Suspicious Numbers of German Civilians Killed by Allied Bombing

[Realpolitik]

So apparently half a million German civilians were slaughtered by Allied bombing (mainly British and American bombing campaigns).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_...itary_campaign

I personally think these are fraudulent numbers, seeing as how they completely leveled entire cities, then firebombed the remains.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'm hard pressed on finding alternate sources, so I was hoping perhaps some Europeans might have access to better sources on this subject.

[Col. Tartleton]

I don't know. Half a million seems like a reasonable amount.

[hellheaven1987]

Surprisingly, aerial bombings do not kill many civilians despite the destruction it can bring to infrastructure; that was main reason why British military concluded in 1930s that strategical bombings against civilians probably would not work and should be dropped off. The fire bombings of Japan, on the other hand, is a special case, but most victims were actually not dead because bombings but rather because the fire caused by the effect of incendiary bombs US military purposely used.

[Petrucci]

Half million allies get killed by allied bombarding.

[Aikanár]

According to the different studies of Overmans, Sorge and Clodfelter the number of combined civil casualties caused by allied bombing is located between 600.000 and 800.000. Those figures are, according to the methods used, the most accurate around. Due to the chaotic circumstances of bombings an exact figure is next to impossible to produce.

Spoiler for Literature & Articles: 

- Micheal Clodfelter: Warfare and armed conflicts: a statistical reference to casualties and other figures, 1500–2000, McFarland, Jefferson, N.C., 2002 (2nd ed.).

- Martin K. Sorge: The Other Price of Hitler's War: German Military and Civilian Losses Resulting from World War II. Greenwood Publication Group, 1986.

- Rüdiger Overmans: Vom Umgang mit den Zahlen. Zur Bewertung der personellen Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg durch die Wehrmachtführung. In: Ernst Otto Bräunche, Hermann Hiery (Hrsg.): Geschichte als Verantwortung. Festschrift für Hans Fenske zum 60. Geburtstag. Heinz Wolf, Karlsruhe 1996, S. 113–126.

- Rüdiger Overmans: 55 Millionen Opfer des Zweiten Weltkrieges? Zum Stand der Forschung nach mehr als 40 Jahren. In: Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 48. Jg., Nr. 2/1990, S. 103–121.

- Rüdiger Overmans: Die Toten des Zweiten Weltkriegs in Deutschland. Bilanz der Forschung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Wehrmacht- und Vertreibungsverluste. In: Wolfgang Michalka (Hrsg.): Der Zweite Weltkrieg. Analysen, Grundzüge, Forschungsbilanz. Piper, München 1989, S. 858–873.

[motiv-8]

Surprisingly, aerial bombings do not kill many civilians despite the destruction it can bring to infrastructure; that was main reason why British military concluded in 1930s that strategical bombings against civilians probably would not work and should be dropped off. The fire bombings of Japan, on the other hand, is a special case, but most victims were actually not dead because bombings but rather because the fire caused by the effect of incendiary bombs US military purposely used.

Actually it was the bombs combined with the building materials used by the Japanese, plus the peculiar prevailing winds on the night that Tokyo was firebombed.

Anyway, material damage is simply not a good indicator of loss of life. You can look at the recent map done of the London Blitz and see how almost every single block in London was hit by a bomb, but obviously we know that out of London's population of about four million at the time, 1% was killed by German bombing. There are pictures and videos showing whole streets and almost whole neighborhoods in Syrian towns reduced to rubble as a result of the civil war today, but the lives lost is proportionally low compared to total population.

The extent of the damage to German cities as a result of the Strategic Bombing Campaign was horrendous, but they don't really give cause to doubt the numbers of casualties produced.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

I would guess that the London Bunker system was a bit better than in the most german cities. German Realm concentrated the attacks on London and a few other cities, the bombing of th allies had a larger scale and included much more cities. My Grandma was 7 Years old and in Dresden when the allies made their larges bombing. Their family had to hide under one of the bridges because all Bunker were full. Some stuff the allies used, like the firebombs is forbitten these days. These bombs were clearly not for bombing industrial complexes specially when they were long ago safe and outside the cities when these huge attacks took place.

If you take statements from Churchill and other people who were in charge than you can see very clearly that one of the main reasons for the bombings was to break the will to fight. Unfortunatly they achieve the opposite with that, exactly like the Germans with London.

[Sire Brenshar]

Direct casualties were probably much much lower, but indirectly it makes sense since majority of all deaths would have been from starvation, freezing, and disease.

In WW1 German civilian casualties were 400 000, but they didn't have to endure airstrikes or actual urban battles.

[Aikanár]

400.000 is a bit low, nowadays estimations for German civil casualties in WWI differ but are mostly located between 700.000 and 950.000 depending on the used deifnition of civil casualties. source

[Sire Brenshar]

400.000 is a bit low, nowadays estimations for German civil casualties in WWI differ but are mostly located between 700.000 and 950.000 depending on the used deifnition of civil casualties. source

Never heard of this before.

