The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945

by Richard Overy

In some ways bombing actually created a safety valve for popular disaffection. Rumors could represent a surreptitious challenge to prescribed public discourse without amounting to serious dissent. In the shelters it was sometimes possible for the small communities that inhabited them to complain about their hardships or to satirize the regime without fear of punishment. In one Berlin bunker, Hitler was always referred to as “The Hitler,” an intentionally less flattering epithet than “our Führer.” The local warden turned a blind eye both to this and to harsher complaints directed at the dictatorship.167 For the bombed-out, the opportunity to let off steam could also be tolerated. One generic story, cited by a number of observers, told of a hysterical woman evacuee challenging the police to arrest her for some trivial offense because at least she would have a roof over her head. In each version of the story, the police do nothing.168 The SD reports noted a widely circulating rumor in August 1943 that the Allies had promised to stop the bombing if the government was changed; this was a brave rumor to pass on, but it was overheard in towns as far apart as Innsbruck and Königsberg.169 It was also evident that the anxieties and fears generated by bombing in particular affected not only the home front but the fighting front as well. Censors intercepted letters giving painful details of the effects of heavy raids; soldiers on leave could see these effects for themselves. An SD rep...