Change in Bombing Priorites 1941

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Chris Goss

Has anyone come across a document which:

- Explains why the attack on London 10-11 May 1941, exactly a year after the attack in the west, was chosen on this date and was so heavy?
- Explains why after 11 May 41, targets were then mainly airfields/nuisance raids, then coastal and shipping targets (Bismarck breakout coincides with this) with the occasional attacks on cities?

Was it simply that Barbarossa was approaching, the tactic was failing or what?

I think you will find both events were a consequence of the planned arrival in Scotland of Hess on May 10, 1941.
The result of his arrival was a secret type of armistice between Churchill and Hitler mediated by the Hamilton and Haushofer groups.
The armistice involved:
- the changes to GAF targeting that you detail
- reduced number of RAF raids on Germany with cessation of attacks on civilians not resumed until after Stalingrad
- cancellation of FDR's speech on May 12, 1941 and its replacement on May 27 by a virtual declaration of war on Germany.

I recommend you read 'Double Standards' by Lyn Picknett, Clive Prince and Stephen Prior. They concluded;
“It seems that in the aftermath of of Hess' arrival, Churchill played a cunning game by fostering Hitler's belief that his Deputy's proposals were being seriously considered. The reduction of British air raids on Germany might have been, like the German cessation of the Blitz, a gesture of 'good faith'. This ensured that the Fuehrer felt able to concentrate on the USSR in the belief that Britain would no longer be a problem”.
This was also how the Russians understood it. The Soviet judges at Nuremberg argued that Hess's mission had been 'undertaken in the hope of facilitating the aggression against the USSR by temporarily restraining England from fighting'. This seems to be referring to ..... what actually happened” - not to the aims of the mission which was for Britain to make peace with Germany and adopt benevolent neutrality (wohlvolende Neutralität) while Germany defeated Russia.

By the way, Hess arrived without a copy of the peace document – it may have been burnt in his Me-110. According to 'Double Standards', the bulky peace document in German and English versions was personally handed over to an RAF officer by Heinrich Schmitt, who flew a Do-217 from Aalborg to land at Scampton on May 20, 1941. Schmitt later defected in a Ju-88 fitted with the latest radar. In the 1970s, Schmitt said in an interview that the 1941 flight was an official LW mission, adding; “It was all part of the grey war that existed at the time. I wasn't the only German pilot to land, by arrangement, in Britain, and several British pilots made landings in Germany which were known to the people who mattered. It was well known that Hitler was prepared to pay a high price to make peace with Britain, and the secret flights only ended when we attacked Russia, and Britain and Russia became allies”.

Tony