Hollis
bloody furious
The above statement from Harris reminded me that one of the curious things about Dresden and other bombings of residential areas is that not only was public reaction mixed but the Air Ministry felt that they needed to present the aims and outcomes of these bombing raids as something slightly different.
Harris believed that “any civilian who produces more than enough to maintain himself is making a positive contribution to the German war effort and is therefore a proper though not necessarily a worthwhile object of attack".
He also wanted the Air Ministry to make a statement outlining the true aims of the bombing strategy :
" The destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers and the disruption of civilised community life throughout Germany’ would emphasise that such outcomes were ‘not by-products of attempts to hit factories’ and that ‘Acreages of housing devastation are infinitely more important’ as a measure of the bombers success rather than the destruction of industry"
The Air Ministry's response was :
"It is in any event, desirable to present the bomber offensive in such a light as to provoke the minimum of public controversy and so far as possible to avoid conflict with religious and humanitarian opinion. Any public protest, whether reasonable or unreasonable against the bomber offensive could not but hamper the Government in the execution of their policy and might affect the morale of the aircrew themselves. 7. The Council are therefore unwilling to change the emphasis of their publicity."
The position of the Air Ministry was that it's press releases and statements should always emphasise the military and industrial significance of targets that were bombed within the area. They knew though that by publishing photographs, newspapers writing articles, and foreign press reports not subject to the UK's press restrictions is that it was obvious that civilians were being killed on a large scale. Their strategy was how this should be presented.
Public reaction actually wasn't as gung ho as the post war enthusiasts imagine it was. Out of 154 Mass Observation Diaries, only 13 wrote anything on the bombing raids in Germany, on average six entries and the responses were mixed .
Kind of interesting... if it's anything like the Blitz they knew that they could only stretch propaganda so far... otherwise people would just see through it.
Regarding Dresden, in terms of public sentiment, it's hard to imagine what it would be like in the 6th year of a war, when around 9,000 people were being killed by V bombs in London, and when most people probably still had servicemen and women in their families that they wanted to get home.