Question about Konigsberg

[jefflgarrison]

My most recent research has spurred me to read what I can about the fighting for the city of Konigsberg (Kaliningrad).

From what I can understand, Konigsberg was the jewel of the Baltic before the war. From the link I posted in my research thread, the city was quite crowded with structures.

However, unlike Gdansk (Danzig) it seemed that a majority of the city was destroyed in '44 by the RAF. So when the Red Army finally arrived the city resembled the German version of Stalingrad and urban warfare was the order of battle. In contrast, Gdansk basically escaped nearly the whole of the war intact. It wasn't until March, 1945 that the Red Army bombed the heck out of the city laying was to 90% of the old town and 70-80% of the outlying districts.

So my question is, why was Konigsberg so important to the RAF that they should try to obliterate it? I thought all the major factories where in the heart of Germany.

Looking at the website I mentioned, it is incredible what a difference there is between 1939 and 1945.


= Koenigsberg = Êàëèíèíãðàä =

[UQWozza]

There is a short article on this in Wikipedia:

Bombing of Königsberg in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The article states that an estimated that 20% of all the industry and 41% of all the housing in Königsberg was destroyed in two raids late in August 1944.

A couple of references mention ship building, wharehousing and railways.

The raids were largely fire bombing so the target may well have been largely the people of Konigsberg themselves.

Simon

[jefflgarrison]

After reading this article, I have to wonder what was the purpose of the August 29/30 attack? Ok, I can understand the bombing of industry, but 41% of all housing in Konigsberg was destroyed? Did RAF Bomber Command resort to tit-for-tat attacks?

The historic city center, especially the original quarters Altstadt, Löbenicht, and Kneiphof, was completely destroyed, among it the Cathedral, the castle, all churches of the old city, the university, and the old shipping quarter.

Now I can understand why the German people took offense at the statue dedicated to "Sir Arthur Harris".

[Eryk]

Ok, I can understand the bombing of industry, but 41% of all housing in Konigsberg was destroyed? Did RAF Bomber Command resort to tit-for-tat attacks?

In short, yes. Not tit-for-tat per se though. It was a theory of total war that the worker was as much a combatant as the soldier, after all if you build the torpedo that the U-Boat carries and the sailor fires... you see where it goes. Under that theory if you kill the worker's child, even if you don't kill him, and make him so distraught that he doesn't show up for work, then you've legitimately furthered the war effort by reducing the enemies’ ability to make war. It's properly called "terrorizing" the population.

Besides being immoral according to most it's also ineffective. Bombing just doesn't "break" a population like the theorists thought it would.

[Taz]

The Air Ministry area bombing directive was actually issued to RAF Bomber Command on 14th February 1942, eight days before Air Marshal Arthur Harris became Air Officer Commanding (AOC) of Bomber Command.
He just implemented the directive to the full.

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."

– Arthur Travers Harris, "Bomber Offensive"

[UQWozza]

You also need to remember that allied bombing in WW2 have two very distinct flavours:

• The RAF: early in the war tried daylight precision bombing but found that firstly they did not have the technology to surgically target small military/industrial targets, and secondly that daylight raids lead to heavy losses of attacking aircraft. Thus, they switched to area bombing during night attacks. Exactly the same method of attack used by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz on London, etc.
  
  
  
• The USAAF: came to Europe as a daylight, precision bombing force. They had the technology to carry out these attacks, namely the more heavily armed B-17s and B-24s, and the Norden bombsight (technology as closely guarded as the atomic bomb , and not shared). However, it should still be remembered that the precision of these attacks was not great and collateral damage nearly always occurred.
  
  Simon