For Ss and Gs:
RAF Commander A.T. Harris 1942 in a leaflet dropped all over Germany:
RANSLATION OF G.41, EINE BOTSCHAFT DES OBERBEFEHLSHABERS…
W H Y B O M B S ?
A MESSAGE FROM THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE BRITISH
BOMBERS TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE.
As Commander-in-Chief of the British bombing aircraft raiding Germany I have
decided to send this message to the German people.
We in Britain know quite enough about air raids! For ten months your Luftwaffe
has bombed us. First you bombed us by day. When we made this impossible,
they came by night. Then you had a big fleet of bombers. Your airmen fought
well. They bombed London for 92 nights running. They made heavy raids on
Coventry, Plymouth, Liverpool and other British cities. They did a lot of damage.
Forty-three thousand British men, women, and children lost their lives. Many of
our most cherished historical buildings were destroyed.
You thought, and Goering promised you, that you would be safe from bombs,
and indeed, during all that time we could only send over a small number of
aircraft in return. But now it is just the other way. Now you send only a few
aircraft against us, and we are bombing Germany heavily.
Why are we doing so? It is not revenge - though we do not forget Warsaw,
Belgrade, Rotterdam, London, Plymouth and Coventry. We are bombing
Germany, city by city, and ever more terribly in order to make it impossible for
you to go on with the war. That is our object. We shall pursue it remorselessly.
City by city: Lubeck, Rostock, Cologne, Emden, Bremen, Wilhelmshaven,
Duisburg, Hamburg - and the list will grow longer and longer.
Let the Nazis drag you down to disaster with them if you will. That is for you to decide.
In fine weather we bomb you by night. Already one thousand bombers go to one
town, like Cologne, and destroy a third of it in an hourʹs bombing. We know, we
have the photographs. In cloudy weather we bomb your factories and shipyards
by day. We have done that as far as Danzig. We are coming by day and by night.
No part of the Reich is safe....
Soon we shall be coming every night and every day, rain, blow or snow - we and
the Americans. I have just spent eight months in America, so I know exactly
what is coming. We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end, if you
make it necessary for us to do so. You cannot stop it, and you know it.
You have no chance."
