Harris’s belief that his strategy was shortening the war to save lives was strikingly similar to the huge slogan behind Goebbels during his speech which proclaimed: ‘Total War – Short War’. The inevitable question of whether waging total war from the air on German civilians was the moral equivalent of the Luftwaffe’s own version is too complicated to answer satisfactorily. In statistical terms, however, the Combined Bomber Offensive turned out to be slightly less murderous in the end, if you include all the western European, central European, Balkan and Soviet citizens killed by the Luftwaffe.
