Hitler into power. The RAF bombing of Germany was one of the consequences of this, and did at least have the effect of teaching the German people the desirability of being more careful who they gave power-to next time. Hitler was the German people's responsibility and until he invaded Poland it was up to them to get rid of him. They didn't do this, so it was left to the British and the rest of the world to do this for them. Writing as a Briton who was never able to know certain of his relatives because they were killed during the war before I was born, I think that it's a pity the German people didn't do in 1939 what von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators tried in 1944, and gotten rid of the evil bastard along with the rest of his poisonous regime - it would have saved countless millions untold suffering and misery. And that includes millions of Germans as well.
The time when a country's people could vote into power a government without having to take into account the overseas actions of that government ended in 1939-45. From then on, they had to bear in mind that they might end up paying for their support by having their homes reduced to rubble, and themselves being reduced to living in the streets. From September 3rd 1939 that became a fact of life - get over it.

Numbers of aircraft used[edit]

The destruction was so widespread and thorough that ordinary people and the experts alike, even years after the war, were convinced that the attack had come from one of the dread "thousand-bomber attacks", such as the one that had laid Cologne waste. The extent of the damage could seemingly not otherwise be explained. Only after the British opened their military archives did it become plain that it had been "only" 233 bombers.

There's an explanation for the use of "only" 233 bombers here: [2]
"As accuracy of bombing and marking improved, and bomb loads of all Main-Force aircraft reached the order of five tons or more, it was found that two hundred aircraft could do the damage previously expected of five hundred, and only the very largest enemy cities required the attention of our total strength" - Wing Commander Maurice A. Smith, DFC.
BTW, Smith later went on to become editor of the linked magazine Flight, edit the magazine The Autocar, and found the magazine Aeroplane Monthly. He had been the Master Bomber in the raid on Dresden in February 1945. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.68.219 (talk) 18:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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