Winston Churchill gave permission for blanket bombing of German cities

The argument

Critics who argue that Winston Churchill was not a hero point to his support, as wartime prime minister, for the area bombing of German cities — a strategy that deliberately targeted urban populations rather than purely military objectives. Under the area bombing campaign pursued by RAF Bomber Command, British aircraft attacked the centres of cities such as Hamburg, Cologne and, most controversially, Dresden, with the explicit aim of destroying housing and undermining civilian morale. The firebombing of Dresden in February 1945 created a firestorm that killed tens of thousands of people in a city crowded with refugees, late in a war that was already being won. The moral charge against Churchill is that he authorised and championed a strategy that knowingly killed vast numbers of civilians. Critics argue that deliberately bombing residential areas to break a population's will crossed a line that distinguishes legitimate warfare from the mass killing of non-combatants, and that the destruction of Dresden in particular served little military purpose so close to victory. Even some of Churchill's contemporaries expressed unease; in the aftermath of Dresden, Churchill himself appeared to distance himself from the raid's scale in a memorandum questioning the bombing of German cities 'simply for the sake of increasing the terror'. For those advancing this argument, a leader who presided over and endorsed the deliberate incineration of civilian populations cannot be remembered uncritically as a hero, whatever his role in resisting Nazism. The deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in raids aimed at their homes and morale are, on this view, a moral stain that complicates the heroic legend. Because Winston Churchill gave permission for the blanket bombing of German cities, this argument holds, he was not simply a hero.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Defenders reply that area bombing must be judged in the context of a total war against Nazi Germany, when precision bombing was technologically impossible and Allied leaders believed that striking German industry and morale was a necessary means of hastening victory and relieving pressure on the Eastern Front. They note that bombing policy was driven by Bomber Command and the Air Ministry as much as by Churchill personally, that historians debate rather than uniformly condemn the strategic bombing campaign, and that Dresden — however terrible — was one episode in a war Nazi Germany began and waged with genocidal aims. On this view a single controversial strategy, adopted under wartime constraints, does not by itself negate a record widely credited with helping defeat fascism.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Bombing policy was set largely by Bomber Command and the Air Ministry, so attributing area bombing to Churchill's personal authorisation overstates his individual role. [Rejecting P2] Given the technology of the time, precision bombing was impossible and Allied leaders judged area bombing a means of hastening victory, so the civilian toll was a contested strategic choice rather than gratuitous killing. [Rejecting P3] Historians dispute rather than uniformly condemn the strategic bombing campaign, so a single controversial policy does not settle that Churchill was not a hero.