During World War II, the industrial town of
Essen, was a target of Allied
strategic bombing
Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematica ...
.
The
Krupp steelworks was an important industrial target, Essen was a "primary target" designated for
area bombing
In military aviation, area bombardment (or area bombing) is a type of aerial bombardment in which bombs are dropped over the general area of a target. The term "area bombing" came into prominence during World War II.
Area bombing is a form of st ...
by the February 1942 British
Area bombing directive
The Area Bombing Directive was a directive from the wartime British Government's Air Ministry to the Royal Air Force, which ordered RAF Bomber Command to destroy Germany's industrial workforce and the morale of the German population, through b ...
.
As part of the campaign in 1943 known as the
Battle of the Ruhr
The Battle of the Ruhr (5 March – 31 July 1943) was a strategic bombing campaign against the Ruhr Area in Nazi Germany carried out by RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War. The Ruhr was the main centre of German heavy industry wit ...
, Essen was a regular target.
The Germans built large-scale night-time decoys like the
Krupp decoy site
The Krupp decoy site (German: Kruppsche Nachtscheinanlage) was a German decoy-site of the Krupp steel works in Essen. During World War II, it was designed to divert Allied airstrikes from the actual production site of the arms factory.
Descri ...
(German: Kruppsche Nachtscheinanlage) which was a copy of the Krupp steel works in Essen. During World War II, it was designed to divert Allied airstrikes from the actual production site of the arms factory.
In the period 1939 to 1945 the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
(RAF) dropped a total of 36,429
long tons of bombs on Essen.
[ ]
Bombing
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
March 1942
Further reading
*
External links
Al Murray's Road to Berlin, Episode 6
"examine in detail the RAF’s efforts to destroy the German Krupp armament factories in Essen in the Ruhr Valley, and the raid of 23 October 1944"
{{WWII city bombing
Essen
Krupp
Essen
Germany–United Kingdom military relations