‘The termination of the long immunity from air raids’: The bombing of Berlin under Operation Tannenberg, August 1942–March 1943

Abstract

Arthur Harris infamously pursued the Battle of Berlin in winter 1943/1944 in the face of an increasingly sceptical Air Staff and a disinterested prime minister. The irony was that originally the C-in-C Bomber Command was lukewarm about bombing Berlin. Instead, it was Churchill who continually pressed for attacking the German Capital under Operation Tannenberg, which went ahead in mid-January 1943, for wider political considerations, especially Anglo-Soviet relations. For the Air Staff and Harris, they endeavoured to use Churchill’s enthusiasm for bombing Berlin to further an agenda of increasing the qualitative and quantitative capabilities of Bomber Command.