Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?

[tcolvin]

A controversial letter appeared in today's Guardian.

"Letters, The Guardian, Friday 9 October 2009
This week's BBC film about the second world war Coventry blitz repeated a misleading myth. Coventry was not selected because it was an industrial city, as claimed in the film. Coventry had a medieval city centre regarded at the time as the best preserved in Europe. Hitler took revenge on Coventry for the bombing of Munich by the RAF. He was incensed at the attack on the city known as the birthplace of his Nazi party. His revenge was to entirely remove from existence the medieval city centre of Coventry as a demonstration of his ruthlessness and insane power.
The factories were not the main target as they were on the outskirts of the city. Only those within the city centre were affected. The centre of the raid was meant to be the cathedral, and a cross was drawn over the city to this effect. The obliteration of the medieval city centre was so complete that nothing of it seems to remain in the national memory of the British people. In this way Hitler seems to have achieved his aim.
It may be for reasons of morale that this utter destruction of a historical centre was underplayed, although at the time the British government was outraged at the attack on a "non-military target". The hatred engendered, however, by this demonstration of the mind of a dictator to remove history at will changed the nature of the war. The bombing of Dresden was Britain's reply in kind. That Dresden has been preserved but Coventry forgotten is something which is hard to explain, except the cost of winning the war was so high that Britain wanted to remove its bomb sites and move on.
Jackie Litherland, Durham"

But is Litherland correct?
There is no mention in the BC War Diaries of any attack on Munich in the months before November 1940, although attacks on unspecified targets are mentioned which may have included Munich, and BC aircraft were notorious for getting lost and bombing anywhere which could have included Munich.
Many of the 437 GAF aircraft attacking Coventry were given specific military targets; I./LG I the Standard Motor Works and Coventry Radiator and Press Co; II./KG 27 the Alvis aero-engine works; I./KG 51 the British Piston Ring Co; II./KG 55 the Daimler Works; and KGr 606 the gas holders in Hill Street. Most of these targets suffered significantly together with twelve important aircraft component plants and nine other major industrial works in or near the city centre.
But it is true that the shadow factories on the outskirts of the city were untouched, including the shadow factory on Banner Lane making Bristol aero engines.

The destruction of Coventry in Unternehmung Mondschein-Sonate was significant because it,
1.had a profound effect on the British government, as the TV film made clear, when Herbert Morrison and the BBC reported that the population was traumatised and had fled the city, leading to demands for the BBC to be taken over by the government. People interviewed on the TV programme burst into tears at the very memory of what they had endured nearly seventy years earlier. The destruction of Coventry removed any British compunction about traumatising Germans, and this utterly inhumane bombing policy continues to this day in Gaza and Afghanistan
2.gave the British a worldwide propaganda coup, and especially in the USA where there were many towns named Coventry, eg Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania. 'Remember Coventry' became the new 'Remember the Alamo'
3.became the final nail in Dowding's coffin. He was blamed for the incompetence of the RAF in failing to destroy a single one of the attacking 437 GAF bombers, despite their flying at height under a full moon, over a period of 12 hours, through an area lit by searchlights, from known bases (which were supposed to be harassed by the RAF in Operation Cold Water) to a target identified as soon as it was marked at 2015hrs by the He-111s of K.Gr.100 using X-Geraet. Three main streams crossed Lincolnshire/East Anglia, Selsey Bill to Portland, and Selsey Bill to Dungeness
4.led to ineffectual retaliation by 134 RAF bombers on Mannheim (Abigail-Rachel) on December 16, 1940 for a loss of 10 aircraft
5.resulted in the adoption by Harris of the technique of fire-raising that had been shown to be effective in Coventry. Harris wrote of Luebeck, where the same technique was first tried out by 234 bombers, of which 191 claimed to have bombed, killing 1,000 people, “On the night of 28/9 March 1942, the first German city went up in flames”. BC implemented the Air Staff Directive issued on February 12, 1942; “The primary object of your operations should now be focused on the morale of the enemy civil population, and in particular of civilian workers”
6.sold Churchill on the theory that killing/traumatising civilians was a war-winning policy. Half the British gross domestic product was given to Bomber Command to burn out cities. Consequently the British army was starved of modern equipment and recruits, which resulted in US dominance of the alliance and Britain becoming second-rate.

It is of interest to know why the GAF destroyed Coventry, and surprising there appears to be room for debate on the matter.

Tony