Бомбардировки Берлина во Второй мировой войне

Part of Allied strategic aerial bombing campaigns

Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany, was subject to 363 air raids during the Second World War. It was bombed by the RAF Bomber Command between 1940 and 1945, the United States Army Air Forces' Eighth Air Force between 1943 and 1945, and the French Air Force in 1940 and between 1944 and 1945 as part of the Allied campaign of strategic bombing of Germany. It was also attacked by aircraft of the Red Air Force in 1941 and particularly in 1945, as Soviet forces closed on the city. British bombers dropped 45,517 tons of bombs, while American aircraft dropped 22,090.3 tons. As the bombings continued, more and more people fled the city. By May 1945, 1.7 million people (40% of the population) had fled.

When the Second World War began in 1939, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a request to the major belligerents to confine their air raids to military targets. The French and the British agreed to abide by the request "upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all of their opponents". The British had a policy of using aerial bombing only against military targets and/or infrastructure such as ports and railways of direct military importance. It was acknowledged that the aerial bombing of Germany would cause civilian casualties, but the British government was initially reluctanct to deliberately bomb civilian property outside combat zones as a military tactic. The policy was abandoned on 15 May 1940, two days after the German air attack on Rotterdam, when the Royal Air Force was given permission to attack targets in the Ruhr, including oil plants and other civilian industrial targets that aided the German war effort, such as blast furnaces that at night were self illuminating. The first RAF raid on the interior of Germany took place on 19 March 1940 at Hörnum. On the night of 10–11 May 1940 the RAF bombed Dortmund. Between 1939 and 1942, the policy of bombing only targets of direct military significance was gradually abandoned in favour of "area bombing", the large scale bombing of German cities to destroy housing and civilian infrastructure. Although killing German civilians was never an explicit policy, it was obvious that area bombing would cause large scale civilian casualties. With the technology available at the time, the precision bombing of military targets was possible only by daylight. It was difficult even then: day bomber raids by Bomber Command led to unacceptably high casualties and aircraft losses. Night bombing led to far lower losses but was of necessity indiscriminate, because navigation and bomb aiming were more difficult at night.

Before 1941, Berlin, at from London, was at the extreme range attainable by the British bombers then available to the Allied forces. It could be bombed only at night in summer when the days were longer and skies clear—which increased the risk to Allied bombers. The first RAF raid on Berlin took place on the night of 25 August 1940; 95 aircraft were dispatched to bomb Tempelhof Airport near the centre of Berlin and Siemensstadt, of which 81 dropped their bombs in and around Berlin, and while the damage was slight, the psychological effect on Hitler was greater. The bombing raids on Berlin prompted Hitler to order the shift of the Luftwaffe's target from British airfields and air defenses to British cities. In the following two weeks there were a further five raids of a similar size, all nominally precision raids at specific targets, During 1940 there were more raids on Berlin, all of which did little damage. The raids grew more frequent in 1941, but were ineffective in hitting important targets. The head of the Air Staff of the RAF, Sir Charles Portal, justified these raids by saying that to "get four million people out of bed and into the shelters" was worth the losses involved. The Soviet Union started a lt=bombing campaign on Berlin on 8 August 1941 that extended into early September. Medium Navy bombers, accompanied from 12 August by Army bombers, conducted ten raids from Saaremaa island to Berlin with 3–12 aircraft in each raid, fifty in total reaching Berlin. On 7 November 1941, Sir Richard Peirse, head of RAF Bomber Command, launched a large raid on Berlin, sending over 160 bombers to the capital. 21 were shot down or crashed, and again little damage was done due to bad weather. At the same time, new bombers with longer ranges were coming into service, particularly the Avro Lancaster, which became available in large numbers during 1942. During most of 1942, however, Bomber Command's priority was attacking Germany's U boat ports as part of Britain's effort to win the Battle of the Atlantic. During the whole of 1942 there were only nine air alerts in Berlin, none of them serious. Only in 1943 did Harris have both the means and the opportunity to put his belief in area bombing into practice.

The Nazi regime was well aware of the political necessity of protecting the Reich capital against devastation from the air. Even before the war, work had begun on an extensive system of public air raid shelters, but by 1939 only 15% of the planned 2,000 shelters had been built. By 1941, however, the five huge public shelters (Zoo, Anhalt Station, Humboldthain, Friedrichshain and Kleistpark) were complete, offering shelter to 65,000 people. Other shelters were built under or near government buildings, the best known being the so called Führerbunker underground in the backyard of the Reich Chancellery building. In addition, many U Bahn stations were converted into shelters. The rest of the population had to make do with their own cellars. In 1943, the Germans decided to evacuate non essential people from Berlin. By 1944 1.2 million people, 790,000 of them women and children, about a quarter of the city's population, had been evacuated to rural areas. An effort was made to evacuate all children from Berlin, but this was resisted by parents, and many evacuees soon made their way back to the city (as was also the case in London in 1940–41). The increasing shortage of manpower as the war dragged on meant that female labour was essential to keep Berlin's war industries going, so the evacuation of all women with children was not possible. At the end of 1944 the city's population began to grow again as refugees fleeing the Red Army's advance in the east began to pour into Berlin. The Ostvertriebenen ("refugees from the East") were officially denied permission to remain in Berlin for longer than two days and were housed in camps near the city before being moved on westwards; it is estimated less than 50,000 managed to remain in Berlin. By January 1945 the population was around 2.9 million, although the demands of the German military were such that only 100,000 of these were males aged 18–30. Another 100,000 or so were forced labor, mainly French Fremdarbeiter, "foreign workers", and Russian Ostarbeiter ("eastern workers"). The key to the Flak area were three huge Flak towers (Flaktürme), which provided enormously tough platforms for both searchlights and 128 mm FlaK 40 anti aircraft guns as well as shelters (Hochbunker) for civilians. These towers were at the Berlin Zoo in the Tiergarten, Humboldthain and Friedrichshain. The Flak guns were increasingly manned by the teenagers of the Hitler Youth as older men were drafted to the front. By 1945 the girls of the League of German Girls (BDM) were also operating Flak guns. After 1944 there was little fighter protection from the Luftwaffe, and the Flak defences were increasingly overwhelmed by the scale of the attacks.

