The Allied Air War and Urban Memory
The Legacy of Strategic Bombing in Germany

18th Feb 2014 by Tewardii

Ultimately, this book is not about the conduct of the Allied air war, except as an inflection point. As the title implies, it is about the legacy of that air war. Although it provides little in the way of insight to the Second World War itself, it does provide a superlative description, explanation, and analysis of the aftermath in postwar Germany, especially in terms of the “human terrain.” It not only examines how the citizens of Kassel and Magdeburg chose to remember their respective nights of destruction, but why their observances differed during the Cold War, and how those observances largely converged in content and form following the end of the Cold War. I have to admit, however, that this book can be bit of a slog. It just isn’t for everyone, because it is so dense. The research is exhaustive, and rests on a foundation from original German texts, including personal accounts and correspondence. The presentation is well organized, logical, and conclusions emerge from thorough analysis. Arnold does a superb job of remaining apolitical he presents the facts, interprets them dispassionately, and allows conclusions to emerge from the interpretive analysis. For one who may be interested in formulation or execution of a campaign, operational art, or tactics, there is not much here. There is no analysis of tons of ordnance to extent of destruction, accuracy or efficiency of ordnance delivery, or tactics employed by offensive bombers in the air and defenders on the ground. There are lessons to be learned, however, from the very long term perspective. This book is about the long term, the very long term effects of warfare that results in genuine devastation – the modern equivalent of razing a city, leaving it without one stone on top of another, and in smoking ruins. Arnold only mentions the direct effects of a bombing-induced firestorm to set the context for the human experience. For example, he does not dwell on the fact that many victims died as a result of asphyxiation in otherwise “safe” bomb shelters due to the depletion of oxygen in the environment caused by the firestorm. He does, however, reveal that there was a window of opportunity for escape between the arrival of the “pathfinder” target markers and the heavy bombers that delivered their deadly mix of explosives and incendiaries. The resentment expressed by those who lost loved ones, toward air raid wardens who escaped during that window of opportunity rather than staying with the victims or leading them to a safe escape away from the city, is this author’s grist for the mill, and it is exactly this perspective that makes Arnold’s book unique. He does a masterful job of comparing the “trajectories” of two cities that were devastated by Allied bombing: Kassel and Magdeburg. The choices of these two particular cities is anything but random, as their experiences were significantly different. Kassel was destroyed roughly in the middle of the war, and was part of the Federal Republic of Germany during the Cold War. Magdeburg was destroyed only a few weeks before Dresden, and less than four months before VE Day it became a part of the German Democratic Republic. The common link between the two cities was overnight destruction from the air. The differences began with the changing context of the war – at a tipping point when Kassel was devastated, and in the waning days when Magdeburg was destroyed – and continued to diverge during the Cold War. These differing contexts shaped the way they remembered their losses, the meanings given those losses, and how they framed a context to help understand their respective nights of destruction. If understanding issues and attitudes of the Cold War is your goal, especially from a Central European perspective, this book is for you.

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