Terror bombing

Painted on German Ju52 airframe.

Terror bombing is a strategy of deliberately bombing civilian targets and strafing civilians in order to break the morale of the enemy and make the civilian population of the enemy panic. The tactics was first used by the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica during the Spanish Civil War. During the September Campaign it became official policy of the German air forces.

Bombing roads crowded with refugees and groups of civilians as well as civilian targets such as hospitals and churches blocks the roads and makes the defence of the enemy army weaker.

The strategy of bombing civilians was later copied by the Allies in World War II in Germany as well as Japan, most notably with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bombing civilians deliberately is a war crime and has ever been so since terror bombing was invented. Some however think that it is common practice. Before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spoke of Shock and Awe bombings that would make Iraqis resign.

See also:

Aerial photos showing the destruction of the village of Frampol	German bomber over Warsaw	German airman strafing civilians on a road, picture taken during the Polish Defence War of 1939
view from the Dresden city hall tower which didn´t fall.	Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki.

• September Campaign
• Festung Warschau
• Bombing of Frampol
• Bombing of Wieluń
• Bombing of Warsaw
• Bombing of Guernica
• Coventry
• Battle of Berlin
• Bombing of Dresden
• Bombing of Hamburg in World War II
• Bombing of Kassel in World War II
• Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Aerial bombing of cities

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