Talk:Bombing of Cologne in World War II

Time line of Cologne air raids during World War II
The way I worked out the months that Cologne was bombed was to use google [Cologne site:www.raf.mod.uk] and only list those pages in the bombing diary eg http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/jun43.html

More work needs to be done to list the days and the number of bombers because the RAF would often send the odd Mosquito to fly around a city as a diversion and to give the Germans in the city a uncomfortable night eg 11/12 June 1943 "3 Mosquitos to Duisburg and 2 to Cologne". (main raid Dusseldorf: 783 aircraft). But some of the raids were big eg http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/july43.html "3/4 July 1943 653 aircraft - 293 Lancasters, 182 Halifaxes, 89 Wellingtons, 76 Stirlings, 13 Mosquitos returned to Cologne." -- Philip Baird Shearer 08:19, 10 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Looking at the Operations Record Book (ORB) of 149 Squadron based at Mildenahall from december 1940, 9 Wellington bombers undertook a raid on Cologne on 26 February 1941. It was an earlier operational attack in Germany codenamed "Trout" with several sticks successfully dropped on their targets. 2001:8003:4B16:BE00:7D39:EB27:E840:7B4F (talk) 05:56, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion I'm no WWII buff, but is it possible to expand out this section with RAF/USAF info including which air-groups, number of planes, planes/personel lost, etc? Granted the information may be 60+ years old. Marcsin 21:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The Mosquito 'nuisance' raids had the intended effect of confusing the German air defences via the Kammhuber Line so that a few Mosquitoes dropping Window would appear on German air defence radars as large attacks by very many bombers, resulting in the entire German air defences in the region being alerted and activated, with night fighters being sent up, for, in effect, nothing. This led to the Germans wasting many hours, with resulting tiring of night fighter crews and possibility of flying accidents, and much aviation fuel being wasted, as well as the disrupting of the citizen's sleep for much of the night.


 * So they were considerably more of a 'nuisance' than the term might otherwise imply. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.130.17 (talk) 11:42, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

War crime or crime against humanity
As is happening on all related articles, P B Shearer is deleting all notion of the fact that many see area bombardment that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians as a war crime or crime against humanity. As Churchill himself noted it was used in order to spread terror. The Nuremberg Trial definition of crimes against humanity included murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population but no judgment on the case of area bombardment has never been made. As was already noted at the Dresden bombing article, google finds thousands of pages with "crime against humanity" and Dresden. ,  Sorry if there are Nazi pages among them, but even if they are Nazi pages, they still exist. Get-back-world-respect 23:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Forget that! WP is Uncle Sam's most delightful propaganda leaflet. The majority of contributors here is anglo-american, and their fatherland is holy, it nerver commits war crimes. I've been having these issues myself around WP for WW2 articles. Another example: in a very comprehensive article, why not mentioning the civilizan casualties? It says "3,330 non-residential buildings were destroyed, 2,090 seriously damaged and 7,420 lightly damaged, making a total of 12,840 buildings of which 2,560 were industrial or commercial buildings. Among the buildings classed as totally destroyed were: 7 official administration buildings, 14 public buildings, 7 banks, 9 hospitals, 17 churches, 16 schools, 4 university buildings, 10 postal and railway buildings, 10 buildings of historic interest, 2 newspaper offices, 4 hotels, 2 cinemas and 6 department stores. The only military installation damaged was the flak barracks. The damage to civilian homes, most of them apartments in larger buildings, was considerable: 13,010 destroyed, 6,360 seriously damaged, 22,270 lightly damaged". And civilians? The Brits and Americans do not perform war crimes, everyone knows that. The big majority of WP articles about WW2 have huge problems with POV. João Pimentel Ferreira (talk) 19:23, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Get-back-world-respect we have debated this many times. over a very long period. I see no point in running over old arguments. There are literally pages and pages of our debate in the archives of Arthur Harris and the Bombing of Dresden. Your argument that there has never been a trial is not relevant, and does not make the statment true. I could just as easily write that the last Pope murder but that there have never been a trial about this question. --Philip Baird Shearer 01:13, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


