National Experiences - British Commission for Military History

e t w e e n “do u h e t I s m” A n d “cl o s e AIr su p p o rt”. th e ge r m A n AIr wA r do c t r I n e In wo r l d wA r II 101
Britain also accepted the American recommendation, even though such a promise
made by the British side seems weird in view of the Trenchard doctrine.
Hitler’s reply was a lie since the first German act of war on 1 September was,
by no means, the cannon fire launched from training ship “Schleswig-Holstein” on
Gdansk’s Westerplatte at 04:47. Seven minutes earlier, at 04:40, the citizens of the
small Polish town of Wielun had woken up startled by the sound of hurling sirens and
explosions, engines humming above them and screaming to be heard. Dive-bombers
of the German Air Force were bombing the town that had neither a military target
nor industrial plants. Seventy percent of the small town was destroyed and 1,200 of
its 16,000 inhabitants were killed. This aerial attack, killing children, adolescents,
women and men in their sleep, served the purpose of testing new, stronger engines
and bombs. Two days later, soldiers of the German Army came to record the effects
of the attack, using measuring tape on the town’s building ruins. 44
The next dive-bomber attacks on Warsaw supported the fact that the German
side did not really wish to spare the Polish people the air war. Explaining the aerial
attacks on the Polish capital on 10 September, the Air Force General Staff stated:
“The attack should be viewed as retaliation for crimes committed against German
soldiers. It is important to achieve extensive destruction in the densely populated
parts of town during the first attack“. 45 Since admitting to having followed Douhet’s
or Mitchell’s ideas was naturally not an option, the retaliation attack specified in
German Air Force Regulation L.Dv. 16 was used as an explanation. Some days later,
v. Richthofen, who had been seconded as an aviation commander for special duty to
the 10th Army, requested sarcastically: „I urgently request that the last opportunity
for a fire and terror attack be used as a large-scale test […] If aviation commander
for special duty is tasked accordingly, all efforts will be made to completely wipe
out Warsaw, the more so as there will only be a border customs office located there
in the future“. 46 Though v. Richthofen was not given permission to launch such a terror
attack, the Polish capital was not spared from almost complete destruction in the
further course of the war. But with its area bombing of the town of Wielun right on
the first day of World War II, the German Luftwaffe was the first air force of the warring
factions to mount a Douhet-style terror attack, carrying out its first combat action.
With this, the German Air Force actually started the bombing terror war, which
returned to Germany – the party having caused it – only a few years after, sealing the
fate of many German cities.
Contrary to the doubts stated in Air Force Regulation L.Dv. 16, the war against
Poland generally showed that, with German air superiority, the German Air Force
44 Cf., Größte Härte…“ Verbrechen der Wehrmacht in Polen September/Oktober 1939. German Historical
Institute Warsaw. Osnabrück 2005, p. 69-71.
45 Cited in Olaf Groehler, Der strategische Luftkrieg und seine Auswirkungen auf die deutsche Zivilbevölkerung,
in: Boog, Luftkriegführung im Zweiten Weltkrieg (see Note 3), p. 332.
46 Ibid., p. 334.