NAZI GUNS AND PLANES RAZING WARSAW (9/25/39)

Microfiche-New York Times archives, McHenry Library, U.C. Santa Cruz | 9/25/39 | G.E.R. Gedye

[abb]

For two years Ark Royal was the workhorse of the RN, participating in most major operations.

She was that. Her aircraft put the torpedo into the Bismark's rudder that caused her demise.

[henkster]

The conduct you ascribe to Rommel is not “standing up” to Hitler. Standing up to Hitler meant meeting him face to face and disagreeing with him. Rommel never did that.

What you describe was mere insubordination, even if properly motivated for humanitarian reasons.

[PzLdr]

Rommel got into it face to face with Hitler in 1944, in France. Twice. Once with Rundstedt, and once without. On both occasions, Hitler was told the war in the West was lost, and had a strong suggestion directed at him that he make peace.

That was a lot more than Guderian ever did. His blowups with Hitler were over the perceived impugning, by Hitler, of the Army’s honor. Coming from a man who served on the honor court that threw officers out of the German Army so they could be delivered to the Gestapo after 20 July, that’s a bit rich.

I can find no instance where Guderian urged Hitler to end the war, or told him it was lost.

[Mr. K]

THAK YOU SO MUCH FOR DOING THIS!!

IT HAS BEEN AMAZING TO SEE HOW THIS UNFOLDED DAY-BY-DAY IN THE NEWS

[BroJoeK]

quoting from abb:"In Poland... The Germans issue a second ultimatum to the Polish Warsaw garrison. Meanwhile, German forces step up their bombardment of Warsaw and add heavy air attacks to it. Some 400 Luftwaffe bombers and Stuka dive bombers make repeated sorties, starting significant fires."

From Robin Neillands' "The Bomber War":

"On 25 September the full might of the Luftwaffe was unleashed against Warsaw. This attack began at 0800 hrs and went on for hours, until a great pall of smoke hung over the city -- 'not an open city', intones the 'Luftwaffe War Diaries', 'but a beleaguered fortress; [the bombs falling ] not on the dwellings of civilians but on a deeply staggered defense system, manned by 100,000 soldiers'.

"The Luftwaffe claims that only 400 bombers were deployed over Warsaw, dropping 500 tons of bombs and 72 tons of incendiaries; other accounts double that number of bombers.

"Whatever their number, each aircraft made three or four sorties, and by nightfall the centre of Warsaw was little more than burning rubble.

"On the following day the garrison offered to surrender, and city fell to the Germans on 27 September. The bomber war had claimed its first victory."

So, we are looking here at somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 bombing sorties, which makes it the rough equivalent of later allied "1,000 plane bombing raids."

More to the point -- these German bombing runs had the same psychological effect on the Poles as the American A-bombs did on Japan: they removed the victims' will to fight. Nothing the allies did over Germany ever accomplished that critical goal.