To Destroy a City: Strategic Bombing and Its Human Consequences in World War 2 [Hardcover]

This is a tough book to review, and I hope you will be patient in reading my input. I'll start with what I perceive to be the book's problems, and then move on to what I admire most about it.

First of all, Hermann Knell is not a very talented crafter of prose. His style is frequently clunky, and the book is far from eloquent. Unwisely, Knell decides to synopsize the entire history of aerial bombardment, and this is a mistake. Others have done it better and more thoroughly.

But when Knell finally gets to discussing the RAF bombardment of the city of Wuerzburg, Germany, in 1945, this text comes into its own in a very touching way. You will not find a nonfiction book with a bigger heart. Knell survived the bombing of his hometown of Wuerzburg, and then nobly devoted years and years of his life as an amateur historian trying to understand why, militarily, the attack took place. (At the time of the bombing, leaders on all sides already knew that the German state was doomed, collapsing, and on the verge of surrender.) I won't tell you the outcome of that quest, but it might well bring tears to your eyes. Knell's levelheadedness and openmindedness are to be commended.

"To Destroy a City" is the heartfelt rumination of a young German man who lived through the entire experience (pre-bombing; the attack; the immediate post-attack period; and the rebuilding of the city). In this soulful journey that probes the guilt and innocence of both the attackers and the attacked, Knell's personal experience and anguish bring a feeling and a voice that no dispassionate professional historian could match. And this voice makes the book a must-read for those interested in military history and ethics.

Anyone who asks himself/herself questions about the proper use of military power against unarmed civilians in times of war will find food for thought here. Given the current U. S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, "To Destroy a City" is mightily relevant book.

Herman Knell's To Destroy a City: Strategic Bombing and its Human Consequences in World War IItells two stories: the personal story of the author's survival of the bombing of Würzburg, Germany, in March 1945, and the general history of strategic bombing during the First and Second World Wars. Knell's personal account of his survival in World War II, while not overly dramatic or filled with amazing tales, is a fascinating read and gives the modern reader a glimpse of life in wartime Germany. Knell's history of strategic bombing, based heavily on archival research in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, is a critical and condemning look at one of our civilization's more brutal methods of warfare. As with most works that attempt to do two tasks, To Destroy a City does a fair job with both tasks but excels at neither.

Knell lived in Würzburg, Germany, a city of about 100,000 along the Main River in northern Bavaria. Although he was in his late teens in 1945, the aftereffects of polio spared him service in the Wehrmacht during World War II. His condition did not spare him from the horrors of war, however; on the night of 16 March 1945, he was a witness to and victim of the bombing of Würzburg by the British Royal Air Force.

For most of the war, the RAF and United States Army Air Force had largely ignored Würzburg. There were a couple of minor nuisance raids during the first months of 1945, but most of the Allied attention was focused on cities such as nearby Schweinfurt, with its military barracks and vitally important ball-bearing plant. However, on 16 March 1945, RAF Bomber Command dispatched 236 strategic bombers (Lancasters and Mosquitoes) to Würzburg, and in 17 minutes of bombing destroyed 89% of the city, killed 5,000, and "dehoused" (the contemporary euphemism for making homeless) another 90,000.

Before the bombing, Knell and his father, wary of the increasing Allied "nuisance" raids on Würzburg, had moved out of downtown to their garden cottage a few miles from the city. The sound of hundreds of bombers roused Knell and his father from their beds, and they ran outside and saw the "Christmas trees"-air markers dropped by the pathfinding airplanes before a raid-over Würzburg. They watched, frightened, as an "endless" stream of aircraft passed over Würzburg. After the 17-minute bombing raid, Knell and his father tried to enter the city as time-delayed bombs went off and a firestorm began. They could not get any farther than the Ringpark that surrounds the Old City, a refuge for thousands of Würzburgers fleeing the burning inner city. There they discovered from neighbors that their home and family businesses were destroyed by fire.

Knell could not answer the question of why Würzburg was targeted simply based on the targets hit, so he then examined the targeting process-if there was no real answer to the for-what-reason "why," then there may be an answer to the how-did-it-happen "why." Knell uses just a few pages to explain the targeting procedure for Würzburg-how it came to be on the target list-but then uses the rest of the book to give the overall background behind strategic bombing during the first two world wars. This is the real substance of the book.

In many places, Knell's thorough research shines. His archival research in the United States, Britain, and Germany unearthed documents that shed light not only on the strategic bombing campaigns, but also on the decision-making process that led to these attacks and the target selection. He shows the dichotomy-or hypocrisy-between what the governments of Britain, Germany, and the United States were saying and what they were actually doing. To Destroy a City is replete with statistics about the number of bombers on a mission, the percentage of losses, and the tons of ordnance dropped on targets. These elements add depth to his observations and conclusions.

