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May-August 1943 4. Bombing Achieves Holocaust The four months from May through August of 1943 were marked by a series of major setbacks for Germany's war efforts both at home and on the battle fronts. They began on May 12 and 13 as the German armies in North Africa surrendered to the British. The radio report from the famed and once victorious Africa Corps read: "Munition exhausted. Weapons and war materials destroyed. The German Africa Corps has fought as ordered until it is no longer capable of fighting. The German Africa Corps must be born again! Heia Safari ! "1 The "desert fox," Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, had been called home prior to the end of the fighting. Some Germans speculated that the news of his "illness" circulated two months after the actual recall was just an excuse to save him from the fate of Field Marshal Paulus at Stalingrad.2 The term Tunisgrad began to circulate for this second defeat, but there was none of the deep pathos associated with the tragedy in Russia.3 The number of those taken prisoner, some 130,000 German soldiers, was larger thari that of those captured by the Russians, but there was not the same last desperate (senseless) fighting as in Stalingrad, and reports circulated that the Germans accepted the end of their desert hardships with relief, even cheerfully .4 At least there were letters home from these prisoners. POW's in Canada wrote that things there went "exceptionally well" and that they were "especially well fed."5 There was not the cold, heart- 58 Under the Bombs wrenching silence that covered the fate of those who had fallen into the hands of the Russians.6 The defeat in Tunis was followed by Allied attacks on the Italian islands of Pantelleria and Lampedusa and Allied landings in Sicily on July 10. Mussolini fell from power on July 24, and by August 17, the German and Italian forces had given up the struggle in Sicily and evacuated to the Italian mainland. And to many Germans, especially those in southern Germany, it seemed likely that the road northward into the homeland would be covered quickly.7 Meanwhile a quiet period on the eastern front was broken with the opening of Hitler's planned Fall Zitadelle (Operation Citadel), designed to breach Soviet tank forces in the Ukraine and create a new dynamism for the German forces stalled since Stalingrad. The great tank battle around the city of Kursk began on July 4. By the twelfth, the Russians were in control of the battlefield. The new German Panther tanks had proved faulty and Soviet defensive strategy had foiled the German plans for a new offensive. Although Soviet losses were more serious than German losses, the Soviets' recovery was rapid-their operational tanks on July 5 numbered 3,800; by July 13, they had shrunk to less than 1,500; but by August 3, they were back to 2,750.8 Citadel was to be the last great German drive on the eastern front. From this point on, it was the Russians who seized the initiative, who began to push the Germans out of hard-won gains, and who moved grimly westward towards the German homeland. Citadel symbolized a coming defeat-the only hope was for a stabilization of the front, not for great victories. The news from the battle fronts weighed heavily on the home front. But those at home confronted increasing peril from bombing raids that became more numerous, attacked new as well as old targets, and wreaked ever more havoc and destruction. The months of May and June of 1943 were a shocking prelude to the even more shocking catastrophe visited upon Hamburg in July. In sixteen major raids, the British dropped over 24,000 tons of bombs on German cities, most of them within the industrial zone along the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. In each of these raids, an average of 1,500 tons was dropped. But these cold figures give little comprehension of the destructive combination of thousands of incendiary bombs and hundreds of enormous explosive bombs and land mines that blasted whole city streets into ruins. Dortmund, in two visits, came under 3,500 tons of bombs; Dusseldorf, in two raids, suffered almost 4,000 tons. Bochum, in two raids, was hit with 2,500 tons and Cologne in two visits, received 2,200 tons. Duisburg, Essen, Wuppertal, Emden, [18.191.41.236] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 10:42...

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