Bombing of Hamburg (1943): Operation Gomorrah and the Firestorm

The bombing of Hamburg in the summer of 1943, code-named Operation Gomorrah, was one of the most destructive air attacks of the Second World War. Between 24 July and 3 August, British and American bombers struck Germany’s second city repeatedly, and on the night of 27–28 July the raids created a firestorm that killed tens of thousands of civilians in a few hours.

An estimated 34,000 to 42,000 people died, with about 37,000 the most commonly cited figure. Hamburg became a byword for the power of strategic bombing and for the moral questions it raised, which are still argued over today.

Background

Hamburg was a major port and shipbuilding centre, home to U-boat yards, oil refineries and many industrial plants. With a population of about 1.7 million, it was also a densely built city of brick tenements, narrow streets and timber-rich older quarters.

Since February 1942, RAF Bomber Command, led from that month by Air Marshal Arthur Harris, had followed a policy of “area bombing”: attacking whole urban areas at night to destroy industry, housing and civilian morale. Precision bombing at night was not technically possible, and earlier attempts to hit specific factories had largely failed.

At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, the Allies agreed a Combined Bomber Offensive, with the RAF bombing by night and the US Eighth Air Force by day. Hamburg, within reach of British bases across the North Sea and easy to find on radar because of its coastline and river, was an obvious target.

The raids

Operation Gomorrah consisted of four major RAF night attacks and two smaller American daylight raids:

• 24–25 July: The RAF’s first raid, by about 790 bombers, hit the city centre and western districts. It saw the first operational use of Window, strips of foil-backed paper that blinded German radar.
• 25 and 26 July: The US Eighth Air Force attacked shipyards and industrial targets in daylight, with limited results through smoke and cloud.
• 27–28 July: The second RAF raid, by a force of similar size, struck the working-class districts east of the centre and created the firestorm.
• 29–30 July: A third RAF raid hit northern and eastern districts.
• 2–3 August: The final RAF raid was disrupted by thunderstorms and caused comparatively little damage.

Over the whole operation, Allied aircraft dropped roughly 9,000 tonnes of bombs. Thanks largely to Window, Bomber Command’s losses were light by its usual standards, although dozens of aircraft and several hundred aircrew were still lost.

The firestorm

The second raid fell on districts such as Hammerbrook, Hamm, Borgfelde and Rothenburgsort. The weather had been hot and dry for weeks, and many of the city’s fire crews were still busy in the west after the first raid.

Incendiary bombs started thousands of fires within a small area. These merged into one enormous blaze, and the rising column of superheated air drew in surrounding air at near-hurricane force. Temperatures at ground level are estimated to have reached several hundred degrees Celsius.

Many people who sheltered in cellars died of carbon monoxide poisoning or heat as the fire consumed the oxygen above them. Others were caught in the streets by flames and by asphalt softened by the heat. Rescue and fire services could do almost nothing until the fire burned itself out.

The firestorm covered an area of several square kilometres and accounted for the majority of all deaths in Operation Gomorrah.

Consequences

About half of Hamburg’s housing was destroyed or damaged, and estimates of the homeless run to around 900,000 or more. Roughly a million people fled the city in the days after the second raid, spreading news of the catastrophe across Germany.

Industrial output fell sharply but recovered faster than Allied planners expected, as workers returned and production was dispersed. In his post-war memoirs, armaments minister Albert Speer claimed he had warned Hitler that a few more attacks of this scale on other cities could bring Germany’s war production to a halt. In practice, Bomber Command could not repeat the conditions of Hamburg everywhere, and German production continued to rise into 1944.

For the RAF, Hamburg seemed to prove what concentrated area bombing could do. It encouraged Harris to pursue the Battle of Berlin in the winter of 1943–44, which proved far costlier to the bombers and less decisive.

The bombing debate and memory

Hamburg sits at the heart of the long debate over Allied area bombing. Supporters at the time argued that it hit war industry, tied down German fighters and anti-aircraft guns that might otherwise have served at the front, and gave Britain a way to strike back after the Blitz and raids such as the Coventry Blitz.

Critics, then and now, point to the deliberate targeting of residential districts and the scale of civilian death, especially among women, children and the elderly. Later raids on cities such as Dresden in 1945 sharpened the controversy. Writers including the Hamburg novelist Hans Erich Nossack, who witnessed the destruction, and W. G. Sebald in On the Natural History of Destruction have explored how German society remembered, or avoided remembering, these events.

The ruined tower of the Church of St Nicholas (St. Nikolai) has been preserved as a memorial to the victims of war and air raids. Memorials in the districts most affected, and a mass grave at Ohlsdorf Cemetery, also mark the dead.

Hamburg was rebuilt after the war, but the raid remains central to the city’s memory and to European discussions about the targeting of civilians in war.

Key people and forces

• Arthur Harris (1892–1984), head of RAF Bomber Command from February 1942, the leading advocate of area bombing.
• RAF Bomber Command, which flew the four night raids, mainly with four-engined Lancaster, Halifax and Stirling bombers, guided by Pathfinder aircraft that marked the targets.
• US Eighth Air Force, based in England, whose B-17 Flying Fortresses attacked the port and factories in daylight.
• Karl Kaufmann (1900–1969), the Nazi Gauleiter of Hamburg, who ordered the evacuation of women and children after the firestorm.
• Albert Speer (1905–1981), Germany’s armaments minister, whose later accounts shaped how the raid’s impact on production was remembered.

Myths and facts

Myth: the firestorm was planned in detail. Bomber Command aimed to burn the city, but the firestorm itself resulted from an unusual combination of weather, bomb concentration and the stretched state of the fire services. Attempts to create firestorms elsewhere often failed.

Fact: most victims were civilians. The dead were overwhelmingly civilians, including many women and children, as well as foreign forced labourers and prisoners held in the city.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1942, February: Arthur Harris takes command of RAF Bomber Command as area bombing becomes policy.
• 1943, January: The Casablanca Conference agrees a Combined Bomber Offensive.
• 1943, 24–25 July: The first RAF raid on Hamburg; Window is used for the first time.
• 1943, 25 and 26 July: US Eighth Air Force daylight raids on the port and industry.
• 1943, 27–28 July: The second RAF raid creates the firestorm.
• 1943, 29–30 July: The third RAF night raid.
• 1943, 2–3 August: The fourth raid is broken up by thunderstorms; the operation ends.

Why it matters

Operation Gomorrah showed the terrible destructive power of mass air attack on a modern city and caused one of the deadliest single nights of the bombing war. It shaped Allied strategy for the rest of the conflict and remains a key case in debates about the ethics and effectiveness of bombing civilians.