Das bombardement Deutscher städte im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Eine moralische frage

The terror-bombing of German cities by the Allies remains one of the most controversial issues of World War II. The text looks into the main ways in which the bombing campaign might be morally defended: as a way of ensuring a more equitable distribution of suffering and loss brought about by war; by the complicity of the victims; as retaliation or reprisal; as a violation of civilian immunity justified by a "supreme emergency□; as a means justified by the end it was to achieve. I argue that all these attempts at justification fail, and that the bombing was an utterly unjustified atrocity.