Destroying Hitler's Berghof
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Destroying Hitler’s Berghof The Bomber Command Raid of 25 April 1945 Oliver Haller Introduction A large force of Avro Lancaster Abstract: This paper examines the heavy bombers and DeHavilland dolf Hitler celebrated his final Royal Air Force raid on Adolf Hitler’s Mosquito light bombers left England Berghof on the Obersalzberg in to attack Hitler’s mountain retreat in Abirthday in a concrete crypt April 1945. Arthur Harris, the head at the end of April 1945. The reach of Bomber Command, wanted to Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden. of enemy firepower had forced emphasize air power’s decisive His Berghof represented one of the him underground to escape an role in the defeat of Nazism. most evocative symbols of Nazism approaching firestorm that had been However, Winston Churchill and and of the international community’s Bernard Montgomery, among fuelled by years of hatred, suffering others, questioned the usefulness failure to grasp opportunities to stop and death. Soviet artillery was well of destroying Berchtesgaden so Hitler prior to German rearmament. within range of the city and the shells late in the war. Unlike traditional Journalists revelled in the payback of over 40,000 guns began further explanations that focus on post- – even if belated – of the Berghof’s reducing a heavily bombed city to Dresden guilt, this article destruction. Unfortunately for contends that British politicians ashes. Some of those who remained at grew increasingly concerned with Bomber Command’s image, even the dictator’s side already referred to the economic state of postwar though headlines such as “Hitler’s the bunker beside the chancellery as Germany and the potential costs Chalet Wrecked” triumphantly the “mortuary” or as a “show house of the upcoming occupation. The celebrated a kind of victory, the RAF’s of living corpses.”1 On 25 April 1945, continuation of area bombing at this efforts that day have subsequently late stage of the war reinforced the Soviet armour and infantry pushed fears and consequences of “overkill.” been portrayed by historians in an through the few remaining German Harris’s disconnect with postwar anticlimactic manner if at all.4 defensive lines and encircled Berlin. civil-military concerns negatively It was simply “intolerable” to Other historic events on that influenced the postwar image of Bomber Command, Max Hastings day underscored the totality of Nazi Bomber Command. writes in a couple of sentences defeat. An American lieutenant from devoted to the raid, to “sit out the the 69th Infantry Division met with a world,” Harry S. Truman remarked, last weeks of the war in idleness.”5 small group of Soviet soldiers near the “than continued cooperation of the Considering the British devotion to German town of Torgau on the banks nations which had to muster the force “rubble bouncing” at the end of the of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony. necessary to defeat the conspiracy war, the decision to bomb Hitler’s Hitler’s rapidly shrinking empire of the Axis powers to dominate the retreat must certainly have been had been cut in two. Journalists world.”3 A new world was already motivated by more than boredom. understood the implications and taking shape as the curtain fell on At the time, journalists offered three rushed proclamations of “victory” Nazism. A few days later, Hitler’s basic reasons. First, the bombing was into print.2 On the same day that gasoline-soaked corpse burned in a simply “business as usual” in that the Soviet and American troops shook ditch. operation continued the systematic hands at Torgau, the delegates of 50 A fourth major event on 25 destruction of industrial, military countries met in San Francisco to form April has largely gone unnoticed and government facilities. Journalists the United Nations. “Nothing is more by historians and is consequently reported that this raid had the special essential to the future peace of the rarely acknowledged today. and laudable objective of decapitating © Canadian Military History, Volume 20, Number 1, Winter 2011, pp.5-20. 5 the Nazi state by physically removing of industrial cities could no longer industry to the House of Commons.9 Hitler. A third explanation added influence the war’s outcome. He Most politicians, including Roosevelt that Bomber Command wanted requested an end to the strategic air and Stalin, understood that the to prevent the construction of an war on 1 April. At “this advanced destruction of industrial assets “Alpine Redoubt” for a last stand by stage of the war,” he admitted in a later needed for reconstruction or at least German forces with the defensive note to Winston Churchill, “no great as part of a reparations settlement advantages of mountainous terrain. or immediate additional advantage made no economic or humanitarian Journalists as well as a large number can be expected from the attack of sense at all. of Allied military officers were the remaining industrial centres Churchill grew increasingly gripped by nearly “hysterical fears of