Saturation bombing of cities worked to break the fighting spirit of the German (and Japanese) people so completely that once their nations had surrendered there was nary a peep of resistance or any kind of serious insurgency. The civilian population knew that the allies wouldn't bat an eye at taking out population centers to end any continued fighting. Unlike in places like Iraq or Afghanistan, there was no real effort to hide combatants or terrorists as the people knew the result would likely be collective destruction of any population responsible. When the war was over, they were done.
We fought WW2 properly and when we won it was over. Where we have gotten in trouble since then are these attempts at separating a population from their government. This is a fools errand. It is why we struggle to really bring our conflicts to any clear conclusion now. People are responsible for their leaders. Period. That doesn't mean kill civilians that would support or otherwise welcome us. Nor does it mean we should kill just for the sake of watching bodies drop. But it does mean we should sometimes rain death and destruction on enemy populations when it seems clear this will help us win a war where the goal is total defeat of the enemy - and with no painful, bloody insurgency after the surrender documents are signed.
Make no mistake, flattening German cities caused absolute chaos through Nazi Germany. The revisionist history in modern textbooks is bunk. Those saturation bombings caused mass transportation disruptions, wreaked havoc on German soldiers morale who had families in bombed out areas, forced Germany to stack valuable anti-aircraft equipment at population centers rather than the front, wasted endless manpower hours rebuilding routine yet still vital infrastructure, and just generally impressed it upon the Germans (and Japanese) that we were prepared to do whatever it takes to win.
Sorry, I (mostly) don’t buy it. Not without additional evidence.
The question is not whether Allied bombing caused problems for the German war effort. Of course it did.
The question is whether it caused more trouble than the same amount of manpower, money and resources poured into other modes of attack. For example, additional armored or parachute divisions in France, or more troops in secondary fronts such as the Balkans or Italy. Or more trucks and jeeps to the Red Army.
The Allied bombing effort was immense and caused huge losses in American and other air forces. About 10% of all American dead in WWII were in Eighth Army Air Force. It cost vast amounts of money and consumed scarce resources such as aluminium at great speed.
Did strategic Allied bombing of Germany have a net benefit over the same resources put into other means of attack? Heck if I know. I do know that you just cannot answer the question by showing that it had some effect. You have to show that it had greater effect than the alternatives.
I’m perfectly willing to believe it, but I’d like to see an argument made with facts and numbers, which somebody has probably done. Not just assumed.