Knell also adds some new insight and perspectives into the strategic bombing campaigns. Based on the accuracy and survivability of the British Mosquito fighter-bomber, Knell posits that, had Britain concentrated on using these planes for strategic bombing instead of the larger Lancasters, the strategic bombing campaign would have been both much more effective and much more humane. Knell also discusses the civil defense systems in Germany (extensive and locally controlled), Britain (lacking and controlled by the Home Office), and Japan (virtually non-existent), and discusses the burdens that were placed on the local governments and the individuals under these systems. Knell's chapter on the psychology of the strategic bombing focuses not only on the victims of the bombing but the psychological price paid by the air crews, with their harrowing and nerve-wracking missions and low chance of survival.

Knell criticizes German strategic bombing, British strategic bombing, and American strategic bombing. He criticizes the Nazi path that led to war, and he criticizes the Versailles Treaty that he says gave rise to the Nazis. He praises the "heroic efforts" of the Bomber Command crews and criticizes Germans who lynched downed bomber crews. He excuses most of the Allied leaders of the bombing campaign for either following orders or doing what they truly believed would win the war. From out of all of this, Knell draws only one clear conclusion: the area bombing campaign that destroyed many German cities was a tragedy.

Knell's conclusion is based on the premise that the area bombing campaign was not a military success. Although he admits that the economic cost to Germany was high, Knell focuses on the failure of the morale bombing campaign: "Though area bombing was to result in the defeat of enemy morale and cause the overthrow of the enemy political systems, that effort did not produce the desired result." Instead, the losses from this campaign were "unnecessary" and "cannot be excused."

While Knell can justifiably claim that the morale bombing campaign was a failure, his focus on the civilian area bombing causes him to miss the larger picture. Certainly, the morale bombing did not cause the collapse of the German society or rebellion of her people, just as it had failed to do the same against Britain earlier in the war, but the morale bombing of the Japanese cities, culminating in the two atomic bombs, was the direct catalyst for the capitulation of Japan. In To Destroy a City: Strategic Bombing and its Human Consequences in World War II, Knell focuses on the destruction of the cities and the human consequences, but he fails to consider adequately the entire strategic bombing offensive aimed at the military and economic systems of Germany. The overall campaign did succeed in tying down an enormous fraction of the German war effort, slowing the development and production of German war materiel, and crippled the German military by degrading oil production. Strategic bombing's contribution to the war effort has been debated and questioned since the war, but no one can justifiably claim that the overall campaign was "unnecessary" or that its losses "cannot be excused" simply because the morale bombing failed to win the war single-handedly.

Fortunately, though, Knell never takes his criticism to its extreme, as some modern German historians have done, and likens this campaign to the Holocaust. In Der Brand, Jörg Friedrich calls the burning cellars underneath the bombed cities "crematoriums" and refers to the bomber squadrons as "Einsatzgruppen." Friedrich also ignores the contributions of the bomber offensive to the war. Another German historian, Klaus Rainer Röhl, compares the Allied attacks on German civilians to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This new historiography has increasingly painted the German people as victims of World War II. While Knell does recount some of the elements of this when he blames Versailles for World War II or claims that Operation Barbarossa was simply a pre-emptive strike against Soviet Russia, in no way does Knell embrace this new emerging consciousness of German victimhood.

Knell's work has many flaws, but it has a certain poignancy and a perspective found in few other works. Knell could have easily taken a partisan approach and condemned the entire campaign, its architects, and its warriors, but sometimes Knell goes out of his way to forgive or to justify their actions, even when he condemns the overall campaign. Knell's analysis of the campaign is sometimes flawed, and the reader looking for an insightful and balanced analysis of the European strategic bombing campaign should look to Alan J. Levine's The Strategic Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945. But while To Destroy a City fails as a piece of scholarly history or in-depth analysis, the personal touch in this survivor's tale makes it a worthwhile read.

To Destroy A City is a fluently written account by Hermann Knell -- a German survivor who was nineteen and living in Wurzburg when, in March of 1945, hundreds of Allied planes bombed that city and killed six thousand people in a single night. Personal experience fueled the Knell's research into the warfare practice of area bombing, which was fiercely practiced in the combat skies of World War II. To Destroy A City: Strategic Bombing And Its Human Consequences In World War II carefully studies strategic bombing in general, and examines its history with particular reference to the twentieth century during the two world wars, and its use and relative effectiveness or ineffectiveness in warfare. A meticulously and logically reasoned yet personally passionate account, To Destroy A City is very highly recommended reading and an impressive contribution to 20th Century Military Studies reading lists.