BOMBER COMMAND | GERMAN DEFENCES
THE ALLIED AIR ATTACKS THAT CRIPPLED THE NAZI’S WAR MACHINE RESULTED IN DAMAGE TO RESIDENTIAL AREAS OF GERMAN CITIES. LISA MARIE WALDMANN OUTLINES HOW THE GERMAN AIR RAID PROTECTION SERVICES OPERATED ON THE GROUND DURING WORLD WAR TWO.
It’s a very sad fact that during the Second World War between 410,000 and 600,000 German civilians were killed by Allied air raids. By October 1943, 250,000 Hanoverians had lost their homes, while Berlin at that time counted around 400,000 homeless people with the number rising to a staggering 1.5 million by March 1944. Germans fought their own personal war of survival under the banner of the Reichsluftschutzbund, the National Air Raid Protection League.
So how did the civilian population defend itself against the bombing? When the First World War broke out in 1914 it had only been a decade since the Wright brothers had conducted the first powered, controlled flight. The conflict resulted in accelerated technological advances in aeronautical engineering – aircraft suddenly became potent weapons of war. In 1917 German four-engined bombers caused terror and carnage by dropping munitions on London and Paris – civilian areas had suddenly bec…
