List of strategic bombing over Germany in World War II

A list of strategic bombing over Germany in World War II includes cities and towns in Germany attacked by RAF Bomber Command and the Eighth Air Force. This list is not complete.

History

Defence of Germany

German defensive strategy of their country, and neighbouring occupied countries, against strategic bombing was conducted by the Defence of the Reich.

In February 1944, the RAF and USAAF air raids of Big Week notably limited the offensive capability of the Luftwaffe, from which it would never recover. On the first day of Big Week, 127 German fighters were shot down for the loss of one P-51 Mustang fighter.^{[citation needed]} 434 German fighter pilots were killed in February 1944, which was 17% of the total, and many were the more-experienced fighter pilots.

The German air defence had advanced radar and was often impenetrable, or only penetrable at great cost; only aircraft such as the de Havilland Mosquito could completely outwit the German defences; the Mosquito was almost impossible to shoot down, being able to outrun most German fighter aircraft too, and it carried no discernible defensive armament. Around fifteen German cities were firebombed, in which destruction of the cities was almost total; the temperatures created in the firestorm were huge. Many north-western German cities were bombed in late 1943 in the Battle of the Ruhr.

Destruction

Approximately 410,000 German civilians were killed in the strategic bombing.^[1] Within the 1937 borders of Germany, industrial capacity was greater at the end of the war than at the beginning. British and American raids often deliberately targeted the highly flammable medieval and early modern city centres, which had no military value. The raids intensified in the final months of the war, when Germany's defeat was effectively inevitable.

Strategic bombing