Bombing of Berlin during World War II DateBomber command Notes1940 6 77–8 June 1940French NavyOne Farman N. C.223.4 Jules Verne converted long range transport. Flew from Bordeaux via Baltic Sea, approaching Berlin from the north (first bombing of Berlin).1940 8 2525–26 August 1940 RAF95 aircraft.1941 3 2424 March 1941 RAF130 bombers.1941 8 87–8 August 1941Soviet Navy10 DB 3 bombers of the Baltic Fleet, operating from Kuressaare airfield (Kagul) on Saaremaa island (5 reached Berlin, dropping 3 tons of bombs).1941 8 98–9 August 1941Soviet Navy 9 DB 3 bombers of the Baltic Fleet, operating from Kuressaare airfield on Saaremaa island (9 reached Berlin, dropping 5.4 tons of bombs).1941 8 1211–12 August 1941Soviet Navy, Soviet Air Force 3 DB 3 bombers of the Baltic Fleet, operating from Kuressaare and 9 DB 3F (Il 4) from Long Range Aviation operating from Aste on Saaremaa island (8 reached Berlin).1941 8 1615 16 August 1941Soviet Navy, Soviet Air Force 13 DB 3 bombers of the Baltic Fleet and 9 DB 3F (Il 4) from Long Range Aviation, operating from Saaremaa island (17 reached Berlin, dropping 10.5 tons of bombs).7/8 September 1941RAF197 bombers (a mixture of Vickers Wellingtons, Handley Page Hampdens, Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys, Short Stirlings, Handley Page Halifaxes and Avro Manchesters)1941 9 088 September 1941 RAFBurned Potsdamer Bahnhof, over 100 civilians killed in a house at Pariser Platz1942 8 2626 August 1942Soviet Air ForceIl 4 bombers.1943 3 022 March 1943 RAF251 bombers, 17 lost, dropped 610 tons of bombs, 711 killed on the ground.1943 8 3131 August–1 September 1943 RAF613 heavy bombers (331 Lancasters, 176 Halifaxes, 106 Stirling) and 9 Mosquitos. 47 aircraft (7.6%) lost. The evacuation of "all children and all adults not engaged in war work" was ordered by the Berlin authorities.1943 9 33–4 September 1943 RAF316 Lancasters dispatched with four Mosquitos carrying out diversionary laying of flares to distract defences. 22 aircraft (6.9%) lost.1943 11 1818–19 November 1943 RAF The first operation of the RAF Battle of Berlin campaign. Berlin, the main target, was attacked by 440 Avro Lancasters and 4 de Havilland Mosquitos. They bombed the city, which was under cloud with 2% aircraft loss rate. Diversionary raids on Mannheim and Ludwigshafen by 395 other aircraft. Mosquitos attacked several other towns. In all 884 sorties. 32 aircraft (3.6%) lost.1943 11 2222–23 November 1943RAF Berlin the main target. 469 Lancasters, 234 Handley Page Halifaxes, 50 Short Stirlings, 11 Mosquitos. Total 764 aircraft. This was the most effective raid on Berlin of the war. Most of the damage was to the residential areas west of the centre, Tiergarten and Charlottenburg, Schöneberg and Spandau. Because of the dry weather conditions, several 'firestorms' ignited. 175,000 people were left homeless and the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche) are now a monument in Berlin. Several other buildings of note were either damaged or destroyed, including the British, French, Italian and Japanese embassies, Charlottenburg Castle and Berlin Zoo, as well as the Ministry of Weapons and Munitions, the Waffen SS Administrative College, the barracks of the Imperial Guard at Spandau. Several factories employed in the manufacture of material for the armed forces and 26 aircraft (3.4%) were also lost.1944 03 066 March 1944USAAF69 US bombers were lost. 11 North American P 51 Mustangs were also lost. The Bomber loss rate stood at 10.2 percent. The Luftwaffe lost 64 fighters, including 16 Bf 110 and Me 410 heavy fighters.1944 03 088 March 1944USAAFRaid against Berlin by 623 bombers. 37 US bombers were lost and 18 fighters were also lost. The Luftwaffe lost 42 fighters, with 3 killed, 26 missing and 9 wounded (includes the Me 410 and Bf 110 multiple manned aircraft)1944 03 2424–25 March 1944RAFBerlin main target. The bomber stream was scattered and those that reached Berlin bombed well out to the south west of the city. The RAF lost 72 aircraft, 8.9% of the attacking force.