Arthur " Bomber " Harris Propaganda Leaflet

[HistoryMan]

Picked this up this week with a few more, will post pictures of the others separately if that's ok ?

Anymore information on these would be appreciated

Cheers

[HistoryMan]

This is one of my favourite leaflets, It appears to be from 1942, I did think it was from earlier in the war however

TRANSLATION OF G.41, EINE BOTSCHAFT DES OBERBEFEHLSHABERS…
W H Y B O M B S ?

A MESSAGE FROM THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE BRITISH
BOMBERS TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE.

As Commander-in-Chief of the British bombing aircraft raiding Germany I have
decided to send this message to the German people.
We in Britain know quite enough about air raids! For ten months your Luftwaffe
has bombed us. First you bombed us by day. When we made this impossible,
they came by night. Then you had a big fleet of bombers. Your airmen fought
well. They bombed London for 92 nights running. They made heavy raids on
Coventry, Plymouth, Liverpool and other British cities. They did a lot of damage.
Forty-three thousand British men, women, and children lost their lives. Many of
our most cherished historical buildings were destroyed.
You thought, and Goering promised you, that you would be safe from bombs,
and indeed, during all that time we could only send over a small number of
aircraft in return. But now it is just the other way. Now you send only a few
aircraft against us, and we are bombing Germany heavily.
Why are we doing so? It is not revenge - though we do not forget Warsaw,
Belgrade, Rotterdam, London, Plymouth and Coventry. We are bombing
Germany, city by city, and ever more terribly in order to make it impossible for
you to go on with the war. That is our object. We shall pursue it remorselessly.
City by city: Lubeck, Rostock, Cologne, Emden, Bremen, Wilhelmshaven,
Duisburg, Hamburg - and the list will grow longer and longer. Let the Nazis
drag you down to disaster with them if you will. That is for you to decide.
In fine weather we bomb you by night. Already one thousand bombers go to one
town, like Cologne, and destroy a third of it in an hourʹs bombing. We know, we
have the photographs. In cloudy weather we bomb your factories and shipyards
by day. We have done that as far as Danzig. We are coming by day and by night.
No part of the Reich is safe.
In Cologne, on the Ruhr, or at Rostock, Lubeck or Emden, you may think that
already our bombing amounts to something. But we do not think so. In
comparison with what it will be like as soon as our own production of bombers
comes to a flood, and as American production doubles and then redoubles, all
that has happened to you so far, will seem very little.
I will speak frankly to you about whether we bomb single military targets or
whole cities. Obviously we prefer to hit factories, shipyards and railways. It
damages Hitlerʹs war machine most. But those people who work in these plants
live close to them. Therefore we hit your houses and you. We regret the necessity
for this. The workers of Humboldt-Deutz, the diesel-engine plant in Cologne for
instance - some of whom were killed on the night of May 30th last - must
inevitably take the risks of war. Just as our merchant seamen who man ships
which the U-Boats (equipped with Humboldt-Deutz engines) would have tried
to torpedo. Were not the aircraft workers, their wives and children, at Coventry
just as much ʺciviliansʺ as the aircraft workers at Rostock and their families? But
Hitler wanted it that way.
It is true that your defences inflict losses on our bombers. Your leaders try to
comfort you by telling you that our losses are so heavy that we shall not be able
to go on bombing you very much longer. Whoever believes that will be bitterly
disappointed. I, who command the British bombers, will tell you what our losses
are. Less than 5% of the bombers which we send over Germany are lost. Such a
percentage of loss does very little even to check the constant increase ensured by
the ever increasing output of our own and the American factories.
America has only just entered the fight in Europe. The first squadrons,
forerunners of a whole air fleet, have arrived in England from the U.S.A. Do you
realise what it will mean to you when they bomb Germany also? In one
American factory alone, the new Ford plant at Willow Run, Detroit, they are
already turning out one four-engined bomber able to carry four tons of bombs to
any part of the Reich every two hours. There are scores of other such factories in
the U.S.A. You cannot bomb those factories. Your submarines cannot even try to
prevent those American bombers from getting here. For they FLY across the
Atlantic.
Soon we shall be coming every night and every day, rain, blow or snow - we and
the Americans. I have just spent eight months in America, so I know exactly
what is coming. We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end, if you
make it necessary for us to do so. You cannot stop it, and you know it.
You have no chance. You could not defeat us in 1940 when we were almost
unarmed and stood alone. Yours leaders were crazy to attack Russia as well as
America (but then your leaders are crazy; the whole world thinks so except
Italy).
How can you hope to win now that we are getting ever stronger having both
Russia and America as allies, whilst you are getting more and more exhausted?
Remember this: no matter how far your armies march they can never get to
England. They could not get there when we were unarmed. Whatever their
victories, you will still have to settle the air war with us and America. You can
never win that. But we are doing so already.
One final thing: it is up to you to end the war and the bombing. You can
overthrow the Nazis and make peace. It is not true that we plan a peace of
revenge. That is a German propaganda lie. But we shall certainly make it
impossible for any German Government to start a total war again. And is not
that as necessary in your own interests as in ours?

(Signed) Harris.
Commander-in-Chief British Bomber Command.
Psychological Warfare, PSYOPS and Military Information Support

[HistoryMan]

Picked up the other version/size of this today, I have both now

Cheers

[Paul D]

No comprimise from Bomber !!

[HistoryMan]

Indeed Paul, straight to the point isn't it. Gives me goosebumps reading it

I was watching the World at War from the 70's the other day, he was being interviewed, was very interesting

Cheers

[travisgreyfox]

That is a neat piece of air force history.

[danhashman]

How horrible.. that´s a nightmare- text. But the Nazis asked for der TOTALE KRIEG... and they got it... worse than ever imagined...

[Anderson]

That's an amazing document. I imagine they were dropped from the bombers. If I was a German citizen reading that I would be terrified. Scared me just reading it!