ADOLF GALLAND
(Adolf Josef Ferdinand Galland)
This is a significant quotation because the bombing of Hamburg was somewhat controversial. The Germans had bombed Warsaw, London and many other cities contravening the them accepted laws of war. The allies retaliated by bombing German cities where there was extensive war manufacturing; however, there were some allied war planners who saw the bombing of German cities as a way of breaking morale and shortening the war above and beyond the damage to the factories. A new technique had been used in bombing Hamburg—firebombing. Many thousand coordinated incendiary bombs ignited fires throughout the city which combined into a huge firestorm, killing even people with heat that were in air raid shelters. More than 100,000 Germans died—a greater toll than would later take place at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There was some allied criticism that the firebombing just killed people but made the survivors even more adamant about continuing the fight, This quotation, from a leading German officer, supported the view that there was a strong positive military effect. The technique was repeated in Tokyo to even greater effect before the atomic bombed were ready. (The Japanese had also bombed civilian cities first as well as committed other atrocities.
Adolf Josef Ferdinand Galland was a German Luftwaffe general and flying ace who served throughout the Second World War in Europe. He flew 705 combat missions, and fought on the Western Front and in the Defence of the Reich. On four occasions, he survived being shot down, and he was credited with 104 aerial victories, all of them against the Western Allies.