Germany.”7 Portal nevertheless hostile to a bombing strategy that of a never-ending partisan war on listed a number of cases where the called his postwar policy into German soil.”6 bombers might still be used. These question. After the destruction of In revisiting the events of the exceptions included strikes against Dresden in mid-February, he sent raid, the present article evaluates “communications systems” and a minute (later revised to remove these three explanations and suggests preventing the formation of centres the word “terror”) to the Chiefs of a fourth: by striking directly at of resistance and in particular a Staff urging a review of the bombing PL 144277 Joint Imagery Centre (CFJIC) Canadian Forces the hated Nazi leader, Bomber “redoubt in Southern Germany.” The offensive: Command was endeavouring to continued determination to use bombs change its image as a blunt weapon to encourage German surrender, one It seems to me that the moment has of terror. It is clear that Air Chief of the primary goals established at the come when the question of bombing Marshal Arthur Harris, commander- Casablanca Conference of 1943, did of German cities simply for the sake in-chief of Bomber Command, feared not signify a stop to the destruction of increasing the terror, though under that politicians such as Winston of urban infrastructure or the killing other pretexts, should be reviewed. Churchill had misinterpreted the of civilians. Otherwise we shall come into control destruction of cities such as Dresden Government officials reacted to of an utterly ruined land. We shall or Pforzheim as excessive force the inevitability of victory and the not, for instance be able to get bordering on barbarism. Churchill’s continuation of Anglo-American housing materials out of Germany attempt at distancing himself from bombing efforts in a different for our own needs because some the bombing campaign is a familiar manner and from a far different temporary provision would have to theme in analyses of this period. It is perspective. Ever since the expulsion be made for the Germans themselves. the intention here to point out that of German military forces from The destruction of Dresden remains the destruction of Hitler’s Berghof, Normandy at the end of August a serious query against the conduct as described by press accounts based 1944, various political agencies had of the Allied bombing. I am of the on information provided by the expended considerable energy on opinion that military objectives military, tried to remind everyone establishing a framework for the must henceforward be more strictly that the defeat of Nazism had been postwar reconstruction of Europe studied in our own interests rather the overriding aim of the war over that included the administration of than that of the enemy.10 Germany. Unfortunately for Harris, a conquered Germany. Churchill a single raid could not possibly agreed with the general Foreign Office Bomber Command reacted in a change hardening opinions that view that Europe would benefit from myopic manner characteristic of his lack of political acumen had a balanced policy that recognized an institution blinded by undue cultivated. Decades of acrimonious the “importance of the contribution concentration on operational goals at debate concerning the effectiveness which German industry could make the expense of larger perspectives. “I and morality of strategic bombing to the rehabilitation of Europe and do not personally regard the whole followed. to world prosperity.”8 At Yalta in of the remaining cities of Germany,” February 1945, Churchill battled Harris responded, “as worth the against the more punitive demands bones of one British grenadier.”11 Strategic Bombing in 1945 of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph German cities did, however, matter Stalin in order to safeguard German in the kind of stable postwar world he Combined Bomber Offensive industry and thereby reduce the costs Anglo-American politicians wanted Twas effectively over at the start of of occupation on British taxpayers. to create. It is therefore surprising April 1945. The chief of the air staff, At the end of the month, Churchill that some historians share Bomber Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, summarized these discussions and Command’s perspective and understood that the area bombing openly declared his stance on German attribute Churchill’s shift to legacy 6 Canadian Forces Joint Imagery Centre (CFJIC) PL 144277 Joint Imagery Centre (CFJIC) Canadian Forces The Combined Bomber Offensive was effectively over at the beginning of April, but RAF Bomber Command continued to strike targets in Germany. Here, a Bomber Command Avro Lancaster conducts a daylight raid on Germany in 1945. issues to shock or even felicitous the actual or imminent overrunning bombing directive in mid-April pandering to increasingly hostile of the enemy’s few remaining centres repeated the demand that the heavy public opinion.12 Churchill’s focus of industrial production weighed on bombers support the ground forces during the month of February their minds.