 * You are right, we had the "debate", and all I ever saw from your side was reverts, you do not even try to see the point. There are people who say that the bombings were a war crime, and if you like it or not, it needs to be noted. Get-back-world-respect 03:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

The claim that "It has been suggested that the bombing of civilian targets in this way constitutes a war crime or crime against humanity." is a blatant POV and out of place in this article. It could just as easily be rewritten as "It has been suggested that the bombing of civilian targets in this way does not constitutes a war crime or crime against humanity a position held by all belligerents at the time." There are other better articles where this is discussed (like Terror bombing. Further the statment uses weasel words if it is to be reinstated at the very least it should have a valid cited source(s). --Philip Baird Shearer 10:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this isn't a POV, but a well-authenticated fact needing no specific reference. It is important to include this in the milestone 1,000-bomber raid, and to do so in a neutral, unopinionated way, which did at least damp down the flaming between PBS and GBWR. John Wheater 21:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Presumably however it wasn't a 'war crime' or 'crime against humanity' when the Germans were bombing London and the rest of the UK back in 1940-41 during The Blitz.


 * Until Malta took over the title in 1942, London was the most heavily-bombed place on Earth. And it was Germany doing the bombing in both instances.


 * Strange you never hear a peep out of the critics when this is mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.130.17 (talk) 11:14, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

A link to consider
Might someone consider adding this link, which is a translation of the Nazi pamphlet on the bombing of Cologne:

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/cologne.htm

It's my site, so I won't do it myself. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bytwerk (talk • contribs) 02:53, 12 March 2007 (UTC).


 * OK - I've added it - interesting contemporary point of view. Ian Dunster 19:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Cologne 1945 5.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Operation Millennium
Should Operation Millennium have its own article rather than redirecting here? Other towns besides Cologne were attacked as part of the plan. Drutt (talk) 19:45, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Losses?
The numbers don't quite add up.2.31.103.125 (talk) 20:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

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It was expected (by whom?)
The line "It was expected[by whom?] that the devastation from such raids might be enough to knock Germany out of the war or at least severely damage German morale."

There was a huge debate as to whether this was feasible. To answer the query by whom, Harris, Portal,and Justice Singleton to name just three.

The following quote is from the Wikipedia page entitled "dehousing", and agrees with what I know on the subject. It also contains links to verification sources

Mr. Justice Singleton, a High Court Judge was asked by the Cabinet to look into the competing points of view. In his report, delivered on 20 May 1942 he concluded that:

If Russia can hold Germany on land I doubt whether Germany will stand 12 or 18 months’ continuous, intensified and increased bombing, affecting, as it must, her war production, her power of resistance, her industries and her will to resist (by which I mean morale).[14][15][16]

Can I suggest you remove the "by whom" and just use the same referencesPatrickblue (talk) 01:34, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Done (though a better reference might be found - I couldn't find a copy of the Singleton report online). Batternut (talk) 11:32, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

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US attacks
The article appears to be wrong to claim that all Cologne raids were by the RAF. The US Eighth Air Force carried out two attacks on Ford-Werke, the enormous Ford plant a couple of miles outside the city centre, in October 1944. The first was by a single combat wing of about 130 B-17s, the second by two combat wings of about 100 B-17s each. In all the bombers delivered over 600 tons, half HE, half incendiary. None of it hit Ford or even came close (the nearest reported strikes were about a mile and a half to the northwest), because the first attack met with 3/10 to 10/10 cloud cover and the second met with 6/10 to 10/10. The USAAF did not lay on any further raids because they had received intelligence that Ford-Werke was working at greatly reduced capacity and was no longer of very much importance. (This would be due to the effect of RAF area bombing on the city's infrastructure, and RAF and USAAF bombing of other cities on which Ford-Werke depended for supplies, and on the transport links between cities.)

https://jasonweixelbaum.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/debunking-conspiracy-ford-werke-and-the-allied-bombing-campaign-of-cologne/

Khamba Tendal (talk) 20:17, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

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Success or failure?
How did the UK Government evaluate the operation? Valetude (talk) 00:09, 13 March 2020 (UTC)