Maybe those higher figures are taking into account non-German nationalities, like Poles, the French.. What other large minorities did Germany have at that time?

[Aikanár]

Nah, they're taking f.e. the "Steckrübenwinter" of 16/17 into account and factoring in dead through famine (English blockade) and illness which would not have happened without the war.

[Sire Brenshar]

Nah, they're taking f.e. the "Steckrübenwinter" of 16/17 into account and factoring in dead through famine (English blockade) and illness which would not have happened without the war.

Alrighty, so I guess that shows that air strikes really weren't the cause of such a huge amount of wartime deaths then.

So probably the numbers the OP sourced are much exaggerated, or about right.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

The OP wrote about WW2. The food situation in Germany itself was not great, but also not bad enough for thousend of hungerdeaths like in WW1. For my self i don't know why it is so important if there were a few more thousends death. The cruel thing is that they were civilians and killed by purpose, not by5 accident and thats the final crime.

[Sire Brenshar]

The OP wrote about WW2. The food situation in Germany itself was not great, but also not bad enough for thousend of hungerdeaths like in WW1.

Why not?

For my self i don't know why it is so important if there were a few more thousends death. The cruel thing is that they were civilians and killed by purpose, not by5 accident and thats the final crime.

Historical accuracy, and because the OP has an agenda to make the allies look evil.

[NRohirrim]

I personally think these are fraudulent numbers, seeing as how they completely leveled entire cities, then firebombed the remains.

Germans had network of many many bunkers, also for civilians.

[KEA]

Why not?

Because Germany did occupy large parts of Europe to the last stages of the war and therefore food not was so much of an issue during the war (it become one after it).

Historical accuracy, and because the OP has an agenda to make the allies look evil.

Firebombing cities with millions of inhabitans on a grand scale is not what usually is considered as "civilized warfare", not even by American or British standards.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Germans had network of many many bunkers, also for civilians.

Yes but in relation to the population in the cities enough for maybe 20-25 % of them. I am from Berlin and we have a kind of a citywide museum about that called "Berliner Unterwelten". http://berliner-unterwelten.de/home.1.1.html

I was in some of this Bunkers and they were really small, nothing in comparison what the British make of their Underground Metro or the Soviets with theirs in Moskau, which is able to ressist atomic attacks in theory (thats because they go so deep).

[Sire Brenshar]

Because Germany did occupy large parts of Europe to the last stages of the war and therefore food not was so much of an issue during the war (it become one after it).

I don't think either of us can provide sources proving one or the other, but I think your line of reasoning is problematic:
-The citizens of occupied territory still need to be fed
-Collapse of markets and the ability to distribute food, on a larger scale
-War damage, again on a much much larger scale
-Resistance of occupied peoples
-Huge number of troops garrisoned far across europe and especially deep in the Soviet Union.

If anything the food supply would have been smaller per capita in the second world war than the first.

Firebombing cities with millions of inhabitans on a grand scale is not what usually is considered as "civilized warfare", not even by American or British standards.

Who's calling it civilized? It was definitely total war.
Doesn't change that the OP has an agenda and is trying to put the allies in a bad light.

If the OP wanted to be academically honest, he would compare the 30000 tons of bombs dropped on Britain with the 40000 dropped on Germany in 1943 to roughly determine the casualty rate cause.

[Sphere]

A bit of a tangent, but the Allied strategic bombing offensive in Europe's only real success was the intense men and material losses it caused to the Luftwaffe.

While dramatic, the area bombing of cities wasn't terribly successful at hampering the Axis war machine which was able to increase rates of production throughout the war. Nor did it "break the will to fight" of the German people. Even less successful was the tactical use of horizontal bombers on the battlefield. Really the Allies resorted to "area bombing" because they couldn't accurately hit much of anything smaller than a city from the high altitudes at which the big 4 engine bombers needed to fly at to survive.

What it did do, however, was draw a large number of Axis planes men and other equipment back to the west where the US and British proceeded to grind them up in an aerial war of attrition. The loss of experienced German pilots was particularly heavy. Also, bomber escorts and fighter bombers ranging over the countryside had a noticeable effect the logistical infrastructure.

But in the end the destruction of Axis urban centers did little to advance the war effort.

[motiv-8]

Firebombing cities with millions of inhabitans on a grand scale is not what usually is considered as "civilized warfare", not even by American or British standards.

.... Which is why it was not a strategy conceived or pursued until the Axis powers did it first, demonstrating that the bets were off. The Allies were steadfast as a whole in their refusal to use chemical weapons, but you can bet your ass they would have been merciless in their use IF and only if the Germans had done it first. And I hadn't even thought it'd be necessary to point out that the whole reason The Manhattan Project was started was because the Allies were afraid the Germans were on track to developing an atomic bomb and wanted to beat them to it.

The Axis powers set the standard of destruction and brutality in the war, both in Europe and in the Pacific. The Allies, especially Russia, simply obliged them and managed to do it better.