The Bombing of Germany
by Hans (Edward Fitzgerald, Translator) Rumpf
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Book Summary Information
Author: Hans (Edward Fitzgerald, Translator) RumpfIllustrator: 18 B/W Photos
Edition: Unknown Binding
Format: Import
Published: 1963
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Holt, Rinehart & Winston
Book Reviews of The Bombing of Germany
Book Review: Limited Information Presented, and with Exaggerations
Summary: 2 Stars
This book discusses the destruction of various-named German cities during WWII, but is long on hyperbole and short on data. For instance, Rumpf speaks of the bombing of Dresden as a catastrophe "so terrible that the details in all their horror will never be fully known now." True enough, but one has to ask: How many perished in Dresden: 30,000 or 300,000? Rumpf doesn't say. In like manner, he describes the bombing of Wurzburg as one that destroyed "everything and everybody in it". Oh really? Not even a small nuclear bomb would do that.
Rumpf also omits essential facts in his analysis. For instance, he laments the destruction of Nordhausen without mentioning the existence of the nearby underground V2 factory (Dora). While the factory itself could not, of course, be knocked out by bombing, its productivity could be reduced by destroying the surrounding above-ground urban-industrial infrastructure. The bombing of Nordhausen was part of this strategy.
Rumpf comments on the attitudes of the Nazi leaders: "All this inferno of death and destruction seemed to leave Germany's leaders unmoved. The total warfare they had so boastfully proclaimed was now on their own doorstep. And it was more terrible than even they had ever imagined. The German people were left to reap the harvest of hatred their leaders had systematically shown. It was the ordinary men and women and their children who had to pay the bill. And those men who had always sworn that their every action was guided by their love for Germany were revealed in all their naked ugly egoism. The war was lost, long lost, and they knew it. They could have ended it with a word, and spared the German people unnecessary suffering." (p. 150).
Is Rumpf implying that the war was OK as long as the suffering was limited to the recipients of German aggression? In any case, Rumpf forgets how Hitler came to power: The German people elected him in free elections. When voters go to the polls, they fully understand that they are voting not only for their own future, but also for that of their co-nationals and, of course, their children. In MEIN KAMPF, the Fuhrer-to-be planned a large war against the Slavic east for lebensraum. By voting for Hitler, the Germans were voting for death and destruction against other peoples. The fortunes of war made it boomerang against the Germans, who now also had to suffer. In the final analysis, the German people had a choice about the precipitation of a new war; the Poles and other recipients of German aggression had no such choice.
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